Capture of Peshawar (1834)

01From tributary to province

After the Sikh victory at Nowshera in 1823, Ranjit Singh left Peshawar to Yar Muhammad Khan and his brothers, the Barakzai half-brothers of Dost Muhammad Khan of Kabul, in return for tribute and horses. They wavered during Syed Ahmad’s war and were never trusted. In 1834, with Shah Shuja marching against Kandahar and Kabul distracted, Ranjit Singh sent Hari Singh Nalwa with his grandson Nau Nihal Singh to take the city under direct rule.

02The city taken

The Sikh army reached Peshawar in early May. The Barakzai sardars came out to resist, but after brief fighting they fell back towards the Khyber, and on 6 May 1834 the city was occupied. Charles Masson, a deserter-turned-traveller, was in Peshawar and left an eyewitness account. Hari Singh Nalwa was made governor and began building the fort of Jamrud at the mouth of the Khyber. Dost Muhammad Khan, now at war with Lahore over the city, would try to win it back in 1835 and 1837.

Person · 1780–1839 CE; Maharaja 1801–1839Maharaja Ranjit SinghA misl chief’s son who lost an eye to smallpox as a child, Ranjit Singh took Lahore in 1799 and made one kingdom out of the Punjab, Multan, Kashmir and Peshawar. He covered the Harmandir Sahib in gilded copper and held the Khyber against the Afghans for forty years.Read →