Buckingham Canal, Kollam

History

Buckingham Canal was actually built by the Portuguese who were settled in Quilon city before 450 years, inside their strategic territory. This canal inside the Fort was used for safe transportation of personnel and merchandise to and from the ships which called at the port. The Portuguese were settled at Quilon and gained monopoly over the region’s lucrative pepper trade. Old Quilon city was very famous for its fine quality pepper and the name Kollam is believed to have been derived from the Sanskrit word Kollam means pepper.

Barges were said to have been used for transportation through the Canal. Thangassery is a projection into the sea and both ends of the Canal originally opened at the Arabian Sea then. After Portuguese, the Dutch have establish their domination in Quilon city & port based pepper trade, attacked and captured the Fort from the Portuguese. By 1662, Tangasseri became an exclusive trade hub of the Dutch. The canal came to be known as the Buckingham Canal, later when Dutch surrendered it to the British East India Company in 1795.