From Company Rule to Today's Districts, 1799 to 1997

This chapter runs from the last battle with Mysore to the district boundaries we know today. It is a story of administrators and map lines, with one large exception.

The British take over

After Tipu Sultan’s defeat in the Fourth Anglo-Mysore War in 1799, the British restored lands to the local feudal chiefs and set up the administration of Kanara under Thomas Munro, its first Collector.¹

The uprising of 1837

The largest revolt against British rule on this coast began at Amara Sullia in 1837. Its causes, as Wikipedia gives them, were twofold. The British had removed the ruler of Kodagu (Coorg), Chikkaveerarajendra, in 1834, and moved the Amarasullia and Puttur districts from Coorg into Kanara. They also told the people to pay their taxes in cash, where before they had paid in kind.²

The rebels seized the treasury at the Bellare bungalow in Sulya.² A Coorg pretender called Kalyanaswami led the uprising, and Wikipedia’s article on Dakshina Kannada says he briefly held Mangalore before British forces put it down.¹

Two local leaders are remembered today. Guddemane Appaiah Gowda and Kedambadi Ramaiah Gowda both have bronze statues, and the village of Ubaradka Mittur is a Heritage Village.²

Some people call this “India’s first war of independence”, twenty years before 1857. Others call it a regional rising against British rule.

Splitting the district

For the first half of the century, Kanara was one district. Sometime around 1859 or 1860 the British divided it into South Canara, which stayed in the Madras Presidency, and North Canara, which went to the Bombay side.¹ ³

Independence and the new map

In 1947 South Kanara joined India as part of Madras State.¹

In 1956 states were redrawn by language. The Malayalam-speaking Kasaragod went to Kerala. The Tulu- and Kannada-majority remainder became the Dakshina Kannada district of Mysore State, which was renamed Karnataka in 1973.¹ Tulu is a distinct language, and it now lives inside a state whose official language is Kannada. That is the background to today’s campaigns for the language’s recognition, which belong to a later page.

On 15 August 1997 the Karnataka government divided the large Dakshina Kannada district. Its three northern taluks formed the new Udupi district, which left Dakshina Kannada as we know it.¹

Related

• Under Mysore, the rule this chapter follows
• The Alupas, where the dated history begins

Sources & further reading

The books and articles behind the numbered notes on this page.

1. Wikipedia, “Dakshina Kannada” (accessed 7 October 2026): Munro and Kanara, Kalyanaswami’s brief hold on Mangalore, the 1860 split, 1947, 1956, 1973 and the 1997 division.
2. Wikipedia, “Amara Sullia Rebellion” (accessed 7 October 2026): the causes, the Bellare treasury, the two leaders and the memorials.
3. Wikipedia, “South Canara” (accessed 7 October 2026): the district split, dated here to 1859.

All of these are Wikipedia articles, written from other sources. The research notes behind this page also mention Vittala Hegde’s revolt and the Shishila fight of 1800, a “no-tax” campaign, the Basel Mission, the march on Mangalore and its two-week hold, the hanging of Kalyanaswami and deportations to Singapore, and the freedom movement of South Kanara, including Karnad Sadashiva Rao. We could not confirm these in the sources we checked, so they are left out for now. The freedom movement in particular deserves a page of its own once we have a source.