The Treaty of Tumlong was a March 1861

treaty A treaty is a formal, legally binding written agreement between actors in international law. It is usually made by and between sovereign states, but can include international organizations An international organization or international o ...

between

Great Britain Great Britain is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean off the northwest coast of continental Europe. With an area of , it is the largest of the British Isles, the largest European island and the ninth-largest island in the world. It is ...

and the

Kingdom of Sikkim The Kingdom of Sikkim (Classical Tibetan and sip, འབྲས་ལྗོངས།, ''Drenjong''), officially Dremoshong (Classical Tibetan and sip, འབྲས་མོ་གཤོངས།) until the 1800s, was a hereditary monarc ...

in present-day north-east India. Signed by Sir Ashley Eden on behalf of the

British British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies. ** Britishness, the British identity and common culture * British English, ...

and Sikkimese

Chogyal The Chogyal ("Dharma Kings", ) were the monarchs of the former Kingdom of Sikkim, which belonged to the Namgyal dynasty. The Chogyal was the absolute monarch of Sikkim from 1642 to 1975, when the monarchy was abolished and the Sikkimese people ...

Tsugphud Namgyal Tsugphud Namgyal ( Sikkimese: ; Wylie: ''gtsug phud rnam rgyal'') (1785–1863) was king of Sikkim from 1793 to 1863. He gained independence from Nepal in 1815 and ruled under a British protectorate from 1861. Under his father Tenzing Namgyal ...

, the treaty secured protection for travellers to Sikkim and guaranteed free trade, thereby making the state a ''de facto'' British protectorate.

Background

The

East India Company The East India Company (EIC) was an English, and later British, joint-stock company founded in 1600 and dissolved in 1874. It was formed to trade in the Indian Ocean region, initially with the East Indies (the Indian subcontinent and Southea ...

(EIC) had gradually made inroads into neighbouring India and shared a common enemy with Sikkim - the

Gorkha Kingdom Gorkha Kingdom ( ne, गोरखा राज्य) was a member of the Chaubisi rajya, a confederation of 24 states on the Indian subcontinent ruled by Khas people. In 1743 CE, the kingdom began a campaign of military expansion, annexing se ...

of Nepal. The Gorkhas overran the Sikkimese

Terai The Terai or Tarai is a lowland region in northern India and southern Nepal that lies south of the outer foothills of the Himalayas, the Sivalik Hills, and north of the Indo-Gangetic Plain. This lowland belt is characterised by tall grasslands, scr ...

prompting the EIC to start the

Anglo-Nepalese War The Anglo-Nepalese War (1 November 1814 – 4 March 1816), also known as the Gorkha War, was fought between the Gorkhali army of the Kingdom of Nepal (present-day Nepal) and the British forces of the East India Company (EIC, present-day Indi ...

of 1814-16. After the war, treaties between the British and the Gorkhas and Sikkim and British India, drawing the latter closer together. The British objective was to establish a trade route through Sikkim to

Tibet Tibet (; ''Böd''; ) is a region in East Asia, covering much of the Tibetan Plateau and spanning about . It is the traditional homeland of the Tibetan people. Also resident on the plateau are some other ethnic groups such as Monpa people, ...

, where they believed there existed a significant market for Indian tea and other British goods. At the same time, in the context of

The Great Game The Great Game is the name for a set of political, diplomatic and military confrontations that occurred through most of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century – involving the rivalry of the British Empire and the Russian Empi ...

, increased British influence in the area would deny access to the

Russian Russian(s) refers to anything related to Russia, including: *Russians (, ''russkiye''), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries *Rossiyane (), Russian language term for all citizens and peo ...

Provisions

Under the treaty, Sikkim was to pay a Rs. 7,000/- indemnity for instigating the British invasion of Sikkim. The amount equaled seven years revenue of the state of Sikkim. The British were permitted to intervene in the internal affairs of the country and under Article 8 all restrictions on travel and trade by British subjects were abolished. Article 13 allowed for construction of a road through Sikkim and rendered all British goods duty-free, except those transhipped through the country to Tibet,

Bhutan Bhutan (; dz, འབྲུག་ཡུལ་, Druk Yul ), officially the Kingdom of Bhutan,), is a landlocked country in South Asia. It is situated in the Eastern Himalayas, between China in the north and India in the south. A mountainous ...

and

Nepal Nepal (; ne, नेपाल ), formerly the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal ( ne, सङ्घीय लोकतान्त्रिक गणतन्त्र नेपाल ), is a landlocked country in South Asia. It is mai ...

, in which case a maximum 5% customs duty would be payable.

Aftermath

In 1889

John Claude White John Claude White (1October 18531918) was an engineer, photographer, author and civil servant in British India. From 1889 to 1908, White served as the Political Officer in Sikkim, then a British protectorate. As part of his remit, he also mana ...

was appointed British Political Officer in the Sikkim capital

Gangtok Gangtok is a city, municipality, the capital and the largest populated place of the Indian state of Sikkim. It is also the headquarters of the East Sikkim district, Gangtok District. Gangtok is in the eastern Himalayas, Himalayan range, at an e ...

. White introduced revenue generating agricultural activities and encourage a large number of people to immigrate from different parts of the World. At the same time, he ensured that no other community would be able to purchase lands from the

Bhutia The Bhutia (; sip, Drenjongpa/Drenjop; ; "inhabitants of Sikkim".) are a community of Sikkimese people living in the state of Sikkim in northeastern India, who speak Drenjongke or Sikkimese, a Tibetic language fairly mutually intelligible w ...

s and the indigenous Lepchas to protect feudal integrity.

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...

recognised Sikkim as a British protectorate by the 1890

Convention of Calcutta The Convention of Calcutta or Anglo-Chinese Convention of 1890, officially the Convention Between Great Britain and China Relating to Sikkim and Tibet, () was a treaty between Britain and Qing China relating to Tibet and the Kingdom of Sikkim. It w ...

References

Bibliography

* {{citation , last=Mullard , first=Saul , title=Opening the Hidden Land: State Formation and the Construction of Sikkimese History , url=https://books.google.com/books?id=G_1J4tgrYDUC&pg=PA184 , date=2011 , publisher=BRILL , isbn=978-90-04-20895-7 , ref={{sfnref, Mullard, Opening the Hidden Land, 2011 History of Sikkim Treaties of the United Kingdom (1801–1922) Treaties of Sikkim