Ahom People - History

History

In the early 13th century, Mong Mao was a small kingdom of Tai people, related to the Shan, in present day Yunnan Province, China. In 1228, Sukaphaa, a prince of Mong Mao began his journey with about 9000 followers, mostly men. He crossed the Patkai hills and reached the Brahmaputra valley in 1228. He moved from place to place, searching for a seat. He decided not to attack the Morans and Borahis but befriend them instead. His followers, much depleted from the original 9000, married into the Borahi and the Moran ethnic groups. The Borahis, a Tibeto-Burman people, were subsumed into the Ahom fold, though the Moran maintained their independent ethnicity. Sukaphaa finally established his capital at Charaideo near present-day Sivasagar in 1253 and began the task of state formation.

The Ahom kingdom then consolidated its power, building their kingdom for the next 600 years. The first major expansion was at the cost of the Sutiya kingdom, which was annexed in 1522 under King Suhungmung. The expansion's success was not only a result of Ahom military prowess, but also of changes in the Ahom social and political outlook. Suhungmung was the first Ahom king to adopt a Hindu name: Swarga Narayan. The Sutiya region was placed under the Sadiyakhowa Gohain a new position that was created. In 1536 the Dimasa Kacharis, known to Ahoms as "Timisa", were uprooted from their capital at Dimapur. Thus by the middle of the 16th century, the Ahoms were in control of all of present day eastern Assam. The late 17th century saw another expansion of Ahom territory. After the 1682 Battle of Itakhuli, that marked the end of the Ahom-Mughal conflicts, much of the control of Koch Hajo fell into the hands of the Ahoms. By bringing the various tribal groups and regions under one ruler and one governing polity the Ahoms are considered the architects of modern Assam.

Ahom power declined in the latter half of the 18th century. The capital city was taken for a short period during the Moamoria rebellion. In the first part of the 19th century, the Burmese army invaded their kingdom, uprooted their capital and set up a puppet Ahom king. The Burmese were defeated by the British in the First Anglo-Burmese War resulting in the Treaty of Yandaboo in 1826, which paved the way for the British to convert the Ahom kingdom into a principality and which marked the end of the Ahom rule. Assam was then annexed by British India, becoming a province and then a state as the Ahom identity gradually became Assamese.