Kingdom of Nagpur

The Kingdom of Nagpur emerged in the eighteenth century from the Gond kingdom of Deogarh in central India. Its capital, Nagpur, had been founded by Bakht Buland Shah, a Gond ruler who encouraged artisans and cultivators to settle the surrounding plains. After the death of Chand Sultan in 1739, a disputed succession drew in Raghuji Bhonsle, a Maratha commander from Berar. He intervened on behalf of the late king's sons, but soon made himself the real power behind the throne and absorbed the Gond realm into the Maratha confederacy. Under the Bhonsle dynasty Nagpur became a major Maratha state, its armies campaigning across central India and into Bengal and Odisha. The kingdom was defeated by the British in the Third Anglo-Maratha War and became a princely state in 1818. It was annexed in 1853 after the death of the last ruler without a male heir, and its territories were reorganised as Nagpur Province.