The History of Sisal - Green Gold

This blog series follows the captivating story of Agave sisalana and highlights just how diverse the uses of Agave can be and how a single plant species has had such an impact on the global scale.

Come take a journey through the history of arguably one of the world’s most influential plants, from its contribution to the development of ancient civilisations to the plains of Africa, where hundreds of people are involved in processing a valuable commodity and onward to the future of agave spirit production outside of Mexico

There are many complicated and interwoven stories of international trade having considerable socioeconomic impact that can have lasting effects and permeate many areas of society. What I’d like to lay out for you in this blog is how Agave sisalana has its own complicated history in the very place it originates, the heart of the Yucatan in a town nearby the state capital of Merida.

Through the 18th and 19th Centuries, Mexico’s economic development was marked by the dominance of large agricultural estates (haciendas), which concentrated wealth and power in the hands of elite families, often of Spanish descent. This system perpetuated deep social and economic inequalities, as landless peasants and Indigenous communities were exploited for labour while family-owned wealth controlled commerce and political influence. This characterises precisely how, when demand for high-performing fibres that could be extracted from sisal increased, the haciendas growing sisal in the Yucatan proliferated, benefiting the land-owners and exploiting the local labour force

Sisal, also known as Henequen, has a deep history in the Yucatan Peninsula

When travelling in Merida, you may find remnants of the industry that was so influential in the Yucatan Peninsula during the 1800s. An industry that contributed to large amounts of wealth being generated but alas did not have a fortuitous ending.

Vast areas of land were cultivated for growing sisal and these plants were harvested to produce huge quantities of the valuable natural fibre. As demand continued to increase so did the volume of sisal fibre exported, with the majority of fibre being fabricated into heavy-duty ropes used for large shipping vessels. Interestingly, still to this day, sisal outperforms any synthetic material with regards to degradation and retaining strength, with the added benefit of not producing microplastics and polluting the environment. The success of these haciendas that capitalised on the demand for sisal fibres led to a lot of wealth being generated by the families of land-owners, so much so that the sisal agave was coined the term ‘Green Gold’. At the height of the boom, there were nearly 1,200 haciendas within an 80 km radius around the city capital of Mérida. By 1915 during the peak of production, more than 1,200,000 sisal bales were shipped out of Yucatán and into the United States. The numbers became so high that almost 70 percent of all cultivated land in Yucatán was devoted to the henequen production

The grand Hacienda of Yaxcopoil

All was well for a few decades as the demand from exports to the US continued to support the business of producing sisal fibres. However, as often happens with markets, cheaper and easily accessible synthetic materials created a dramatic decline in demand for sisal and the industry collapsed.

During the greener years of sisal’s proliferation, a scientist from halfway around the world had a curious idea to take production to an unlikely destination and turn fortunes for himself. This is where we are headed to next, circumnavigating the globe to the tropical coast of East Africa.

The History of Sisal - Mayan Tale

This blog series follows the captivating story of Agave sisalana and highlights just how diverse the uses of Agave can be and how a single plant species has had such an impact on the global scale.

Come take a journey through the history of arguably one of the world’s most influential plants, from its contribution to the development of ancient civilisations to the plains of Africa, where hundreds of people are involved in processing a valuable commodity and onward to the future of agave spirit production outside of Mexico

What do the great Mayan pyramids, like Chichen Itza pictured here, have to do with Agave?

All Agave are native to Central America, with the highest species diversity in Mexico. The importance of agave to the ancient civilisations in Mexico is clear in the folklore of some Indigenous tribes where there is a goddess of Agave. Most people are aware of the delicious distillate extracted from various Agave species, but often, other uses of the plant are overlooked. If we journey to around 600 A.D, whilst Europe was heading deeper into the Dark Ages, over in Mexico the great Mayan Empire was thriving. During this time there were many pyramids constructed, and vast civilisations developed around these ceremonial structures. The building of these great structures was made possible in large part due to an important material that the Mayans learnt to extract from certain Agave plants. This exceptional material is a strong fibre found in the leaves, extracted by thrashing and then drying out the remaining fibre.

Originating from around the port town of Sisal in the Yucatan peninsula, Agave sisalana is a species that has particularly tough fibres within the sharp and spiny leaves (Sisal is locally known as Henequén and is a descendent of Agave fourcroydes). It is said that the rope made out of twined sisal fibres were used to carry the very stones that were used in constructing the many Mayan pyramids. Sisal was also used to make several different products, including hammocks, netting and paper and clearly played an important role as a commodity for the Mayan people. And this tradition of using natural fabrics still persists today where you’ll often find products manufactured out of sisal in stores across the Yucatan Peninsula.

It was a few hundred years after the collapse of the Mayan Empire, in the early 1800s, that the next chapter in our sisal story begins, and the legend of ‘green gold’ will be told.