Stipendiary chief
Topic: Peasant and Tribal Resistance under Company Rule · NCERT: Class 12, Ch 1 "Colonialism and the Countryside"
Meaning
A stipendiary chief was a Paharia chief who accepted a regular allowance (stipend) from the Company. This happened under Augustus Cleveland's pacification policy of the 1780s in the Rajmahal hills. In return for the money, the chief had to keep his people in order. His own people stopped seeing him as their leader and saw him as a paid servant of the colonial government. The term shows how British payments could destroy traditional leadership from inside.
Example
In the 1780s some Paharia chiefs took Cleveland's annual allowance and lost authority in their community as a result. Many other chiefs refused it, and the Paharias withdrew deeper into the hills and stayed hostile to outsiders.
Don't confuse with
- Zamindar: a landholder on the plains who collected revenue from land. Plains zamindars had once paid tribute to Paharia chiefs to keep the peace. The stipendiary chief worked the other way round: he was paid by the Company.
Related concepts
- Paharia
- Rajmahal hills
- Shifting cultivation
- Augustus Cleveland
- Paharia pacification policy
- William Hodges
- Aquatint
- Picturesque