Polygar War - Defeat

Defeat

The British finally won after a long expensive campaign that took more than a year. However, the superior British military who had recently defeated the powerful Tipu Sultan of Mysore quickly asserted itself. The British had better artillery compared to the Polygar troops who had country-made gunfire artillery, barring a few proper ones received from erstwhile Tipu Sultan's army. The war being regional in nature, the British forces could easily mobilize additional forces from other regions.

Eventually the Polygar forces based at Panchalankurichi were crushed and by the orders of the colonial government, the site of the captured Panchalankurichi Fort was ploughed up and sowed with salt and castor oil so that it should never again be inhabited. The colonial forces quickly overpowered the remaining insurgents. The Marudu brothers and their sons were put to death, while Oomathurai and Sevathaiah were beheaded at Panchalankurichi on 16 November 1801. Seventy-three of the principal rebels were sentenced to perpetual banishment. So savage and extensive was the death and destruction wrought by the British that the entire region was left in a state of terror.