Sankagiri

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article may require cleanup to meet Wikipedia's quality standards. Please improve this article if you can. (December 2007)

Please help improve this article or section by expanding it. Further information might be found on the talk page or at requests for expansion. (December 2007)

This article does not cite any references or sources. (December 2007) Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unverifiable material may be challenged and removed.

Sankagiri Fort with a long history is presently a declared monument maintained by the Archaeological Survey of India.

Dheeran Chinnamalai was the son of Rathina Sakarai, an adopted son of Kotravel Kaminda Mandradiyar (1708 - 1731), a petty ruler in Kongu region. A valiant warrior, Dheeran won many a battle against the East India Company’s Army.

Colonel Maxwell, who even humbled Tippu Sultan, could not win Dheeran and this was recorded in his chronicles. In 1801, Dheeran beheaded Maxwell and exhibited it in many towns in the Kongu region.

A victory pillar erected to commemorate this victory stands till date at Arachalur. In 1802 the Company sent another army under Col Harris who had also won Tippu. But Tippu, single handedly, went armed with hand grenades and threw them at against Harris’s horse. The horse turned its way back. Others too, following Harris turned back. The Army then made sudden intrusion into Dheeran’s native village and destroyed all the houses there. Beating a temporary retreat, Dheeran camped at Karumalai near Palani. But he was betrayed by the cook Nallappan to the British. The Company’s soldiers captured Dheeran and court-martialled him at Sankagiri Fort, where he was subsequently executed.