The first Anglo-Sikh war was fought between the Sikh Empire and the British East India Company in 1845 and 1846 around the Ferozepur district of Punjab. It resulted in defeat and partial subjugation of the Sikh empire and cession of Jammu & Kashmir as a separate princely state under British suzerainty.
The Sikh trophy guns
Death of Jawahar Singh, Vizier of Lahore – Illustrated London News, 29 November 1845
'Gruppe von Siekhs' (Group of Sikhs) in the English camp, near Kaffur as representative of the Lahore Durbar. Lithograph after an original sketch by Prince Waldemar of Prussia, ca.1853
Raja Lal Singh, who led Sikh forces against the British during the First Anglo-Sikh War, 1846
The Sikh Empire was a regional power based in the Punjab region of the Indian subcontinent. It existed from 1799, when Maharaja Ranjit Singh captured Lahore, to 1849, when it was defeated and conquered by the British East India Company in the Second Anglo-Sikh War. It was forged on the foundations of the Khalsa from a collection of autonomous misls. At its peak in the 19th century, the empire extended from Gilgit and Tibet in the north to the deserts of Sindh in the south and from the Khyber Pass in the west to the Sutlej in the east as far as Oudh. It was divided into four provinces: Lahore, which became the Sikh capital; Multan; Peshawar; and Kashmir from 1799 to 1849. Religiously diverse, with an estimated population of 4.5 million in 1831, it was the last major region of the Indian subcontinent to be annexed by the British Empire.
The expanding Sikh Empire in 1809. The Cis-Sutlej states are visible south of the Sutlej River
Ranjit Singh holding court in 1838
The Indian subcontinent in 1805.
Detail from ‘Darbar (royal court) of Maharaja Ranjit Singh’, gouache, ca.1850