Project No. 59

Researcher

Project summary

The spice that became known as cinnamon or "Chinese bark" derived its name in ancient times from the bark of a variety or varieties of a tree that belong to the cassia family that was found in different parts of Asia, including China. True cinnamon became associated in the early modern period with the bark from a variety of cassia found exclusively on the island of Sri Lanka, which was subject to exploitation by the Portuguese and subsequent commercialization that was monopolized by the Dutch East India Company from the mid-seventeenth century until the end of the eighteenth century. Cassia or false cinnamon were found on the southwest or Malabar Coast of India, Siam, Vietnam, Mindanao in the Philippines and in south China. They were priced substantially lower than true cinnamon and were consumed and commercialized to a significantly lesser degree and in importance in local, regional, and global markets, until the last quarter of the eighteenth century. They were known primarily as guipi and rougui in China. This pioneering project examines the history of the use, locations of production or collection, consumption, and local and global commercialization via maritime trade of cassia or false cinnamon in China in the early modern period.

State of the field. There is no special investigation that exists in Chinese, Japanese, or Western literature on this topic.

Own previous research. Over the past five years or so, my research and writing of a book length manuscript on the political economy of commerce and commodities in Asia and the early modern world has focused on true cinnamon as one of two case studies (the other being Bengal opium) and has included extensive research in Portuguese, Spanish, Mexican, Dutch and Sri Lankan archival materials. During this research, the empirical evidence was found to document and substantiate that false cinnamon sourced by Portuguese merchants at Macau in south China, shipped on a regular basis to Lisbon, and sold and redistributed to Hamburg, Genoa, and elsewhere in Europe constituted one of the major factors for the weakening of the Dutch monopoly of true cinnamon in the last thirty years of the eighteenth century. It has also lead me to embark on this project in order to encapsulate its findings in the work mentioned above that is nearing completion.

Cassia or false cinnamon in China was used for medicinal purposes, brewing of alcohol, the making of incense and food. It was most commonly found in medical books. During a year as a Senior Research Fellow at the Asia Research Institute at the National University of Singapore, I employed a series of Chinese and Japanese language research assistants to advance significant segments of this research. To date, my research on cassia or false cinnamon in China has searched the databases of Siku Quanshu (Complete Imperial Collection of Four Treasures), Ershisi Shi (the Twenty-Four Histories), Taiwan Fangzhi (Gazetteers of Taiwan), and portions of the Xubian Siku Quanshu (Continuous Imperial Collection of Four Treasures) and revised journals published in China, mainly from the 1990s. Local gazetteers other than those for Xiamen, however, have not yet been examined.

It has successfully focused on locating early literary descriptions and illustrations of cassia. These included for: the pre-Tang period: Shennong Bencaojing (Materia Medica of Shennong); Nanfang Caomu Zhuang (The Southern Botany); Bencao Gangmu (Compendium of Materia Medica); for the Tang: Xinxiu Bencao (Materia Medica of Tang Dynasty); for the Song: Eryayi by Luo Yuan; Linwai Daida by Zhou Qufei; Guihai Yuhengzhi by Fan Chengda; Bencao Tujing (Illustration of Materia Medica) by Su Song; the illustrations of cinnamon recorded in Bin (now Si'en County in Guangxi province), Yi (now Yishan County in Guangxi province), Shao, and Qin prefectures; for the Ming: Ming Yitongzhi (History of the Unification of Ming Dynasty); and Bencao Gangmu (Compendium of Materia Medica) by Li Shizhen; and for the Qing: Zhiwu Mingshi Tukao (Illustration of Botany) by Wu Qijun; and Yanpu Zaji by Zhao Yi, which is at present probably the most important and useful account on cassia and false cinnamon in China.

Other references in the Chinese and Japanese literature to cassia and false cinnamon in commerce and maritime trade are scarce but have been found. For example, customs treatment of Chinese exports and trade in cassia and false cinnamon from Fukien (Xiamen, Ning-bo) and Vietnam [Tonkin] to Japan and other markets in the Qing (Kangxi [1683, 1684, 1687, and 1711], and Qianlong [1781 and 1783] reigns) and the market for cassia and false cinnamon primarily for export from Guangxi at Gaungzhou in the Qing period.¹

Relevance of the topic, research questions and methods. My approach to this topic, to the degree that is possible, is influenced by the Annales School for a total or holistic treatment and its interest in the daily life of people. It is supplemented by my utilization of a supply or commodity chain analysis that focuses on the social and cultural history of cassia and false cinnamon. The topic permits a truly cross-disciplinary approach that examines one basic aspect of the early modern Chinese economy from the social, cultural, and economic perspective of basic medical and food condiment -- its physical location(s), the continuity and change in its uses in medicine and food; the organization of its exploitation and incorporation in local, region, and global commerce; and its relationship to ports via merchant networks and finance, and, finally, how it became involved in the weakening of the Dutch East India Company's monopoly of true cinnamon in the Europe and America. This approach permits the research to be structured around quantifiable results and observations, while at the same time permitting qualitative observations to be made.

Sources. The main types of sources for this study have already been mentioned and are divided into two sections: European, Chinese and Japanese. The first are the European archives and printed documents of the trading companies or states that had maritime commercial relations with China over this period, which I have spent an inordinately amount of time in consulting and I consider pretty well done for this topic. They include in particular the archives of the Dutch and Portuguese East India Companies, Crown and private merchant's activities. For the Chinese and Japanese sources, I will continue to use the help of a research assistant, a system that worked well for me recently in Singapore, which will focus on local Chinese gazetteers especially of Guangxi and Yunnan. We will investigate those and other sources that should provide additional information on the internal Chinese market(s), commerce, maritime trade, and consumer consumption patterns of cassia and false cinnamon in food in particular.

Expected results. This is a well-defined research topic, which offers new information on an unknown and seemingly mundane aspect of China's production, handling, and incorporating a plain and non-exotic condiment in its external as well as internal market commercial system. It also provides interesting and fascinating observations on the nature of goods and the exchanges that were made possible by regional and global maritime trade. This subject as well as one of my other research projects may also inform us more about one of South China's major commercial advantages in early modern world - its dromography or the commercial advantages that it obtained through its enviable logistics system, especially in regard to goods destined for commercialization overseas. It is expected that the results of project will produce a series (two most probably) of conference presentations that will be revised for peer-reviewed publications in the appropriate academic journals. This production will be revised and synthesized to be included in the book length manuscript on the political economy of commerce and commodities in Asia and the early modern world that I am concluding and have alluded to above.