MARATHA POWER: its rise and fall (c.1674-c.1818) | |
Some useful maps of the Maratha dominions at different points during this period; see also the *Imperial Gazetteer* | |
Shivaji (c.1627-80), the brilliant warrior and guerrilla leader who spearheaded the rise of the Marathas, is nowadays sometimes seen as a divinely inspired hero | |
The young Shivaji's first conquest was Torna Fort, which he captured from the *Bijapur* Sultanate (for which his father Shahji had been a general) in 1646 | |
Sinhagarh Fort was another early conquest (1647) | |
Rajgarh Fort was a third early and important prize, completing Shivaji's control of the Pune region | |
In the Battle of Pratapgarh (1659) Shivaji defeated the Bijapuri general Afzal Khan, and then killed him during a peace negotiation | |
|
Next Shivaji turned his attention northward: among many other raids, in 1664 he attacked and looted the Mughals' wealthy port town of Surat |
During a daring night attack in 1663, Shivaji wounded Shaista Khan (Aurangzeb's maternal uncle), who had seized and held Pune in retaliation for Shivaji's raiding; a famous account is provided by *François Bernier* | |
ZEB* |
In 1666 the Mughal general in the Deccan, Raja Jai Singh I, arranged for Shivaji to travel to Delhi and to be received by Aurangzeb; but court politics wrecked the chance of what might have been a remarkable Mughal-Maratha future |
Panhala (near Kolhapur), the largest fort in the Deccan, was one of Shivaji's favorites, and changed hands often; Aurangzeb held it briefly in 1701 | |
Shivaji made Raigarh Fort his capital; in 1674, he held an elaborate coronation ceremony for himself there; in 1680, he died there of a fever | |
ABAD* |
Aurangzeb came down in 1681 and easily conquered *Golconda* and *Bijapur*; but never could subdue the Marathas; he died in Aurangabad in 1707, without ever returning to North India |
After much turbulence and factional fighting, in 1749 POONA became the official Maratha capital and seat of the Peshwa, or hereditary prime minister | |
In 1755, the Peshwa and the
British cooperated
to attack and capture Gheriah and other pirate forts on the Malabar
Coast
(*Biddulph's
account*); but they could never conquer the Siddis' island fort of *Janjira* |
|
IN 1760* |
Having defeated the Nizam of *Hyderabad* and extracted territory from him, the Marathas reached the apogee of their power in 1760 |
But in 1761, a North Indian Muslim-Afghan coalition (using the then-newly-made cannon *Zamzamah*) defeated them decisively in the Third Battle of Panipat; after this the Marathas split along clan lines, and their hopes for empire faded | |
Views by James Forbes, c.1775; British dealings with the many Maratha clan leaders were immensely complex, and there were four separate "Anglo-Maratha Wars" | |
Amidst all the confusion, Ahilyabai Holkar (r.1767-95) ended up ruling Malwa; she's especially remembered for the number of temples she built | |
In 1790 the Peshwa agreed to an alliance with the British against *Tipu Sultan* | |
Lieutenant George FitzClarence, the illegitimate son of William IV, fought in the Maratha Wars, and published a book with some of his sketches | |
After the Fourth Anglo-Maratha War (1817-19), the Peshwa's dominions were added to the *Bombay* Presidency | |
A lesser Maratha ruler's darbar, c.1820 | |
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