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> history of coorg
- i’m planning to visit coorg in the upcoming days sometime. while trying to find the history of the place, i stumbled across this “Manual of Coorg”, a gazette written in 1870 by the British principal of government central school in Mercara (now Madikeri), some interesting excerpts below:
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brief history of coorg
Coorg suffered many tumultuous years between the 11th and 16th centuries with many changes of ruler throughout this period. This changed when Haleri kings, who were Lingayats of Veerashaiva faith, ruled the region for more than 200 years between 1580 and 1834.
The most interesting part of the history appears when a Haleri King took over the entire Coorg by consolidating the Kodava Army. Before the advent of the King, the Kodava people who are divided into okka(clan) were constantly fighting with each other.
During the riegn of the Haleri Kings, the Wodeyars of Mysore, Hyder Ali & Tippu Sultan tried in vain to conquer Coorg.
The were all defeated many a times by the outnumbered Coorg Army.
The British influence appears to have first come in to play towards the end of the 18th century, when they helped Dodda Vira Rajendra defeat Tippu Sultan. Tippu had earlier engaged the help of the French to subdue the Coorgs(Kodavas) in 1784.
By 1830’s the British took over administration of Coorg. The Last King had lost the support of Coorgs and was accused of cruelty towards his subject and banished from Coorg to Benaras.
The province was under direct British rule from the 1830s until the country gained independence in 1947, by then Coorg was one of the States of India called the State of Coorg. Nine years later the state of Coorg united with Mysore as part of a state reorganisation, and is a district and part of the State of Karnataka.