Page 4 - #18120100101

The Accounts of Buchanan:

• Francis Buchanan undertook detailed surveys of the areas under the jurisdiction of
the British East India Company.
• Buchanan journey was sponsored by the company and it was planned according
to its need. He had specific instruction about what he had to look for and what he
had to record.
• Buchanan observed the stones, rocks, different layers of soil, minerals, and
stones that were commercially valuable.
• Buchanan wrote about landscape and how these landscapes could be
transformed and made productive.
• His assessments were shaped by commercial interest of the company and
modern western notions of what constituted progress. He was critical of lifestyle of
forest dwellers.

Pastoral Areas of Bengal:

• With gradual passage of time, settled cultivation expanded and reached to the
area of shifting cultivation, swallowing up pasture and forest in the Rajmahal hills.
Shifting cultivation was done with the help of hoe, while settled cultivation was
done through plough.

In the Hills of Rajmahal:

• Francis Buchanan, a physician travelled through Rajmahal hills and he gave an
account about it.
• Originally in the Rajmahal hills Paharias lived. They lived on hunting, shifting
cultivation, food gathering and was intimately connected to forest.
• In last decade of 18th century British encouraged forest clearance and zamindar
and jotedar also started to turn uncultivated land into rice fields. As settled
agriculture expanded, the area under forest and pasture contracted. This
sharpened the conflict between Paharias and settled cultivators.
• Around 1780, Santhal came into these areas. They cleared the forest and
ploughed land.
• As the lower hills were takenover by the Santhal Settlers, the Paharias receded
interior into the Rajmahal hills.

The Santhals became Settlers:

• Zamindars and Britishers after having failed to subdue the Paharias and transform
them into settled cultivators turned to Santhals. The Santhal appeared to be ideal
settlers, cleared the forest and ploughed land.
• After land was granted, population of Santhals increased exponentially and their
villages also increased in number.