Chapter 24

two towns and a Vila

Baçaim, Chaul and taná: the Defensive
Structures of hree Indo-portuguese
Urban Settlements in the Northern
province of the Estado da Índia

Sidh Mendiratta

A lthough the ruins of the

fortiied towns of Baçaim (Vasai) and Chaul (Revdanda) have been fairly
exposed as tourist attractions, little is known about the evolution of their
respective urban shape and defensive systems from the mid-sixteenth
century up to 1739. Even less is known about the smaller town or vila of
Taná (Thane), a temple city occupied by the Portuguese in 1534, which has
now been absorbed by Mumbai’s extensive suburban sprawl. Few graphical
sources remain to complement the study of written sources relating to the
works and upgrades undertaken in the defensive structures of Baçaim,
Chaul, and Taná—upgrades that were mostly done pragmatically according
to the scale of direct and eminent threats. However, recent research within
the ‘Bombay before the British’ project,1 coordinated by Professors Walter
130 SidH MEndiRaTTa

Rossa and Paulo Varela Gomes, enables us to cross-examine the information

of cartographical and documental resources with satellite images and with
the results of direct observation in the ield in order to form a new
perception about the urban and defensive evolution of Baçaim, Chaul, and
Taná.
The project’s main objective is to bring back together the pieces of the
territorial puzzle of the northern Province of the Estado da Índia, focusing
on its southern half, also known as the Baçaim district. although some
scholars have recently taken up topics related to this area of the Portuguese
empire, probably none have tried to map it in a scientiic manner, providing
the irst step towards understanding the territory’s history and importance;
and deinitely no previous scholarship has tried to show how the tenacious
growth of Bombay’s urban sprawl was structured by a network of small
villages that developed during the Portuguese period and were inhabited
by the local converted Koli population. Since this pioneering work by
Walter Rossa and Paulo Varela Gomes, our notion of the northern Province
has become much clearer and other academics are now able to pick up on
the more speciic aspects relating to the northern Province within the
various disciplinary ields.
The broad research work behind this chapter is a study of the layout,
characteristics, and evolution of the territorial defensive system of the
northern Province. Within this broader research, this chapter will focus on
the three urban settlements of the southern half of the Province that have
already been studied by the ‘Bombay before the British’ project—Baçaim,
Chaul, and Taná—hoping to provide for a synthetic overview and a few
speculations over the evolution of their respective defensive structures
during the indo-Portuguese period.

Context

The chronological scope of this chapter begins in 1520, when the

Portuguese gained permission to fortify their factory at Chaul, and ends in
the 1730s, when they were desperately trying to halt the tide of invading
Maratha armies. already during the team research, we perceived the
complexity of the defensive system of the northern Province, mapping its
network and documenting and analysing its wide range of architectural
structures. also, we began to perceive how these structures evolved
according to the nature and scale of the military threats to the territory.
Besides the three classic cases of complete fortiied towns (daman, Baçaim,
and Chaul), a growing number of other structures began to be pinpointed
on the map: isolated watch towers, sea bulwarks, walls or stockades defending
 TWo ToWnS and a Vila 131

borders, woodworks, fortiied convents or churches, and also fortiied

manor houses.
This last type of structure—the manor house with attached bulwarks
or watchtowers—was the true hinge of the defensive network, although it
was no match for a strong invading army. on those occasions, the Portuguese
led to their major forts or to the three fortiied towns. Most of the time,
however, it was from the manor house that the landowners, or idalgos,
managed their horsemen and foot militia and defended their villages and
properties.
The most famous example of a fortiied manor house was the one in
the very heart of Bombay. Began probably in the days of Garcia da orta, it
was ceded to the British Crown in 1665 along with most of the seven
original islands of Bombay. at that time, this manor house was the only
military structure that defended the bay of Bombay. The irst British
governor of Bombay, Humphrey Cooke, before taking possession of the
islands, had to sign a convention drafted by the Portuguese viceroy that
guaranteed the rights and freedoms of the Portuguese landowners in the
archipelago. one of the articles of the convention stated that all private
property had to be respected and maintained according to the existing
Portuguese records. after signing this convention and landing his men in
Bombay, Humphrey Cooke was informed that just about everything in the
archipelago was privately owned, including its only defensive structure, the
manor house. Thus, except for the three canons mounted in the manor’s
bulwarks, the Portuguese representatives stated that Cooke couldn’t
incorporate much else in the patrimony of the British crown.2 But Bombay
is a very particular example of the dozens, possibly hundreds of manor
houses that the Portuguese held in the northern Province.3

Baçaim

Baçaim is a striking example of a regular fortiied town and probably,

together with damão, was one of the most balanced and efective urban
and military structures built by the Portuguese in their eastern empire. The
pre-existing fortiication in Baçaim was dismantled by the Portuguese in
January of 1533. in its place, the Portuguese began building a new structure
in december 1534, as soon as they received the whole territory of Baçaim
from the sultan of ahmedabad.4
This structure has an irregular shape that contrasts with the orderly
layout of the rest of town’s structures. at the eastern side are three round
towers and towards the west are newer structures with a square bastion and
a monumental gateway.
132 SidH MEndiRaTTa

according to written sources, the Portuguese captain at Baçaim had

built a half-fort (meia tranqueira) by november 1535, when a strong Mughal
army was approximating the town.5 it might be possible that this primitive
half-fort was built using elements of the layout of the pre-Portuguese
structure, such as the round bastions, and that it had a triangular shape. in
March 1536, a new structure was started, baptized as St. Sebastian fort.
Possibly, one of the walls of the triangular fort was demolished and the
confrontation between old and newer structures led to the layout that can
be seen today.
The bulwarked perimeter of Baçaim was started in c. 1555 and was in
place by 1610, when it was depicted by the cosmographer Manuel de
Herédia.6 For a long period, the Jesuits were in charge of superintending
the works. a further analysis of the design of the perimeter will probably
show that the whole north-eastern section was renewed and strengthened
with improved bulwarks and ramparts towards the 1660s, when the Maratha
menace became paramount. However, the chronology of this renewal
remains to be ascertained with documental and archaeological evidence.
Baçaim withstood a prolonged siege from april 1737 until its surrender,
on May 1739. at the inal stage of the siege, the Maratha forces built a
tunnel leading up to the bulwark of St. Sebastian (at the north-western side
of the fortiication perimeter) in order to set of powerful mines; these
destroyed that structure, breaching the wall. although the Portuguese
managed to stop the inlow of enemy troops through the breach, the city’s
stock of military and food provisions had long since dwindled out. Famine
was widespread in the town and help from the capital at Goa was
nonexistent. Capitulation terms were thus settled and the Portuguese were
allowed eight days to remove themselves from Baçaim, after which the
Marathas occupied the fortiied town, renaming it Bajipur.7

Chaul

The original nucleus of the Portuguese settlement at Chaul consisted of a

fortiied factory, with a church and houses close by, structured around a
port.This town was located a couple of miles downriver from the primitive
town and port of Chaul, known to the Portuguese as Chaul de Cima. The
two towns, one catholic and the other Muslim, were to have a generally
peaceful coexistence for the next 220 years. Portuguese Chaul grew rapidly,
polarized from the other Chaul by religious buildings and catholic suburban
houses. The anti-Portuguese alliance of 1570 therefore caught the city ill-
prepared and the original fortiied perimeter of the factory was very small
to shelter the Portuguese population. However, the Portuguese captain at
the time, Luis Freire de andrade, managed to improvise a defensive
 TWo ToWnS and a Vila 133

perimeter—with three bulwarks mounting artillery, joined by a rubble and

timber stockade—that withstood the ensuing siege.8 after the siege, a new
perimeter was promptly started.This new alignment probably embraced the
urban settlement at the time but soon proved to be too small to hold the
extensive suburban development of the town.
in 1594, the Muslim fort of the Morro people was occupied, located
just southwest of Chaul and dominating the entrance to the Kundalika river.
in this place, the Portuguese developed a most unique linear fortiication,
stretching all along the ridge of the mountain and joining to a bulwark at
the water level with its wharf.
Returning to Chaul, most of the bulwarked perimeter was ready by
1632. When the Maratha began threatening the area in the 1650s, the
problem arose on how to defend the suburban area, then known as the ield
of Chaul. an interesting map depicts how the Portuguese built a defensive
wall around the ield of Chaul, interposed with bulwarks and watchtowers
and joining up to the fortiied convent of the Mother of God, belonging
to the recollect Franciscans. This allowed them to withstand the Maratha
siege of 1683, at a time when the whole Portuguese empire in india seemed
to be on the verge of destruction.
Chaul successfully resisted a number of sieges from 1720 until october
1740. at that time, the Portuguese decided it was unsustainable to keep
Chaul without the northern Province (lost in 1739), and abandoned the
city to the Marathas. This helped them to attain a peace treaty that secured
their domains in Goa, which had also sufered widespread Maratha attack.

Thane

Besides being an important production centre of textiles, Thane was also an

active Hindu pilgrimage centre before the Portuguese arrived. a great
number of temples built around six major sacred tanks were still in place
when don João de Castro visited the town in 1538, although the town had
sufered badly from several military incursions and pillages prior to that.9
The Portuguese settled in with the main objectives of controlling the
commercial activities and converting the population to Christianity, the
usual twofold approach of Portuguese colonization. However for an initial
period of roughly thirty years, the missionaries made no signiicant progress
in Thane and the Portuguese residents lived in a town with a distinct Hindu
environment. When the missionaries did come, they destroyed the temples
and appropriated the sacred tanks. although most of the Muslim population
lived north of the town, in the weavers’ quarters, this was probably one of
the most mixed indo-Portuguese urban scenarios. in fact, the absence of a
central urban core delimited by a clear perimeter, and the scattered nature
134 SidH MEndiRaTTa

of settlement in Thane, explain the fact that it was known to the Portuguese
as a vila (essentially rural settlement) and not a cidade (urban settlement).
The defensive system of Thane started out as network of three small
forts along the river, mostly to control boat traic which had to pay customs
duties at the port. South of Thane was the biggest structure, located in an
islet and controlling access from the bay of Mumbai: The central structure
was a smaller tower, just south of the Thane’s port, which controlled the
narrowest part of the river: The northern fort controlled traic incoming
from the north at the junction of the Bassein creek with the Ulhas river,
which led inland towards Kalyan.10
The Portuguese only felt the need to build a strong fort to secure Thane
after the Maratha incursion of 1730, which was repulsed with the aid of the
East india Company. From this initiative resulted a series of plans (drawn
up between 1730 and 1737) that depict the town and the proposed
fortiication, and also its progress.Through these, we can perceive the urban
layout and the relations between the most important buildings of the
Portuguese period.11 Until this time, these buildings were only mentioned
in texts or appeared in an imprecise iconographical view of the region.
Some of these buildings have left signiicant traces, like the Franciscan
convent of St. anthony or the smaller augustinian church of our Lady of
Remedies. others, like the Jesuit fortified convent, have entirely
disappeared.
The most striking feature of this group of plans is the clear-cut layout
of the Thane fort, started by the Portuguese, completed by the Marathas
after their victory and occupation in 1737, and transformed by the British
into a prison in 1838.12
Today, this is the notorious central prison of Thane district: a place hard
to approach and harder gather up-to-date images and information. Probably,
within its walls, are still remnants of the tombstones that covered the loor
of the dominican convent, located inside the fort and still standing in 1774
when the British stormed Thane, wresting it from the weakening Maratha
confederacy. The round bastions built by the Marathas in the two southern
bulwarks attest to the singular approach of Maratha engineers in adapting
a pre-exiting structure to their own military traditions and concerns.

Conclusion

To conclude, the Maratha attacks of 1737 exposed the weaknesses of the

Portuguese forces, although many reports, from both British and Maratha
sources, state that the idalgos, their militias, and the soldiers fought hard and
with determination. it was mostly for the lack of supplies and replacement
troops that the northern Province’s capital, Baçaim, fell in May 1739. an
 TWo ToWnS and a Vila 135

undeniable military efort was taking place on the Portuguese side to

upgrade their defences from around 1720 onwards in order to meet the
expected Maratha menace. However, these eforts proved to be too weak
and too late.
in this early stage of the research work on the evolution of the defensive
system of the northern Province, one can posit four major historical phases
of military upheavals, which triggered the Portuguese into upgrading or
building fortiications within their defensive system network. These were:

(1) The fall of the Vijayanagar empire in 1565 and the subsequent anti-
Portuguese alliance of 1570.
(2) The coming of dutch and English ships to india, starting from the
1590s onwards, and the war with Mughal empire of 1610–14 (that
triggered not only the conquest of the Morro de Chaul fort in
1594 but possibly also the building of dongri fort (across the river
from Baçaim) and St. Jerónimo fort (across the river opposite the
ramparts of damão). The menace of the dutch and English East
india Companies also caused an extensive debate about the
fortiication of the Bay of Bombay, besides a thorough enquiry into
the state of defence of the whole Eastern empire.
(3) The rise of Maratha power from the 1650s onward until the
invasion of the northern Province in 1683. This caused not only a
general upheaval in defences but also the construction of a basic
perimeter around the suburban ields of Chaul.
(4) Finally, the Maratha menace from the 1720s onward until the fall
of the Portuguese territory in 1739. This led to the construction of
the Thane fort and other smaller fortiications north of Baçaim, plus
the renovation of at least one bulwark at the town of Chaul and
one bulwark at the fort of Caranjá.

Besides these major phases, the constant threat of pirates or marauding

navies—Malabar raids, Siddi corsairs, omani and Muscat sailors, or angria’s
mariners—led to a prolonged efort to protect exposed coastal areas with
makeshift and ad hoc defences, especially in convents, churches, and manor
houses.

notes

1 . Phase one of the ‘Bombay before the British’ project began in September 2004
and extended until december 2007. Funded by the Fundação Para a Ciência e
Tecnologia, it consisted of a multi-disciplinary team of architectural historians,
historians, and geographers working on the construction of a geo-referenced
database, using contemporary satellite photography as a geographical matrix on
136 SidH MEndiRaTTa

which to work and cross-reference the data resulting from analysis of

iconographical, cartographical, photographical, bibliographical, and documental
material about this territory, essentially from the sixteenth to the eighteenth
century.
2. The governor Humphrey Cooke did in fact occupy the Bombay manor house,
in spite of the protests of the proprietor, dona inez de Miranda. This
Portuguese landowner later obtained compensation with the Portuguese
Crown for the inevitable expropriation.
3. There were close to 400 villages (aldeias) within the Baçaim district of the
northern Province. an estimate of the number of villages belonging to the
damão district would be at least 300. Considering that the religious orders
would own one sixth of the villages and that very few idalgos owned more
than 2 or 3 villages, the author posits the number of manor houses in the
northern Province at 200, during the time of its greatest economic activity
(around 1630).
4. diogo de Couto, Décadas da Ásia, década iV, Liv. iX, Cap. 2.
5. ibid. Cap. 10.
6. The starting date of c. 1555 is provided by a letter written by the Senate of
Baçaim to the King Filipe ii dating from 1585. This document is transcribed
in archivo Portuguez Oriental, Fascículo iii, p. 62.
7. For an informative description of the siege of Baçaim, refer to alexandre
Lobato, Relações luso-maratas, 1658–1737, Lisboa, 1965.
8. The celebrated siege has been described in diogo de Couto, Décadas da Ásia,
década Viii, Cap.36, 38.
9. don João de Castro probably mistook the traditional number of villages within
the island of Salcete (66) for the number of sacred ponds in Thane. There were
most probably six major ponds and a few minor tanks.
10. For a description of Thane’s fortiications around 1630, refer to Bocarro, O
livro das Plantas..., vol. 2, 1635.
11. This cartographical material belongs mostly to the Biblioteca nacional in
Lisbon (d. 321; d 333; d. 334; d. 335)
12. For an account of the military operations of the Marathas during the
occupation of the northern Province, refer to Kincaid, a History of the Maratha
people, vol. 2, p. 237–60.