Bassein Town
This article has been extracted from THE IMPERIAL GAZETTEER OF INDIA , 1908. OXFORD, AT THE CLARENDON PRESS. |
Note: National, provincial and district boundaries have changed considerably since 1908. Typically, old states, ‘divisions’ and districts have been broken into smaller units, and many tahsils upgraded to districts. Some units have since been renamed. Therefore, this article is being posted mainly for its historical value.
Bassein Town
Vasai, that is, 'The Settlement '
Head-quarters of the taluka of the same name in Thana District, Bombay, situated in 19° 20' N. and 72° 49' E., about 5 miles from the Bassein Road station of the Bombay, Baroda, and Central India Railway, and 28 miles north of Bombay. Population (1901), 10,702. The town was constituted a municipality in 1864, the income in 1903-4 being Rs. 17,000. In that year the total value of the seaborne trade of Bassein was 13 lakhs, of which 5 lakhs represented imports and 8 lakhs exports. The town contains a dispensary, a Sub-Judge's court, an English middle school with 53 pupils, 8 vernacular schools for boys with 395 pupils, and one for girls with 71 pupils.
Bassein early attracted the notice of the Portuguese, as the river or strait separating the island from the mainland was a convenient rendezvous for shipping. In 1534 Bassein with the land in its neigh- bourhood was ceded to them by Bahadur Shah, king of Gujarat, and two years later the fort was built. For more than two centuries Bassein remained in the hands of the Portuguese, and during this time it rose to such prosperity that it came to be called the Court of the North, and its nobles were proverbial for their wealth and magnificence. With plentiful supplies of both timber and stone, Bassein was adorned with many noble buildings, including a cathedral, five convents, thirteen churches, and an asylum for orphans. The dwellings of the Hidalgos, or aristocracy, who alone were allowed to live within the city walls, are described (1675) as stately buildings, two storeys high, graced with covered balconies and large windows. Towards the end of the seven- teenth century Bassein suffered severely from outbreaks of the plague, so deadly that in 1695 one-third of the population was swept away. Notwithstanding the decay of Portuguese power in the seventeenth century, Bassein, as late as 1720, would seem to have retained much of its prosperity. In that year the population was returned at 60,499, and the revenue a few years later (1729) at as much as 9/2 lakhs (Xer. 914,125). But the wealth of one city was unable to stay the advance of the Maratha power. In 1739 Chimnaji Appa, a distinguished Maratha general, at the head of a powerful army, appeared before Bassein. After a siege of three months, conducted on both sides with the greatest skill and courage, the garrison was forced to capitulate, and the town and district of Bassein passed into the hands of the Peshwa. Under the Marathas, Bassein became the chief place in their territories between the Bankot river and Daman ; but they did not long keep possession of the city. In 1780, after a siege of twelve days, Bassein was captured by a British army under the command of General Goddard. By the Treaty of Salbai (1782) it was restored to the Marathas; and in 1818, on the overthrow of the last of the Peshwas, it was resumed by the English and incorporated with Thana District, Here was concluded. in 1802, the treaty by which the Peshwa agreed to maintain a British subsidiary force, thus virtually dissolving the Maratha confederacy.
Of Old Bassein, the walls and ramparts remain in a state of good preservation. Within the enclosure, the ruins of the cathedral, of the Dominican convent, of the Jesuit Church of St. Paul, and of St. Anthony's Church, built as early as 1537, can still be identified. [Dr. Da Cunha, Antiquities of Bassein (Bombay, 1876).]
