3.1 David Scott

3.1 David  Scott 

There were several reasons for the Company to show interest in the Khasi Hills. The English felt the need for Dak (postal service) from Sylhet to Assam through the Hills. They also felt the need for linking the two valleys through the hills for trading and commercial purposes. The cool and salubrious climate of the hills attracted the attention of David Scott and other officers.
A letter refers to this hill region as:

"...hitherto been inhabited by a race of barbarous and savage mountaineers whose aggressions have constantly been the terror of our frontiers and whose enmity and jealousy have prevented all inter-course between neighbouring districts may become a healthful retreat for invalid Europeans, a happy abode for their children, and a nursery of a hardy race of natives by the occupation of the tract (hills) by us, become a connected and an integral part of our territories instead of a detached and distant province ... "

The threat of a Burmese invasion in Jaintia provided an opportunity for David Scott who, by a stroke of diplomacy, managed to bring Ram Singh of Sutnga to enter into an Agreement with the Company on the 10 March 1824. Ram Singh acknowledged allegiance to the Company and promised to aid in the military operations which commenced against the Burmese in Assam. Ever since 1824, the relation between the English and the Khasi States was regulated by treaties, engagements and negotiations.

There was another Treaty between Scott and the Sutnga ruler, by which the latter agreed to march and attack the Burmese to the east of Guwahatty. The Company on the conquest of Assam, would confer upon him a part of the territory proportionate to his help in the common cause. After the Treaty was signed, Scott marched through the Jaintia territory with an escort of three Companies of the 23rd Regiment Native Infantry under Captain Horsburge.

In the same year Scott marched from Sylhet into the Brahmaputra valley across the Jaintia Hills. This is the second time that foreign troops traversed through the hills. Ram Singh agreed to allow the construction of a road through the State from Jaintiapur to Nowgong, and Scott himself travelled this road on one occasion.

By the end of the l8th Century, the powerful Ahom kingdom had declined in power. To internal dissensions were added external threats posed by the Burmese king who claimed overlordship over the Ahom king by virtue of their origin in the Shan country of Burma, even though that event had taken place over 500 years earlier. Unsettled conditions so close to their frontier could not be viewed with complacency by the British. During the Governor-Generalship of Lord Cornwallis, the British had been drawn into intervention in the affairs of the Ahom Kingdom and this in time led to open conflict with the Burmese. Two wars were fought at the close or which the British found themselves in possession of the Ahom kingdom, first Lower Assam, and later the rest.

On 24 February 1826, the Treaty of Yandaboo was signed between the Company and the Burmese, whereby Assam was annexed. This engaged the serious attention of the British to link the Brahmaputra and Surma valleys through the Khasi Hills. Scott was appointed Agent to the Governor General for North East Frontier in November 1822. With the annexation of Assam, Scott was appointed as Commissioner of Assam. Till his death in 1831, Scott was undoubtedly the main architect of British colonial and imperial domination over the Khasi States.

David Scott was born on 14 May 1786[5], the second son of Archibald Scott, Esq. of Usan and Dunninald (the family seats), near Montrose, Scotland. On 27 January 1802, at the tender age of 16, he was selected for service in India. On 15 October 1802, he joined Fort William College, Calcutta. After his arrival in India, the first appointments he held were those of Assistant to the Collector, and soon after, Register to the Judge and Magistrate, of Gorakhpur.

During 1812-13, he was appointed Officiating Judge and Magistrate of Purneah (district in the Bhagalpur division of Bengal) and, at the close of the same year, Judge and Magistrate of Rangpur (district in the Rajshahi division of Bengal). However, he found his position monotonous and in September 1816, he arranged an exchange of appointments with the Commissioner of Cooch Bihar, and Joint Magistrate of Rangpur.

Finally, in 1823, he was nominated Civil Commissioner of Revenue and Circuit in Rangpur (while in this post he became deeply involved in the affairs of the Garo tribes), and several other districts, and importantly the Agent to the Governor General on the North East Frontier of Bengal. For the latter, he was specially selected on account of his high character, his preeminent and varied talents, and his urbane and conciliatory conduct towards the locals.

In 1824, after the Burmese invasion of Assam, the East India Company began their campaign against the Burmese. The outbreak of the First Burmese War brought the Companyinto closer relations with the Raja of Jaintia, and in April 1824, David Scott marched through his territory from Sylhet to Assam, emerging at Raha on the Kalang river (a tributary of the Brahmaputra), in what is now the Nowgong district in Assam. He was a pioneer - this was the first occasion on which an European had entered the hill territory of the Cassya tribes. After the First Burmese War, the Ava kingdom ceded the provinces of Manipur, Tenassarim, and Arakan to the Company. Lower Assam (originally Koch Hajo) was also formally annexed.

On 10 March 1824, two years before the Treaty of Yandaboo was signed between the Burmese and the Company, a Treaty was concluded between Scott and Ram Singh of Jaintia. By this Treaty, Ram Singh acknowledged allegiance to the Company and placed his country under the protection of the British. After the Treaty was signed, Scott marched through the Jaintia territory with an escort of three Companies of the 23rd Regiment Native Infantry under Captain Horsburge.

Between their old possessions in Sylhet and their newly acquired possessions in Lower Assam intervened the Khasi Hills. If a road were to be laid through these hills to connect Guwahati with Sylhet, weeks of travel over difficult and malarious country could be avoided. Moreover, the new route would lie through country with a salubrious climate and comparatively easy terrain.

David Scott, the shrewd Agent of the Governor-General wasted no time in exploring this possibility. Hearing that Tirot Sing, Syiemof Nongkhlaw, was interested in regaining possession of portions of the duars which he had held before the advent of the British, David Scott let it be known that Tirot Sing could have these back in return for certain concessions to the British.

The British first came in contact with the Khasis in Bardwar in the Brahmapura valley. Bardwar was under the control of Nongkhlaw State (a petty State in the Cassya Hills, 96 kilometres south-west of Gowhatty). Assam had passed into British control and in November 1823, Scott was appointed the Agent to the Governor-General.

Nongkhlaw State, known as Hima Khadsawphra, situated in the mid-western part of the Khasi Hills[6]. Literally, Khadsawphra means ‘fourteen eight’ reflecting the fourteen and eight areas within its fold. There were fourteen villages of Nongkhlaw and eight units in Shella which acceded to Nongkhlaw. The Syiem’s clan was called Syiem-Lieh (White Syiem) to distinguish it from Syiem-Long (Black Syiem) of Nongsprung. The State extended from Bardwar in Assam to Rakhubir in Sylhet.

The NongkhlawSyiems made periodic visits to Bardwar to collect revenue. The subjects paid homage in public ceremonies and administrative and judicial Durbars were held in their presence. People from Bardwar also came up to Nongkhlaw and peaceful relations were maintained.

When Scott was in charge of Assam, he sought to annexe Burdwar and thus came into conflict with Nongkhlaw. Scott had often met Tirot and his mother, Ksan Syiem, in Gowhatty and Bardwar. The latter had come down to the plains to settle some border disputes. Tirot protested the Company’s move to merge Bardwar, his ancestral dominion, into the Company’s administration. According to the British, Ksan Syiem had helped Scott to materialise his plan of constructing the road through Nongkhlaw and to establish a sanatorium also at Nongkhlaw.

As the Cassyas claimed a free right to enter the Company’s territory, he thought it fair that they extend a similar right to the Company’s subjects. Tirot was asked to persuade the other Syiems to consent to the construction of a road through their domain. Scott announced that in exchange for this, the right of passage to the plains would be restored to the Nongkhlaw Syiems. A need for such a road link for Sylhet and Kamrup was felt long before the Burmese retreat from Assam, but while the Syiem of Sohra was open to negotiations, the Syiem of Mylliem did not recognise the right of the British to have free passage through his country, and the Syiem of Nongkhlow was vehemently opposed to confer such rights to a foreign party.

Tirot’s position was that he had no authority to confer this right, and if such a case was to be considered, a resolution had to be passed by the Syiem-in-Council. Tirot invited Scott to an Assembly of his people, where the latter's proposition would be submitted to them. Arrangements for the Assembly at Nongkhlaw were made and the sovereigns of Sohiong, Sohrarim, and Mawmluh were also invited to the Durbar.

Early in 1826, at the conclusion of the First Burmese War, a Treaty was made by which Assam proper, was ceded to the Company and was included as a part of the Bengal Presidency. The Cassya Hills now, therefore, lay between two British possessions – the Assam valley in the north, and the plains of Sylhet in the south. After the expulsion of the Burmese from Assam and the occupation of that province by the Company, Scott (now the Governor General’s Agent and Commissioner of Assam) along with a Major White entered the Cassya Hills on 1 November 1826 for Nongkhlao. The intention was to negotiate for the construction of a road through the territory of Nongkhlao, which aimed to link Sylhet with Gowhatty (which later came to be known as Scott’s Road).