Bombay Presidency - Residencies

Residencies

Outside the Presidency, numerous small states princely states such as those of Kathiawar and Mahikantha came under British suzerainty in a system of subsidiary alliances between 1807 and 1820.

The native states eventually comprised some 353 separate units, administered internally by their own princes, with the British responsible for their external affairs. Relations between British India and the states were managed by British agents placed at the principal native capitals; their exact status varied in the different states according to the relations in which the principalities stood with the paramount power.

The principal groups of states were North Gujarat, comprising Cutch, Kathiawar Agency, Palanpur Agency, Mahi Kantha Agency, Ambliara Rewa Kantha Agency and Cambay; South Gujarat, comprising Dharampur, Bansda and Sachin; North Konkan, Nasik and Khandesh, comprising Khandesh political agency, Surgana and Jawhar; South Konkan and Dharwar, comprising Janjira, Sawantwadi and Savanur; the Deccan Satara Jagirs, comprising Ichalkaranji, Sangli Akkalkot, Bhor, Aundh, Phaltan, Jath and Daphalapur; the southern Maratha states, comprising Kolhapur and other states, and Khairpur in Sind. The native states under the "supervision" of the government of Bombay were divided, historically and geographically, into two main groups. The northern or Gujarat group includes the territories of the Gaekwad of Baroda, with the smaller states which form the administrative divisions of Kutch, Palanpur, Rewa Kantha, and Mahi Kantha. These territories, with the exception of Cutch, have a historical connection, as being the allies or tributaries of the Gaekwad until 1805, when final engagements were included between that prince and the British government. The southern or Maratha group includes Kolhapur, Akalkot, Sawantwari, and the Satara and southern Mahratta Jagirs, and has a historical bond of union in the friendship they showed to the British in their final struggle with the power of the peshwa until 1818. The remaining territories may conveniently be divided into a small cluster of independent zamindaris, situated in the wild and hilly tracts at the northern extremity of the Sahyadri range, and certain. principalities which, from their history or geographical position, are to some extent isolated from the rest of the presidency.

Baroda (Vadodara, Hindi: वडोदरा), one of the residencies of British India, was combined in the 1930s with the residencies of the princely states of the northern Bombay Presidency to form the "Baroda, Western States and Gujarat Agency".