Morè is a

Maratha The Marathi people (Marathi: मराठी लोक) or Marathis are an Indo-Aryan ethnolinguistic group who are indigenous to Maharashtra in western India. They natively speak Marathi, an Indo-Aryan language. Maharashtra was formed as a M ...

clan A clan is a group of people united by actual or perceived kinship and descent. Even if lineage details are unknown, clans may claim descent from founding member or apical ancestor. Clans, in indigenous societies, tend to be endogamous, meaning ...

and

Mahar Mahar, meaning "original inhabitants of Maharashtra" (in various languages), is an Indian caste found largely in the state of Maharashtra and neighbouring areas. Most of the Mahar community followed B. R. Ambedkar in converting to Buddhism in ...

clan from the present day

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

n state of

Maharashtra Maharashtra (; , abbr. MH or Maha) is a states and union territories of India, state in the western India, western peninsular region of India occupying a substantial portion of the Deccan Plateau. Maharashtra is the List of states and union te ...

. Clan members also use it as the surname. Members of the Marathas as well as Mahars Morè clan use the clan name as their surname. The

totem A totem (from oj, ᑑᑌᒼ, italics=no or ''doodem'') is a spirit being, sacred object, or symbol that serves as an emblem of a group of people, such as a family, clan, lineage, or tribe, such as in the Anishinaabe clan system. While ''the wo ...

associated with this clan is a peacock. Members worshipping the same Totem cannot intermarry.

History of the Morès of Javli

The Maratha Morè clan of Javli came to prominence early in the 16th century when the first

sultan of Bijapur The Adil Shahi or Adilshahi, was a Shia,Salma Ahmed Farooqui, ''A Comprehensive History of Medieval India: From Twelfth to the Mid-Eighteenth Century'', (Dorling Kindersley Pvt Ltd., 2011), 174. and later Sunni Muslim,Muhammad Qasim Firishta's ...

granted them the fiefdom (

Jagir A jagir ( fa, , translit=Jāgir), also spelled as jageer, was a type of feudal land grant in the Indian subcontinent at the foundation of its Jagirdar (Zamindar) system. It developed during the Islamic rule era of the Indian subcontinent, start ...

) of

Javli Jawali is a small village located in the Mahadeva Mountain range of Phaltan Tehsil of the Satara district of the Indian state of Maharashtra. History The area was ruled by the Morè clan. The clan claims descent from the Somavanshi kin ...

.The ruler of the fief had a title of Chandrarao. Javli, near the modern day hill station of

Mahabaleshwar Mahabaleshwar () is a small town and a municipal council in Satara district, Maharashtra, India. It is a place of pilgrimage for Hindus because Krishna river has its origin here. The British colonial rulers developed the town as a hill station ...

, occupied a strategic position in the eastern foothills of the Northern Sahyadri mountain range. Within 60 miles length of the mountains there are eight passes through which trade flowed from the coastal

Konkan The Konkan ( kok, कोंकण) or Kokan () is a stretch of land by the western coast of India, running from Damaon in the north to Karwar in the south; with the Arabian Sea to the west and the Deccan plateau in the east. The hinterland ...

ports of

Chiplun Chiplun ( ͡ʃipɭuːɳ is a city in Ratnagiri district in the state of Maharashtra, India. It is the financial and commercial Hub of Ratnagiri, and the headquarters of Chiplun taluka. It is about 320 km south of Mumbai in the Konkan ...

and

Colaba Colaba (; or ISO: Kolābā) is a part of the city of Mumbai, India. It is one of the four peninsulas of Mumbai while the other three are Worli, Bandra and Malabar Hill. During Portuguese rule in the 16th century, the island was known as Kolbhat ...

on their way to the inlands of

Deccan The large Deccan Plateau in South India, southern India is located between the Western Ghats and the Eastern Ghats, and is loosely defined as the peninsular region between these ranges that is south of the Narmada river. To the north, it is bou ...

.For eight generations, the Morès amassed great fortune by taxing the trade with a help of a force of 12,000 soldiers.

Conquest of Javli by Shivaji

Modern historian

Dipesh Chakrabarty Dipesh Chakrabarty (born 1948, in Kolkata, India) is an Indian historian, who has also made contributions to postcolonial theory and subaltern studies. He is the Lawrence A. Kimpton Distinguished Service Professor in history at the University ...

writes about the controversial circumstances in which Javali was obtained by

Shivaji Shivaji Bhonsale I (; 19 February 1630 – 3 April 1680), also referred to as Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj, was an Indian ruler and a member of the Bhonsle Maratha clan. Shivaji carved out his own independent kingdom from the declining Adils ...

, the founder of

Maratha empire The Maratha Empire, also referred to as the Maratha Confederacy, was an early modern Indian confederation that came to dominate much of the Indian subcontinent in the 18th century. Maratha rule formally began in 1674 with the coronation of Shi ...

in 1656. Javli was very important to Shivaji for the founding of his Kingdom. Upon review of the documents, prominent historian Sarkar concluded that "the acquisition of Javli was the result of deliberate murder and organized treachery on part of Shivaji". However, Chakrabarty says that this conclusion did not sit well with the nationalist historians from Maharashtra of Sarkar's time. This was despite the fact that all the old Hindu biographers agreed that it was an act of premeditated murder. The remaining son of Chandra rao continued his fight against Shivaji by seeking refuge with the Adil shah. Other members of the clan joined the Mughals and helped the Mughal general, Jai Singh in his campaign against Shivaji. Historian

Gordon Gordon may refer to: People * Gordon (given name), a masculine given name, including list of persons and fictional characters * Gordon (surname), the surname * Gordon (slave), escaped to a Union Army camp during the U.S. Civil War * Clan Gordon, ...

agrees with Sarkar and concludes based on historical documents that Shivaji had no legal rights to Javali hence this was an act of "conscious treachery" on his part. and Indian historian

Satish Chandra Satish Chandra is a given name of Hindu origin, and may refer to, * Satish Chandra (politician), Indian National Congress leader * Satish Chandra (historian), Indian academic * Satish Chandra Agarwal, Indian politician * Satish Chandra Basumatary, ...

also comes to the same conclusion.

References

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