Myanmar History
Myanmar has a long and complex history. Many
peoples have lived in the region and the history
began. The first identifiable civilization is that
of the Mon. The Mon probably began migrating into
the area in about 300 BC, and their first kingdom
Suwarnabhumi, was founded around the port of Thaton
in about 300 BC. The Pyu arrived in Myanmar in the
7th century and established city kingdoms at Binnaka,
Mongamo, Sri Ksetra, and Halingyi. During this
period, Myanmar was part of an overland trade route
from China to India. By 849, the Burmans had founded
a powerful kingdom centered on the city of Bagan and
filled the void left by the Pyu. The kingdom grew in
relative isolation until the reign of Anawrahta
(1044 - 77) who successfully unified all of Myanmar
by defeating the Mon city of Thaton in 1057.
After the collapse of Bagan authority, Myanmar
was divided once again. The Burmans had restablished
themselves at the city of Ava by 1364, where Bagan
culture was revived and a great age of Burmese
literature ensued. The kingdom lacked easily
defendable borders, however, and was overrun by the
Shan in 1527. Surviors of the destruction of Inwa
eventually established a new kingdom centered on
Taungoo in 1531 led by Tabinshwehti (reigned
1531-50), who once again unified most of Myanmar. A
popular Burmese leader named Alaungpaya drove the
Bago forces out of northern Myanmar by 1753, and by
1759 he had once again conquered Pegu and southern
Myanmar while also regaining control of Manipur. He
established his capital at Rangoon, now known as
Yangon.
Dynasties of the past
Humans lived in the region that is now Myanmar as
early as 11,000 years ago. The first identifiable
civilization is that of the Mon. The Mon probably
began migrating into the area in about 3000 BC, and
their first kingdom Suwarnabhumi, was founded around
the port of Thaton in about 300 BC. Spoken tradition
suggests that they had contact with Buddhism via
seafaring as early as the 3rd century BC, though
definitely by the 2nd century BC when they received
an envoy of monks from Ashoka. Much of the Mon's
written records have been destroyed through wars.
The Mons blended Indian and Mon culture together in
a hybird of the two civilizations. By the mid-9th
century, they had come to dominate all of southern
Myanmar.
The Pyu arrived in Myanmar in the 7th century and
established city kingdoms at Binnaka, Mongamo, Sri
Ksetra, and Halingyi. During this period, Myanmar
was part of an overland trade route from China to
India. Chinese sources state that the Pyu controlled
18 kingdoms and describe them as a humane and
peaceful people. The Pyu capital of Halingyi fell to
the kingdom of Nanchao in the mid-9th century,
ending their period of dominance.
To the north another group of people, the Burmans
began infiltrating the area as well. By 849, they
had founded a powerful kingdom centered on the city
of Pagan and filled the void left by the Pyu. The
kingdom grew in relative isolation until the reign
of Anawrahta (1044 - 77) who successfully unified
all of Myanmar by defeating the Mon city of Thaton
in 1057. Consolidation was accomplised under his
successors Kyanzittha (1084-1112) and Alaungsithu
(1112-1167), so that by the mid-12th century, most
of Southeast Asia was under the control of either
the Bagan Kingdom or the Khmer empire. The Bagan
kingdom went into decline as more land and resources
fell into the hands of the powerful sangha (monkhood)
and the Mongols threatened from the north. The last
true ruler of Bagan, Narathihapate (reigned 1254-87)
felt confident in his ability to resist the Mongols
and advanced into Yunnan in 1277 to make war upon
them. He was thouroughly crushed at the Battle of
Ngasaunggyan, and Bagan resistance virtually
collapsed. The king was assassinated by his own son,
but the dynasty was soon brought to an end in 1289,
when the mongols installed a puppet ruler in
Myanmar.
After the collapse of Bagan authority, Myanmar
was divided once again. The Burmans had restablished
themselves at the city of Inwa by 1364, where Bagan
culture was revived and a great age of Burmese
literature ensued. The kingdom lacked easily
defendable borders, however, and was overrun by the
Shan in 1527. To the south, the Mons reestablished
themselves at Bago, and under their king, Dhammazedi
(reigned 1472-92), entered a golden age as well,
becoming a great center of commerce and Therinwada
Buddhism.
Surviors of the destruction of Inwa eventually
established a new kingdom centered on Taungoo in
1531 led by Tabinshwehti (reigned 1531-50), who once
again unified most of Myanmar. By this time, the
geopolitical situation in Southeast Asia had changed
drastically. The Shan gained power in a new kingdom
in the North, Ayutthaya (Siam), while the Portugese
had arrived in the south and conquered Malacca. With
the coming of European traders, Myanmar was once
again an important trading center, and Tabinshwehti
moved his capital to Bago due to its commercial
value. Tabinshwehti's brother-in-law, Bayinnaung
(ruled 1551-81) succeeded to the throne and
proceeded on a campaign of conquest conquering
several states, including Manipur (1560) and even
Ayutthaya (1569). His wars stretched Myanmar to the
limits of its resources, however, and both Manipur
and Ayutthaya were soon independant once again.
Faced with rebellion by several cities and renewed
Portugese incursions, the Tourngoo rulers withdrew
from southern Myanmmar and founded a second dynasty
at Inwa. Bayinnaung's grandson, Anaukpetlun, once
again reunited Myanmar in 1613 and decisively
defeated Portuguese attempts to take over Myanmar.
His successor Thalun reestablished the priciples of
the old Bagan kingdom, but spent too heavily on
religious expenditure and paid to little attention
to the southern part of his kingdom. Encouraged by
the French in India, Bago finally rebelled against
Inwa, further weakening the state, which fell in
1752.
It did not take long for a new dynasty to arise
and bring Myanmar to its greates power yet. A
popular Burmese leader named Alaungpaya drove the
Bago forces out of northern Myanmar by 1753, and by
1759 he had once again conquered Bago and southern
Myanmar while also regaining control of Manipur. He
established his capital at Rangoon. In 1760, he
briefly conquered Tenasserim and marched on
Ayutthaya, but his invasion failed and he was
killed. His son Hsinbyushin (ruled 1763-76) returned
to Ayutthaya in 1766 and had conquered it before the
end of the next year. Even China took notice of
Myanmar now, but Hsinbyushin sucessfully repulsed
four Chinese invasions between 1766 and 1769.
Another of Alaungpaya's sons, Bodawpaya (ruled
1781-1819), lost Ayutthaya, but added Arakan (1784)
and Tenasserim (1793) to the kingdom as well. In
Jaunary 1824, during the reign of King Bagyidaw
(ruled 1819-37), a general named Maha Bandula
succeeded in conquering Assam, bringing Myanmar face
to face with British interests in India.
In response to the continued conquests of
Myanmar, the British and the Siamese joined forces
against Myanmar in 1824. The First Anglo-Burmese War
(1824-26) ended in a British victory, and by the
Treaty of Yandaboo, Myanmar lost Assam, Manipur,
Arakan, and Tenasserim. As the century wore on, the
British began to covet the natural resources of
Myanmar and wanted to secure their supply route to
Singapore. As a result, they provoked the Second
Anglo-Burmese War in 1852, annexing Bago province
and renaming it Lower Burma. The war resulted in a
revolution in Myanmar, with King Pagin Min (ruled
1846-52) being replaced by his half brother, Mindon
Min (ruled 1853-78)). King Mindon tried to modernise
the Burmese state and economy to resist British
encroachments, and he established a new capital at
Mandalay, which he proceeded to fortify. This was
not enough to stop the Birtish, however, who claimed
that Mindon's son Thibaw Min (ruled 1878-85) was a
tyrant intending to side with the French and
declared war once again in 1885, conquering the
remainder of the country in the Third Anglo-Burmese
War.
Britain made all of Burma a province of India in
1886 with the capital at Rangoon. Traditional
Myanmar society was drastically altered by the
ending of the monarchy and the separation of church
and state. Though war officially ended after only a
couple of weeks, resistance continued in northern
Myanmar until 1890, with the British finally
resorting to a systematic destruction of villages
and appointment of new officials to finally halt the
guerilla activity. The economic nature of society
also changed drastically. After the opening of the
Suez Canal, the demand for Burmese rice grew and
vast tracts of land were opened up for cultivation.
However, in order to prepare the new land for
cultivation, farmers were forced to borrow money
from Indian moneylenders at high interest rates and
were often eveicted for failure to pay back the
loan. Imported Indian labor ended up with most of
the jobs, and whole villages became lawless dens
full of the unemployed. While the Burmese economy
grew, all the power and wealth was in the hands of
several British firms and the Burmese people did not
reap the rewards.
A new generation of Burmese leaders arose in the
early twentieth century from amongst the educated
classes that were permitted to go to London to study
law. They came away from this experience with the
belief that the Burmese situation could be improved
through peaceful protest and negotiations. Peaceful
strikes in the early 1920s led to a constitutional
reform in 1923 that created a partialy elected
legislature with limited powers, but some people
began to feel that the rate of change was not fast
enough and the reforms not expansive enough. Some of
these dissatisfied students founded a new group
called Thakin (an ironic name as thakin means
"master" in the Burmese language, and this was the
term that students were required to use when
addressing their British professors, whom they were
coming to resent). A peasant rebellion led by Saya
San that started in 1930 and lasted for two years
gave the Thakin their chance. Though they did not
actually participate in the rebellion, they did win
the trust of the peasants and displaced the older
generation of London-educated elites at the head of
the Burmese nationalist movement. They staged a
strike in 1936, which was notable because it was
during this strike that Thakin Nu and Aung San
joined the movement. The British seperated Burma
from India in 1937 and granted the colony a new
constitution calling for a fully elected assembly,
but many Burmese felt that this was just a ploy to
exclude them from any further Indian reforms. Ba Maw
served as the first prime minister of Burma, but he
was forced out by U Saw in 1939, who served as prime
minister from 1940 to 1942. Burmese nationalists saw
the outbreak of World War II as an opportunity to
extort concessions from the British in exchange for
support in the war effort, but the British would
have none of it, issuing an arrest warrant for Aung
San, who escaped to China. The Japanese offered him
support, and he briefly returned to Burma to enlist
the aid of twenty-nine young men who went to Japan
with him to receive military training as the
so-called "Thirty Comrades." The Japanese quickly
declared Burma independant, and when they occupied
Bangkok in December 1941, Aung Sang announced the
formation of the Burma Independence Army (BIA) in
anticipation of Japanese liberation. The Japanese
duly moved into Burma in 1942 and disbanded the BIA,
forming the smaller Burma Defense Army in its place
with Aung Sang still at the head. Ba Naw was
declared head of state, and his cabinet included
both Aung Sang and Thakin Nu. It soon became
apparent that Japanese promises of independence were
merely a sham and that Ba Maw was just a puppet. As
the war turned against the Japanese, they declared
Burma a fully sovereign state in 1943, but this was
just another facade. Disillusioned, Aung San began
negotitations with Lord Mountbatten in October 1943
and officially joined the Allies with his renamed
Burma National Army (BNA) in March 1945. During this
period, Anung San sucessfully created a broad-based
coalition of political parties called the
Anti-Fascist Organization, renamed the Anti-Fascist
People's Freedom League (AFPFL), to govern the
country. The Japanese were routed from Burma in May
1945. The defeat of the Japanese brought a military
administration and demands to try Aung San as a
traitor for his early collaboration with the
Japanese. Lord Mountbatten realized that this was an
impossibility considering San's hold on the BNA and
his popular appeal and sent the conciliatory Sir
Hubert Rance to head the administration, who was
able to win back the trust of both San and the
general populace. After the war ended, the former
civilian governor returned, and San was duly
arrested. This nearly touched off a rebellion, but
the British backed off and sent Rance back to
restore order and faith. Negotiations began for
Burmese independence, which were completed
sucessfully in January 1947. The agreement left both
the communist and conservative branches of the AFPFL
dissatisfied, however, sending the communists
underground and the conservatives into opposition.
Another who was dissatisfied by the agreement was U
Saw, who felt that Aung San had conceded to much in
the negotiations. Consequently, he engineered the
assassination of Aung San and nearly his entire
cabinet in July. Thakin Nu was asked to form a new
cabinet, and he presided over Burmese independence
on January 4, 1948.
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