How Dutch-ruled Jaffna became a major economic hub in South Asia
In the 17th century, the Dutch East India Company placed Jaffna at the centre of a trade zone that stretched till Nagapattinam in India.
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Earlier this year, when the much-awaited ferry service between India and Sri Lanka was relaunched after four decades, it was fitting that the ferry terminal on one side was Kankesanthurai, a suburb of Jaffna, and on the other, the historic port of Nagapattinam in Tamil Nadu. For centuries, this was a major route for the movement of people, goods and ideas between the Indian peninsula and the island. And the credit for boosting this exchange in the 17th century went partly to the Dutch.
Until the Dutch East India Company, or VOC, snatched Ceylon from the Portuguese in 1658, Jaffna had suffered a long period of abject neglect and apathy.
“The strategic and economic importance of Jaffna was first realised by the Portuguese,” KD Paranavitana, professor of humanities at the Rajarata University of Sri Lanka in Mihintale, wrote in the introduction of Memoir of Librecht Hooreman: Commander of Jaffna 1748. “Nevertheless, they failed to exploit it fully because of their engagements in the western and southern regions of Sri Lanka and also because of the lack of trade commodities of their interest in the region.”
Once the Portuguese were driven out of Jaffna Peninsula by the Dutch, the areas around the city were brought under one...
