The Monopoly of Bark
One bark ruled every port from Goa to the Cape
Ceylon cinnamon fetched eight times the price of cassia at Amsterdam auction — nothing else moved empires so reliably.
The VOC held every peeling station under armed contract
Dutch governors licensed each Sinharaja-edge grove, branding barrels with the Galle Fort emblem before they left the ramparts.
Quills traveled one metre long, palm-tied, in jute bales of forty
Each bundle bore a brass-weight seal: net bark, tare weight, and the VOC monogram pressed into wax at the Galle counting house.
Profit was measured in grams, not promises
Amsterdam weighmasters compared Galle invoices against dockyard scales — a single ounce of shortfall voided the entire consignment.