Co-authors: Michael Oppitz, Thomas Kaiser, Alban von Stockhausen, Marion Wettstein
The entry of the Nagas into the written history of the world can be dated to 24th February 1826. On that day representatives of the Kingdom of Burma and the British military signed the Treaty of Yandabo, in which Burma renounced all claims to Assam and Manipur. The westward policy of expansion pursued by Burma – at that time the most powerful kingdom in Southeast Asia – had begun in the 1780s when Burmese troops occupied the independent Kingdom of Arakan and reached for the first time the eastern border of the British Indian Empire, which corresponds fairly exactly with the present-day borders of Bangladesh and North Bengal. In 1817 the Burmese invaded Assam and in 1819 the independent Kingdom of Manipur. In 1823 they also annexed the Kingdom of Cachar, a strategic area for invading Bengal.
In March of the following year, Britain officially declared war on Burma, a war which ended two years later with the aforementioned Treaty of Yandabo. Gradually Britain occupied the whole of Assam and intensified its diplomatic and military relations with Manipur, which was intended to have a key position in monitoring and if need be defending the border between Burma and the British sphere of influence.
British India had reached the foot of the Naga Hills – the southeastern foothills of the Himalayas in the present border triangle of India, Burma and China, which at that time was covered in jungle.
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