Place · Portuguese sea fort · India
Diu Fort
The 1535 Portuguese fort on Diu island in the Daman and Diu Union Territory off the Saurashtra coast — the largest surviving Portuguese fort in India and the key colonial outpost of the western Indian Ocean trade. Built by Bahadur Shah of Gujarat in 1535 and ceded to the Portuguese later that year through a defensive treaty against Mughal advance, Diu Fort was permanently taken by the Portuguese in 1546 after the First Siege of Diu by Khadjar Suffarin (1538-39) and the Second Siege by Rumi Khan (1546, during which Portuguese commander João de Mascarenhas held off a Gujarati siege for 3 months). The 1961 Operation Vijay by the Indian army ended Portuguese rule on 19 December 1961. The fort's three sea-facing bastions, moat and St Thomas Church anchor its heritage.
- Function
- Religious institution & practice
- Confidence
- Established / referenced
- Location
- 20.715, 70.987
Connections (3)
- CampaignKozhikode / Calicut
In February 1509 off Diu, Francisco de Almeida destroyed a combined fleet of the Zamorin of Calicut, Sultan Mahmud Begada of Gujarat and the Mamluk sultan of Egypt. It is the decisive battle of the western Indian Ocean: no Asian coalition tried again on that scale, and Portugal could thereafter tax shipping rather than merely compete for cargo.
- Power passed toSurat
Diu was ceded in 1535 by Bahadur Shah of Gujarat, who wanted Portuguese ships against the Mughals. Akbar annexed Gujarat in 1573 anyway, and Surat became the Mughal empire's western port — but pilgrim ships to Mecca still had to buy a Portuguese cartaz at Diu, so the emperor's Hajj traffic sailed on a licence issued by a foreign fort.
- Imperial administration ofEstado da Índia — Portuguese India
Diu Fort at the tip of the Kathiawar peninsula was the strategic prize the Estado da India held against Gujarat Sultanate and Ottoman siege in the 1530s and 1540s. Diu was the last of the Portuguese possessions to hold a garrison, and its lighthouse and battlements survived intact into 1961. The old fort still contains its church of St Thomas and the smaller church of St Paul, now the two seats of Diu's Catholic community.
On these journeys
Sources
Wikipedia, “Diu Fortress”. Charles Boxer, The Portuguese Seaborne Empire; the Historical Archives of Goa; UNESCO’s Churches and Convents of Goa file.
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