Theme 5Part A · The British conquest
The wars of expansion
1767 to 1856 · Mysore, the Marathas and the Sikhs
After Bengal the Company fought the three Indian powers that could still stop it. It beat each of them separately, never facing all three together. This theme follows nine wars on three maps, then puts the whole conquest on one map in five snapshots.
Event 11767 to 1799
The four Anglo Mysore wars
Haidar Ali and his son Tipu Sultan built the most modern state in south India, with a drilled army, artillery and war rockets. It took the Company four wars and thirty two years to destroy it.
Swipe the map sideways to see all of it.
The Company, the Nizam and the Marathas move against Haidar, but Haidar splits the alliance and rides to within a few miles of Madras. The Treaty of Madras (1769) restores conquests and promises mutual help, a promise the English break when the Marathas attack Mysore in 1771.
Haidar, allied with the Nizam and the Marathas, sweeps into the Carnatic and destroys Colonel Baillie's force at Pollilur (1780). Eyre Coote beats him at Porto Novo (1781). Haidar dies in 1782; Tipu fights on until the Treaty of Mangalore (1784) restores the position before the war.
Tipu attacks Travancore, a Company ally. Cornwallis, with the Nizam and the Marathas, marches on Seringapatam. By the Treaty of Seringapatam (1792) Tipu gives up half his kingdom, pays ₹3 crore and hands over two sons as hostages.
Wellesley accuses Tipu of dealing with the French. Seringapatam is stormed and Tipu is killed defending it on 4 May 1799. A child of the old Wodeyar family is put on a much smaller throne under a subsidiary alliance; Canara, Coimbatore and Wynad go to the Company.
What Tipu built
Iron cased war rockets used against the Company; captured ones inspired the British Congreve rocket.
A new calendar, new coins, weights and measures; state trading houses; silk farming from China.
Embassies to France, the Ottoman sultan and Afghanistan; joined a Jacobin club and planted a Tree of Liberty at Seringapatam (1797).
Plans for a fleet of warships and dockyards on the west coast.
Four wars at a glance
| Governor General | Ended by | |
|---|---|---|
| First, 1767 to 1769 | Verelst (Governor of Bengal) | Treaty of Madras |
| Second, 1780 to 1784 | Warren Hastings | Treaty of Mangalore |
| Third, 1790 to 1792 | Cornwallis | Treaty of Seringapatam |
| Fourth, 1799 | Wellesley | Tipu killed; Mysore partitioned |
Event 21775 to 1818
The three Anglo Maratha wars
The Marathas recovered from Panipat under Madhavrao I and Mahadji Scindia, but the confederacy could not stay united. The Company fought it three times, each time using a quarrel among the Marathas to get in.
Swipe the map sideways to see all of it.
Raghunath Rao, a claimant to the Peshwaship, signs the Treaty of Surat (1775) with Bombay. The Company's army is forced to sign the humiliating Convention of Wadgaon (1779). Goddard marches right across India from Bengal to Surat, and Popham takes Gwalior (1780). The Treaty of Salbai (1782), arranged by Mahadji Scindia, gives the English Salsette and twenty years of peace.
Beaten by Holkar at Poona, Peshwa Baji Rao II flees to Bassein and accepts a subsidiary alliance (Treaty of Bassein, 31 December 1802). Scindia and Bhonsle fight: Arthur Wellesley wins at Assaye and Argaon, Lake takes Delhi and wins at Laswari (1803). Holkar fights on and holds Bharatpur against Lake (1805).
While Lord Hastings hunts the Pindaris, the Peshwa, Bhonsle and Holkar rise. The Peshwa is beaten at Khadki, Koregaon and Ashti, Bhonsle at Sitabuldi, Holkar at Mahidpur. The Peshwaship is abolished; Baji Rao II is pensioned off to Bithur, and a small state of Satara is made for Shivaji's descendant.
The treaties to remember
| With | What it did | |
|---|---|---|
| Surat 1775 | Raghunath Rao | English help in return for Salsette and Bassein |
| Purandar 1776 | the Poona regency | Calcutta's attempt to undo Surat |
| Salbai 1782 | the Marathas, through Scindia | Ended the first war; Salsette to the English |
| Bassein 1802 | Baji Rao II | Subsidiary alliance with the Peshwa |
| Deogaon 1803 | Bhonsle | Cuttack (Orissa) ceded |
| Surji Anjangaon 1803 | Scindia | Delhi, Agra, the Doab, Broach and Ahmednagar ceded |
| Rajghat 1805 | Holkar | Ended the second war |
| Poona 1817 | Baji Rao II | Peshwa gives up leadership of the confederacy |
Why the Marathas lost
Divided chiefs. Scindia, Holkar, Bhonsle and Gaekwad fought one another and joined the war one at a time.
Weak leadership. After Nana Phadnavis (died 1800) and Mahadji Scindia (died 1794) there was no one to hold them together.
Old style armies. Cavalry and plunder against drilled infantry, artillery and better intelligence.
Tribute, not government. A state that lived on chauth had few loyal subjects.
Event 31799 to 1849
Ranjit Singh and the Anglo Sikh wars
Ranjit Singh united the Sikh misls and built a kingdom from the Sutlej to the Khyber with an army trained by European officers. Within ten years of his death in 1839 it was gone.
Swipe the map sideways to see all of it.
He takes Lahore (1799) and Amritsar (1802). The Treaty of Amritsar (1809) with the Company fixes the Sutlej as his eastern limit, so he turns north and west: Multan (1818), Kashmir (1819), Peshawar (1834).
After his death the court at Lahore falls into chaos and the army crosses the Sutlej. Battles at Mudki, Ferozeshah, Aliwal and Sobraon. By the Treaty of Lahore (1846) the Sikhs lose the Jalandhar Doab, and Kashmir is sold to Gulab Singh of Jammu for ₹75 lakh.
Governor Mulraj rebels at Multan (1848) and the Sikh army joins. After the bloody draw at Chillianwala and the victory at Gujrat (February 1849), Dalhousie annexes Punjab (March 1849). The boy king Duleep Singh is pensioned and the Koh i Noor goes to Queen Victoria.
Event 41765 to 1856
The map of conquest
Put the wars together and the expansion of British India reads as five snapshots. Watch the red spread and the protected states, in pink, fill the gaps.
Swipe the map sideways to see all of it.
Bengal and Bihar (the diwani), the Northern Circars (1766), the Madras jagir and Bombay island.
Add the Carnatic (1801), Mysore's coast and Coimbatore, the ceded districts from the Nizam, the Doab and Rohilkhand from Awadh (1801), Delhi and Agra, and Orissa (1803). Hyderabad, Awadh and Mysore are subsidiary allies.
The Peshwa's lands, Khandesh and the Saugor and Narmada territories. The Rajput and central Indian states become protected states.
Add Assam (1826), Sindh (1843) and Punjab (1849).
Add Satara, Jhansi, Nagpur and Sambalpur (by lapse), Berar from the Nizam, and Awadh (1856). About three fifths of the subcontinent is British India; the rest is some 560 princely states.
Glows give the shape of British territory at each date; they are not exact boundaries.
Who's who18 people
People
Haidar Ali
Mysore
Soldier who took power by 1761; fought the first two wars.
Tipu Sultan
Mysore
Ruler 1782 to 1799; rockets, reforms, French alliance; killed at Seringapatam.
Madhavrao I
Peshwa
Revived Maratha power after Panipat; died 1772.
Raghunath Rao
claimant
Sought English help (Treaty of Surat, 1775).
Nana Phadnavis
Poona minister
Held the Maratha state together until 1800.
Mahadji Scindia
Gwalior
Arranged Salbai; master of Delhi in the 1780s.
Baji Rao II
last Peshwa
Signed Bassein (1802); exiled to Bithur (1818).
Yashwantrao Holkar
Indore
Fought the Company to a draw in 1804 to 1805.
Ranjit Singh
Lahore
Maharaja 1801 to 1839; the Lion of Punjab.
Duleep Singh
Lahore
Boy king deposed in 1849.
Mulraj
Multan
His revolt began the second war.
Gulab Singh
Jammu
Bought Kashmir in 1846; founder of the Dogra state.
Cornwallis
Governor General
Third Mysore war.
Richard Wellesley
Governor General
Fourth Mysore war and second Maratha war.
Arthur Wellesley
general
Seringapatam, Assaye; later Duke of Wellington.
Lord Lake
general
Delhi and Laswari (1803).
Lord Hastings
Governor General
Pindari and third Maratha war.
Dalhousie
Governor General
Annexed Punjab (1849).
Key terms9
Terms
- Paramount power
- The position of the Company after 1818: supreme over every Indian state.
- Pindaris
- Irregular horsemen attached to Maratha armies who lived by plunder; crushed in 1817 to 1818.
- Convention of Wadgaon
- The Company's surrender in 1779, disowned by Hastings.
- Treaty of Salbai
- 1782; ended the first Anglo Maratha war.
- Treaty of Bassein
- 1802; the Peshwa accepts a subsidiary alliance.
- Treaty of Amritsar (1809)
- Fixed the Sutlej as Ranjit Singh's boundary.
- Treaty of Amritsar (1846)
- Sale of Kashmir to Gulab Singh.
- Misl
- A Sikh confederacy; Ranjit Singh led the Sukerchakia misl.
- Khalsa army
- Ranjit Singh's army, drilled by European officers such as Ventura and Allard.
Mains angleHistoriography
Tipu Sultan: tyrant or patriot?
A bigot and tyrant
Colonial writers, and some since, stress his forced conversions in Coorg and Malabar and destruction of temples and churches there.
A modernising patriot
Others stress his grants to Hindu temples such as Sringeri and Melkote, his reforms, and his refusal to submit to the Company.
For the answer: give both sides with evidence. He was a ruthless eighteenth century ruler who used religion politically, and also the most determined Indian opponent of the Company.