Page:The Imperial Gazetteer of India - Volume 2 (2nd edition).pdf/71

 BANGALORE Sivaji finally

his brother

DISTRICT.

6i

withdrew to his native hills near Puna (Poona), leaving undisputed possession of the southern dominions of

in

Shahji.

Meanwhile the Wadeyars of Mysore, the ancestors of the existing family, were rising to power. In i6io they had gained possession of Seringapatam, and in 1654 the Gauda chief of Magadi was rendered tributary to them. The distant authority of Venkoji, who had not inherited the military instincts of his family, appears to have been merely nominal; and in 1687 he offered to sell his rights over Bangalore to the more warlike Raja of Mysore, for three lakhs of rupees (^3o,ooo). This transaction was interrupted by the arrival of Kasim Khan, a general of Aurangzeb, who occupied the fortress for a few days, but ultimately consented to hand it over to the Mysore Thus, in Raja, on the same terms that had been offered by Venkoji. July 1687, Bangalore became a part of the kingdom of Mysore, but royal

the entire

District

was not

representatives of the

Gauda

subjected line

still

sixty

till

years

lingered at Magadi,

possession of the fortress of Savandrug, while another

same family ruled at Devanhalli. were taken, and Devanhalli fell in

later.

The

and retained

member

of the

In 1728 Magadi and Savandrug

It was in the siege of the 1 749. town that Haidar Ali first distinguished himself as a volunteer horseman in the Mysore service, and it was at the same spot that his son and successor, Tipu, was afterwards born. In reward for his valour, Haidar Ali was presented in 1758 with the fort and District of Bangalore, which thus formed the original nucleus of his wide empire and both Bangalore and Devanhalli were always natural objects of solicitude to himself and his son. In 1791, Bangalore was captured from Tipu, by the British under Lord Cornwallis, without much opposition the other strong places surrendered, and the rock-fortress of Savandrug was stormed after five days’ bombardment. On the capture of Seringapatam and death of Tipu, in 1799, the District was included by the treaty of Seringapatam within the territory of the restored Hindu Raja of Mysore. In 1811, owing to the excessive unhealthiness of Seringapatam, the British troops were removed to the town of Bangalore, which has henceforth continued to be the administrative capital of the State, where a palace has been built for the Maharaja, who divides his time between Bangalore and Mysore. Under the Native government. Bangalore and Kolar Districts constituted the faujddn of Bangalore, which was subsequently termed the Bangalore Division, until the formation of the Nandidrug (Nundydroog) Division in 1863, when the name of Bangalore was confined to the District. Bangalore formed the head-quarters District of the British administration of Mysore from the time when we took charge of the State in 1831, until its rendition to the Maharaja of Mysore in 1881.

latter