011799 and 1801
Panchalankurichi lies in the black-soil country north of Tuticorin. Kattabomman, its palaiyakkarar, refused the arrears of tribute the Company demanded and quarrelled openly with the collector Jackson at Ramanathapuram in 1798. In September 1799 Major Bannerman brought guns from Palayamkottai. The thick mud walls and thorn hedge held, and the first storming party was driven back with officers killed; then Kattabomman slipped out by night. He was taken in the Pudukkottai forests and hanged at Kayathar on 16 October 1799, and the fort was pulled down. In 1801 his brother Oomaithurai escaped from prison and, the ballads say, rebuilt the walls in days; Colonel Agnew’s columns took it after hard fighting that May, razed it again and had the ground ploughed and sown so that no one would build there.
02The memorial fort
For a century and a half the site was a field with traces of the walls. In 1974 the Tamil Nadu government raised a memorial fort here, a new building in the shape of a fort, with paintings of Kattabomman’s life inside. Remains of the original walls have been exposed nearby by the state archaeology department, and the family deity Jakkamma has her shrine in the village. Kattabomman’s defiance lives in Tamil ballads and in the 1959 film Veerapandiya Kattabomman, whose lines many Tamils still know by heart.
The life of this place
- September 1799Major Bannerman besieges the fort; the first assault is repulsed.
- 16 October 1799Kattabomman is hanged at Kayathar; the fort is demolished.
- 1801Oomaithurai rebuilds the fort; Colonel Agnew takes it in May and razes it.
- 1974The Tamil Nadu government builds the memorial fort.
About 20 km north of Thoothukudi near Ottapidaram; the memorial fort is open daily.
