Historical, Ethno-Botanical and Social Aspects of Cinnamon Cultivation in Sri Lanka

Abstract

Cinnamon was a prime commodity in the brisk Indian Ocean trade since its revival about tenth century AD. Sri Lanka was the sole supplier of high-quality cinnamon for the global market for a long time. Cinnamon grew wild in Western and Southern parts of Sri Lanka. Before these cinnamon-growing areas were occupied by Western powers, indigenous kings employed the corvée labour of the Salagama caste to collect cinnamon, as a royal prerogative. European powers, particularly the Portuguese and the Dutch, made the maximum use of this system. The way in which they, particularly the Dutch, manipulated the system of cinnamon collection greatly affected both cinnamon peelers and other peasants. This was the root cause for a series of peasant revolts in the first half of the eighteenth century. The inauguration of cinnamon plantations by the Dutch in the 1770s changed the social impact of the cinnamon industry. People of the Salagama caste in particular benefitted greatly from it. Subsequently, the commercial importance of cinnamon significantly diminished when a new global division of labour emerged in the context of the industrial revolution and the British introduced other commercial crops that had a larger demand in the new global trade in the nineteenth century.