01The adopted son
She was born in 1778 at Kakati, north of Belagavi, and learned riding and archery as a girl. She married Mallasarja Desai, the ruler of Kittur. He died in 1816, and their son in 1824. Before he died the young raja had adopted a boy, Shivalingappa. Under Hindu law and custom the adoption was valid, but the Company, which now held paramountcy over the old Peshwa territory, refused to recognise it and sent John Thackeray, the collector of Dharwad, to take charge of the state and seal its treasury.
02October 1824
Chennamma shut the gates of Kittur. On 23 October 1824 Thackeray brought up guns, and in the fighting that followed her men, among them Amatur Balappa and Sangolli Rayanna, killed him and took two British officers hostage. She released them on a promise that the war would end. The Company broke it. In December a much larger force from Madras and Bombay besieged the fort and took it. Chennamma was held at Bailhongal fort and died there on 21 February 1829. Sangolli Rayanna fought on as a guerrilla until he was betrayed and hanged in 1831.
