Janjira

Janjira's island fort rose from the sea off Danda-Rajpuri on the Konkan coast. Its Siddi commanders, of African ancestry, built their power through naval service to the Deccan sultanates and later the Mughals. The island and its mainland possessions gave them an armed foothold among coastal communities, while their ships could escort commerce or raid an enemy's shore.

Shivaji's expansion brought repeated attacks against the Siddis in the seventeenth century. The Marathas gained mainland forts and threatened their supply bases, but neither Shivaji nor Sambhaji secured Janjira itself. Its survival depended on sea access as well as stone walls. Rivalries within the ruling house invited further Maratha intervention in 1733, and fighting continued over the adjoining territory. In 1759 Janjira's government obtained Jafarabad on the Kathiawar coast with English assistance; the relationship also helped provision Bombay with cattle. English intervention again protected the island against Maratha pressure around 1761. By 1818 the Siddi ruler acknowledged British authority, retaining a small coastal state whose fortunes had long depended on alliances across the western Indian Ocean.