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The Rachol Fort is a historical Portuguese era fort located in the village of Rachol, Salcette concelho , in the state of Goa on the west coast of India.
| | This article needs additional citations for verification .(December 2018) |
The Rachol Fort is a historical Portuguese era fort located in the village of Rachol, Salcette concelho , in the state of Goa on the west coast of India.
It was originally erected by the Sultanate of Bijapur, then ruled by Ismail Adil Shah, to defend the left bank of the Zuari river. Conquered in AD 1520 by Krishnadevaraya, the emperor of the Vijayanagara Kingdom; he handed over this fort in the same year to the Portuguese Empire in exchange for protection of southern India against the northern India Mughal Empire. [1]
Occupied by Portuguese forces, it was renovated and rebuilt, and two bastions were added in AD 1604. Between the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries it had a hundred pieces of artillery, a significant number for those times.
After the siege that was imposed by the Maratha Empire leader Sambhaji in AD 1684, it was remodeled as decided by the Viceroy of Portuguese India, Dom Francisco de Tavora, 1st Count of Alvor, as epigraphic inscription, which reads:
THE COUNT OF ALVOR, VICEROY OF INDIA, ORDERED THIS FORTRESS'S RENOVATION AFTER DEFENDING THE SIEGE OF SAMBHAJI ON 22 APRIL 1684.
It underwent a new reform campaign in AD 1745, on the order of Pedro Miguel de Almeida Portugal e Vasconcelos, the first Marquis of Alorna.
The fort's cannons were later sent to other forts and abandoned as a military post. [2]
This fort is currently severely ruined, but one can still see the old gate of arms surmounted by the coat of arms of the Portuguese monarchy, and some sections of the walls and the moat.
Its gate has been a monument protected by the government of Goa, Daman and Diu since 1983.
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The State of India, also referred as the Portuguese State of India or simply Portuguese India, was a state of the Portuguese Empire founded six years after the discovery of a sea route to the Indian subcontinent by Vasco da Gama, a subject of the Kingdom of Portugal. The capital of Portuguese India served as the governing centre of a string of military forts and trade posts scattered all over the Indian Ocean.
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The Igreja de Nossa Senhora das Neves is a historical Catholic church in Rachol village, Salcete sub-district, on the southern banks of the Zuari river, in the South Goa district of Goa state, India. The church was built in the 1560's during the Goa Inquisition. It is situated in close proximity to the renowned Rachol Seminary. There is a church of the same name in the neighbouring village of Raia.
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The siege of Janjira (1682) was a military conflict fought between Maratha and Siddis of Janjira,the allies of Mughal Empire.Maratha Emperor Sambhaji personally besieged the fort of Murud-Janjira to stop Siddi's intrusions into Maratha Territories and to capture the strategically important fort Janjira.
Maratha Invasion of Goa (1683) or Sambhaji's Invasion of Goa refers to the invasion of Portuguese controlled portion of Old Goa and the northern areas of Konkan. The battles were fought between the Mahratta confederacy and the Portuguese in Goa and Bombay-Bassein, on various fronts in between 1682-1683. In 1682, 2 years after the death of Shivaji, Mahrattas began arming and fortifying their border with Portuguese held territories, and the Portuguese increasingly aligned themselves with the Moghal empire to avert the looming threat. This would set the background for a series of Mahratta hostilities in and around the present-day Goa (Gomantak) and Bombay (Mumbai) of the Konkan region. The Ponda Fort near the capital city of Velha Goa was a strategic Maratha position, hence Francisco de Távora (viceroy) led a botched attack on it in late 1683, attempting to prevent the raids. Sambhaji ordered reinforcements to press on the advantage of the Portuguese retreat at Ponda and elsewhere. He stormed the colony of Goa, Marathas temporarily occupied many forts there. The Maratha forces were preemptively mobilised, and the Portuguese situation eventually became dire. Sambhaji ransacked the north Konkan region for over a month, his forces also pillaged Salcette and Bardes areas in south Konkan. Sambhaji came very close to capturing the city of Old Goa, but his forces retreated from Goa, Damaon& Diu and the northern areas of Konkan division on 2 January 1684, to avoid the large Moghul armed force led by Bahadur Shah I (Muazzam).
Mughal invasion of Konkan (1684) was a part of the Deccan wars. It was a campaign launched by Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb to capture the Konkan region from the Maratha Empire under Sambhaji. The Mughal forces were led by Mu'azzam and Shahbuddin Khan. The harsh climate and the Maratha guerrilla strategy forced the numerically strong Mughal army into a slow retreat. The Maratha army suffered small losses in this unsuccessful campaign of Mughal Empire.In this war Mughals was badly defeated by Marathas.
