English
Saint Sebastian's Fort
Vasai Fort (Baçaim/Baçaím/Bassaim/Bassein), Maharashtra, India
Military Architecture
The fortification of Saint Sebastian was the first defence structure built by the Portuguese in Vasai after they received that territory from the Sultanate of Gujarat in 1534. As the settlement around the fort grew, a new and larger bastioned perimeter was begun about 20 years later. But this new defence line took several decades to finish and until the early 1700s Saint Sebastian’s Fort was the city’s only true defensive redoubt. It later lost its strategic value, though it continued to be used as the residence of Vasai’s captain. It is relatively well preserved, especially its main gate. The Fort has the shape of an irregular polygon with three round bastions, one rectangular redoubt, which includes the main gate, and a corner with no bastion where the captain’s house was located. The reasons for this arrangement are hard to discern. There are nevertheless strong indications that the Portuguese used elements from a pre-existing fortification, built some years before Vasai was granted to them. António Bocarro writes in about 1635 that the city “has inside, next to the church of the Misericórdia, some houses where the captain lives, with an enclosure of old brick, where it seems that the former Moorish owners sheltered, and also a round stone bastion above the pillory”. Also, a 1907 report by the Archaeological Survey of India indicates the existence of two verydistinct stonework layers in certain walls of the fort; the lower one is deemed to be of Indian origin due to its arrangement. It is thus possible that the cylindrical bastion which divides the two curtain walls on the north side is of pre-Portuguese origin. Immediately to the west of this bastion and up against the fort’s walls are the ruins of the Misericórdia Church, with direct access from the nave to the open ground inside the precinct. On the west side are two other cylindrical bastions. On the southeast side of the fortification is a square redoubt which contains an inscription dated 1536. The main entrance to Saint Sebastian’s Fort is located near this bastion and bears the date 1606. Its design is closely related to the central part of the front of Vasai’s Jesuit church. On the north side are the stairs leading to the fort’s parapets. Nearby was the location of the city’s prison or jail, built between 1635 and 1639, according to Gerson da Cunha. The captain’s house began in the fort’s northeast corner; it was a two-storey building which rose above the wall parapets and accompanied it for 80 metres. Gaspar Correia (c. 1550) says it had gun emplacements on the ground floor, both in the curtain walls and in the bastions. The illustration nevertheless depicts the fortification with a regular pentagonal shape which is quite far removed from the reality.