Negombo

Negombo stands beside a lagoon and river mouth on the western coast of Sri Lanka. The surrounding country produced cinnamon, a spice that attracted overseas merchants and made the harbour valuable to the powers seeking control of the coast. The Portuguese built a fort here by the end of the sixteenth century to guard access to the cinnamon districts and the revenues of the port.

The fort changed hands during the wars between Portugal and the Dutch East India Company. The Dutch seized it, lost it to the Portuguese, and captured it again in 1644. They repaired its walls and bastions in the following decades, keeping Negombo as a coastal stronghold. The British took the fort in 1796. Under the Dutch, experiments in cultivating cinnamon helped establish gardens in the western coastal region, and the valuable bark remained central to the island’s export trade.