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Moulmein and the mouth of the Thanlwin River in the early 1900s
Early history[edit]
Early Mon reigns[edit]
According to Kalyani Inscriptions erected by King Dhammazedi of Hanthawaddy Pegu in 1479, Mawlamyine was mentioned among the '32 myo' or thirty-two Mon cities within the Martaban division. Binnya U, a deputy of Viceroy Saw Binnya, was one of the notable governors of Mawlamyine in the early history of the city.
Toungoo dynasty[edit]
In May 1541, King Tabinshwehti and his deputy Bayinnaung captured Mawlamyine. During the reign of Bayinnaung, Toungoo Empire became the largest empire in the history of Southeast Asia. After his passing in 1581, his son Nanda Bayin and successors faced with rebellion by Lan Na, Siam, Lan Xang and renewed Portuguese incursions. In 1594, the governor of Mawlamyine who being in league with Siamese King Naresuan revolted against Toungoo court. Since then, the city became under the control of Siam (present-day Thailand) until 1614.
Konbaung dynasty[edit]
In 1760, General Minkhaung Nawrahta of the Royal Burmese Army repaired Mawlamyine on his way back from Burmese–Siamese War in Ayutthaya (former capital of Thailand). Kyaikthanlan Pagoda Inscription hinted that in 1764 (1125 ME), General Maha Nawrahta repaired Kyaikthanlan Pagoda on his way to capture Tavoy, and before finishing the repairment, Mawlamyine faced utter destruction.
Colonial Moulmein (1824–1948)[edit]
Mawlamyine was the first capital of British Burma between 1826 and 1852 after the Tanintharyi (Tenassarim) coast, along with Arakan, was ceded to Britain under the Treaty of Yandabo at the end of the First Anglo-Burmese War. After the first Anglo-Burmese war, the British made it their capital between 1826 and 1852, building government offices, churches and a massive prison. In 1829, the Moulmein Bar Association was founded by the Barristers in Mawlamyine. They started business enterprises and the country's first newspaper, The Maulmain Chronicle. Between 1826 and 1862, colonial Mawlamyine was the center of British Burma and the first port city that became a strategically important area and a geographical nodal point for the newly occupied British territory in Southeast Asia. Ever since the first British occupation in 1824, the growth and prosperity of Mawlamyine had steadily increased due to timber trade. Nevertheless, the decline in prosperity of Mawlamyine began when the supply of marketable timber from Salween Valley started to decrease in the 1890s.
During British colonial times, Germany, Siam, Persia, Denmark, Norway and Sweden opened and maintained consulates in Mawlamyine led by either consuls or vice-consuls while Italy and the United States placed consular agencies in Mawlamyine. German explorer Johann Wilhelm Helfer's landing at Moulmein shore on 8 February 1837 made him the first German to arrive in Burma in the history.
Mawlamyine was the setting of George Orwell's famous 1936 essay Shooting an Elephant, which was inspired by Orwell's posting to the city as a police officer in 1926. The story, which is most likely a mixture of fact and fiction, opens with the striking words:
"In Moulmein, in Lower Burma, I was hated by large numbers of people—the only time in my life that I have been important enough for this to happen to me."
During colonial times, Moulmein had a substantial Anglo-Burmese population. An area of the city was known as "Little England" due to the large Anglo-Burmese community, many of them running rubber plantations. This has since dwindled to a handful of families as most have left for the UK or Australia.
It was probably best known to English speakers through the opening lines of Rudyard Kipling's poem Mandalay:
"By the old Moulmein pagoda, lookin' lazy at the sea
There's a Burma girl a-settin', and I know she thinks o' me".
During WWII, the city and the Tanintharyi Region were the first objectives during the Japanese invasion of Burma.
"The old Moulmein pagoda" - Kyaik Than Lan[edit]
The "old Moulmein pagoda" Kipling cites is thought to be the Kyaik Than Lan (also spelled Kyaikthanlan) pagoda in Mawlamyine. It stands on a ridge, giving a panoramic view of the city, and is surrounded by 34 smaller temples. Among its sacred treasures is a hair relic of Buddha, received from a hermit in Thaton, as well as a tooth relic conveyed from Sri Lanka by a delegation of monks in ancient times.
Contemporary Mawlamyine[edit]
Soon after Burma's independence in 1948, the city fell into the hands of Karen insurgents. The Myanmar military retook the city with the help of UBS Mayu in 1950. Later, many colonial names of streets and parks of the city were changed to more nationalistic Burmese names. Mawlamyine stood as the third-largest city of Myanmar until the recent rise of Naypyidaw.
