The Konbaung-Hanthawaddy war was the last of the many wars fought between the Burmese-speaking north and the Mon-speaking south that began with King Anawrahta's conquest of the south in 1057. Many more wars had been fought over the centuries. Aside from the Forty Years' War in the 14th and 15th centuries, the south usually had been on the losing side. But this war proved to be the proverbial final nail. For the Mon, the defeat marked the end of their dream of independence. For a long time, they would remember the utter devastation that accompanied the final collapse of their short-lived kingdom. Thousands fled across the border into Siam. One Mon monk wrote of the time: "Sons could not find their mothers, nor mothers their sons, and there was weeping throughout the land". Soon, entire communities of ethnic Burmans from the north began to settle in the delta. Mon rebellions still flared up in 1762, 1774, 1783, 1792, and 1824-1826. Each revolt typically was followed by fresh deportations, Mon flight to Siam, and punitive cultural proscriptions. The last king of Hanthawaddy was publicly humiliated and executed in 1774. In the aftermath of revolts, Burmese language was encouraged at the expense of Mon. Chronicles by late 18th century and early 19th Mon monks portrayed the south's recent history as a tale of unrelenting northern encroachment. By the early 19th century, assimilation and inter-marriage had reduced the Mon population to a small minority. Centuries of Mon supremacy along the coast came to an end.

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