<P> During the Napoleonic Wars, Great Britain, fearing that French control of the Netherlands might deliver Sri Lanka to the French, occupied the coastal areas of the island (which they called Ceylon) with little difficulty in 1796 . In 1802, the Treaty of Amiens formally ceded the Dutch part of the island to Britain and it became a crown colony . In 1803, the British invaded the Kingdom of Kandy in the first Kandyan War, but were repulsed . In 1815 Kandy was occupied in the second Kandyan War, finally ending Sri Lankan independence . </P> <P> Following the suppression of the Uva Rebellion the Kandyan peasantry were stripped of their lands by the Wastelands Ordinance, a modern enclosure movement, and reduced to penury . The British found that the uplands of Sri Lanka were very suitable for coffee, tea and rubber cultivation . By the mid-19th century, Ceylon tea had become a staple of the British market bringing great wealth to a small number of white tea planters . The planters imported large numbers of Tamil workers as indentured labourers from south India to work the estates, who soon made up 10% of the island's population . These workers had to work in slave - like conditions living in line rooms, not very different from cattle sheds . </P> <P> The British colonialists favoured the semi-European Burghers, certain high - caste Sinhalese and the Tamils who were mainly concentrated to the north of the country . Nevertheless, the British also introduced democratic elements to Sri Lanka for the first time in its history and the Burghers were given degree of self - government as early as 1833 . It was not until 1909 that constitutional development began, with a partly elected assembly, and not until 1920 that elected members outnumbered official appointees . Universal suffrage was introduced in 1931 over the protests of the Sinhalese, Tamil and Burgher elite who objected to the common people being allowed to vote . </P> <P> Ceylon National Congress (CNC) was founded to agitate for greater autonomy, although the party was soon split along ethnic and caste lines . Historian K.M. de Silva has stated that the refusal of the Ceylon Tamils to accept minority status is one of the main causes of the break up of the Ceylon National congress . The CNC did not seek independence (or "Swaraj"). What may be called the independence movement broke into two streams: the "constitutionalists", who sought independence by gradual modification of the status of Ceylon; and the more radical groups associated with the Colombo Youth League, Labour movement of Goonasinghe, and the Jaffna Youth Congress . These organizations were the first to raise the cry of "Swaraj" ("outright independence") following the Indian example when Jawaharlal Nehru, Sarojini Naidu and other Indian leaders visited Ceylon in 1926 . The efforts of the constitutionalists led to the arrival of the Donoughmore Commission reforms in 1931 and the Soulbury Commission recommendations, which essentially upheld the 1944 draft constitution of the Board of ministers headed by D.S. Senanayake . The Marxist Lanka Sama Samaja Party (LSSP), which grew out of the Youth Leagues in 1935, made the demand for outright independence a cornerstone of their policy . Its deputies in the State Council, N.M. Perera and Philip Gunawardena, were aided in this struggle by other less radical members like Colvin R. De Silva, Leslie Goonewardena, Vivienne Goonewardena, Edmund Samarkody and Natesa Iyer . They also demanded the replacement of English as the official language by Sinhala and Tamil . The Marxist groups were a tiny minority and yet their movement was viewed with great interest by the British administration . The ineffective attempts to rouse the public against the British Raj in revolt would have led to certain bloodshed and a delay in independence . British state papers released in the 1950s show that the Marxist movement had a very negative impact on the policy makers at the Colonial office . </P>

Who came to sri lanka first tamils or sinhalese