Shivaji and His Times c16.s3: §9. Shivaji and the Portuguese

Shivaji and His Times c16.s3

Language: English

§9. Shivaji and the Portuguese

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Portuguese India touched only a fringe of Shivaji's activities and did not influence his policy or history to any appreciable extent. The smallness of the population of Portugal for maintaining a colonial empire, the suppression of the national energy during the sixty years of Spanish domination (1580—1640), the ruinous naval war with Holland (1650—1663), and the rapid moral decline of their settlers in Asia,—all made the Portuguese in India in Shivaji's time a decadent Power, anxious only to hold their own, and timidly averting an armed encounter with every other State by employing friendly appeal, patient endurance, and diplomatic evasion. Their territory of Goa was then much smaller than now, as it did not include Phonda, Bicholim, Pernem or Sanquelim. But their Konkan possessions, called the Province of the North, practically stretched from Chaul to Daman along the coast and for a short distance inland.

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Out of these, Bombay island was given up to the English in 1668. Immediately east of these lay the dominions of the Mughal and Adil Shah, and the conquest of them by Shivaji made the Maratha power impinge upon the Portuguese territory on the coast. But though there were occasional plunderings and skirmishes between the two, these never led to a regular war, before Shambhuji's time.

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The points of conflict between Shivaji and the Portuguese arose out of four things, namely,—

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(a) The Portuguese claim to dominate the Indian seas and insistence that all Asiatic vessels plying there should take passports from them for a fee. But though they helped the Siddi of Janjira in his earlier wars with Shivaji, they had no naval war with the Maratha king.

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(b) The *desais* of the south Ratnagiri district on being dispossessed by Shivaji, took refuge in Goa and made it a base of their operations against him, thus violating the neutrality of Portuguese territory.

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(d) Shivaji's claim to *chauth* from the Daman villages which had once been subject to the Koli Rajahs.

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But the Portuguese vicercys very wisely avoided war with him and remained strictly neutral during his wars with the Mughals and Bijapur, though solicited by both.

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When, in 1659, Shivaji's first few vessels, built at Kalian and Panvel, began to ply the sea, the Portuguese viceroy ordered his deputy at Bassein to hinder their voyage. But with the growth of Shivaji's power, the Government of Goa found it politic to assume a more friendly attitude towards him. The occasional petty conflicts between the two fleets have been described in Chapter 11.

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Lakham Savant and other desais of the country immediately north of Goa, had opposed Shivaji's advance at the end of 1664, but they had been signally defeated, deprived of their lands and forced to flee to the Portuguese district of Bardes, from which they fitted out expeditions for recovering their former possessions. (Ch. 10 §4.) The viceroy's repeated warnings to them to maintain peace had no effect, and at last on 19th November 1667, Shivaji's forces made a dash into Bardes in order to punish these desais, and carried off a number of Portuguese subjects and cattle. The viceroy complained to Shivaji against this act of war while he was maintaining amity. He sent (24th Nov.) Ramoji Shenvi Kotari as his envoy to the Maratha king, who replied in friendly terms. Next, Shivaji's agent Sakho Pant came to Goa and a treaty of peace was arranged, (signed by the viceroy on 5th December and sealed by Shivaji on the 11th.) Father Gonsalo Martins, S.J., was sent by the viceroy to Shivaji's Court to get the treaty ratified and take delivery of the released captives. It was also promised in this treaty that trade between Portuguese India and Shivaji's territory above the Ghats would no longer be obstructed by his officers.

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But the desais continued to violate the neutrality of Goa by sallying out to attack Shivaji's men, and the viceroy had to expel them from the Portuguese dominions at the beginning of June 1668.

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The treaty of amity and peace with Shivaji was renewed on 10th Feb. 1670, each side agreeing to a restitution of the shipping of the other side detained by it during their recent quarrel. In addition,

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(a) the viceroy removed a constant source of friction by extending to Shivaji's ships equality of treatment with Mughal vessels in the matter of granting Portuguese passes on the payment of the customary fee. The small Maratha coastal traders (especially provision-boats) were not required to take out passes.

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(b) The viceroy, who had helped the Siddi during Shivaji's grand attack on Janjira in 1669, now offered as a mutual friend to mediate between these two Powers and compose their quarrel. Shivaji's envoy Vittal Pandit had come to Goa to try to win Portuguese support for his master's war.

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(c) Shivaji repeated his promise to forbid his officers to harass or overtax the trade between Goa and the country above the Ghats.

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(d) Shivaji agreed not to build any fort or stone-house at any place in his dominions on the Portuguese frontier unless a river separated the two.

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The Rajahs of Ramnagar (of the predatory Koli tribe) had been accustomed from early times to levy an annual blackmail from the Daman district in their neighbourhood. This money was popularly called *chauth* or one-fourth of the revenue, but in practice the proportion varied from 10 to 25 p. c. in the different villages, and the Rajah was known as the *Chauthia Rajah* (*Storia do Mogor*, ii. 132.) Shivaji after his annexation of Ramnagar (1676) demanded this payment from the Portuguese as his lawful right in succession to the Koli Rajah. The viceroy of Goa delayed giving a direct answer as long as possible, by every diplomatic device, such as calling for reports from his local officers, examining the old revenue accounts, settling the details about particular villages, &c., while at the same time he professed unbroken friendship with Shivaji and eagerness to give him every satisfaction. The negotiations were thus spun out for over two years. Shivaji’s envoy Pitambar Shenvi, who had reached Goa in December 1677 on this mission, died next August, and was succeeded by his grandson Jivaji and later by Ganesh Sethi. At last Shivaji’s patience was worn out and he threatened war, but his premature death gave the Portuguese a short respite.∗

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∗ I pass over the abortive negotiations of the Portuguese with the Mughals and with Shivaji from which nothing of consequence resulted. The details are given in P. S. Pissurlencar’s careful and fully documented work, *Portugueses e Maratas*, i. Shivaji, on which I have based this section. Several treaties and letters are given in Biker, iv.