Take a Tour of a Sisal Plantation and Learn More About the Plant’s Colonial Roots

Kathleen Bomani

with Dr. Valence Silayo

While zeitgeist discussions of colonial economies often focus on sugar, cotton, coffee, or rubber exclusively, the story of sisal is a story that has yet to be told – and one that is becoming increasingly more urgent. Changing consumption patterns and policies in the face of the escalating climate catastrophe and the growing demand for biodegradable materials in the automotive, construction, and shipping industries mean their economic importance is increasing rapidly.

The Tanzanian government plans to increase the production of Sisal to one million tons annually by 2030, the demand driven by the construction industry in the UAE, the global green agenda for biodegradable materials and the automotive industry using natural fiber reinforced plastic composites (NFRPs). These composites, made from fibers like sisal are increasingly used by automakers like Mercedes-Benz, BMW, and Volkswagen for car interiors, such as door panels and car seats. In this present climate, it is essential to understand global systems and their colonial origins, and to turn a critical lens towards ‘sustainable’ projects.

Tanzania is the second largest producer of sisal in the world, yet its production is linked to historical patterns of exploitation that remain largely unacknowledged to this day.

The sisal plantations in Tanga, Tanzania, have a fascinating colonial history. Sisal, a plant used to produce strong fibers for ropes and other materials, was introduced to the region in 1893 by Dr. Richard Hindorf, a German agronomist. The first sisal plants were cultivated near Pangani in the Tanga region and the industry quickly grew under German East Africa’s colonial administration. By the early 20th century, sisal became one of the colony’s most significant exports, earning it the nickname „green gold.“ The plantations expanded under German and later British rule, employing a large labor force.

Investigating colonial archives and the correspondence of prominent botanists of that era, I found how Agave sisalana was an equally powerful colonial expansion and extraction tool. The plant’s journey to East Africa is a brutal chronicle of resistance and exploitation: The boom of mestizo-owned sisal plantations in Mexico, known as haciendas, led to brutal encroachments on Maya lands, forcing many Mayans into de facto slave labor. This event resulted in a violently repressed rebellion, the Caste War of Yucatan (1847–1901), during which those who revolted were shipped off for profit to work on plantations in Cuba and the Bahamas, some of which I suspect to have been sisal plantations as well.

In that period, despite an export ban imposed by Mexican authorities, sisal specimens were smuggled by botanists out of their native environment on the Yucatan peninsula. These were transported to Florida’s Key West for experimental cultivation as a remedy for worn-out cotton fields. This effort was thwarted by one of the largest anti-colonial and anti-slavery revolts by Seminole Indigenous Americans and formerly enslaved Africans. Pushing back against land dispossession by white, military colonial forces established by the US, both the plantation was destroyed as well as the responsible botanist killed.

Yet in 1893, sisal found its way to German East Africa, where it became an integral part of the German colonial plantation economy in present-day Tanzania, spreading further as a cash crop to Kenya and Madagascar.  Its introduction as a profit driver of the German plantation system led to more Indigenous bloodshed, forced evictions, the enslavement of Africans to labor on their lands for Europe’s gain, and mass lynchings of those who resisted in a continuation of an already established violent cycle, following the same deadly, calculated and profitable colonial logic.

Further Information

• Tambila, A. (1974): A History of the Tanga Sisal Labour Force, 1936-64. Masters Dissertation, University of Dar es Salaam.
• Tanzanian Ministry of Agriculture (2023): Film about Tanzanian Sisal, online: www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nq1rD3rw1zc&ab_channel=TrueVisionProduction%28T%29Ltd
• Sabea, H. (2008): Mastering the Landscape? Sisal Plantations, Land, and Labor in Tanga Region, 1893–1980s. International Journal of African Historical Studies Vol. 41, No. 3  411
• Wenzel Geißler, P., Gerrets, Rene, Kelly, Ann H. & Mangesho, Peter (2020): Amani – Auf den Spuren einer kolonialen Forschungsstation in Tansania, Bielefeld: Transcript-Verlag

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A visit to a sisal plantation in the Tanga region offers insight into the crop’s history, from its cultivation and planting to harvesting, processing, and export while enjoying sweeping views of mono-crop plantations.

Tanga Line Explorations ⅼ SLP 417, Tanga, Tansania ⅼ E-Mail: kathleen.bomani@gmail.com ⅼ Telefon: +255746608296 & +255 658 369043 ⅼ Instagram: @ladydiana_seasafari

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