Shivaji’s capture of Ponda

01The fort above Goa

Ponda commanded the inland routes to the Portuguese territories of Goa, and it was the last Bijapur stronghold in the southern Konkan. Shivaji had tried for it before. In April 1675 he came with a strong force and invested the fort. The Portuguese viceroy, fearing a Maratha neighbour, sent the garrison supplies and powder by the river. Shivaji pressed the siege with mines and escalades through the hot weather, the English at Karwar following its progress in their letters.

02Ponda falls

Early in May 1675 the Marathas stormed the fort. Muhammad Khan and the officers who had resisted were put to death, the English factors at Karwar reported. With Ponda Shivaji held the whole Konkan coast from the Kalyan country to the Portuguese frontier, and he went on to take Karwar and the ports south of Goa. The Portuguese protested and prepared for war, but made terms. Ponda later became the centre of the Maratha hold on the Goa border.

Dynasty · 1674–1848 CE (Swarajya from the 1640s)Maratha Chhatrapatis (Bhonsle)Shivaji Bhonsle built a Hindu kingdom out of hill forts in the Sahyadri and was crowned Chhatrapati at Raigad in 1674. His sons and his daughter-in-law Tarabai held it through twenty-seven years of war with Aurangzeb, and the state they saved became the Maratha power that ruled much of India in the eighteenth century.Read →