Date: Wed, 6 Jan 1999 09:43:17 -0800
Sender: H-Net list for Asian History and Culture <H-ASIA@H-NET.MSU.EDU>
From: Richard White <richard.white@dial.pipex.com>
Subject: H-ASIA: Lu Shai British Expedition (c. 1889)
To: H-ASIA@H-NET.MSU.EDU

Lu Shai British Expedition (c. 1889)

By Geoff Wade <gwade@hkucc.hku.hk> 6 January 1999

Lu Shai (also an ethnonym Lushai, Lu-shay) must refer to the Lushai Hills in today's northern Myanmar. They are located to the south of Manipur, to the east of the Chittagong Hill Tracts, and to the north of northern Arakan. The Hills, which extend across the modern Mizoram/Myanmar border, form part of what are more often known as the Chin Hills. The wars there in the 1880/90s were of great significance in the expansion of British Burma.

The first British armed forces were despatched against "the Siyins" in 1888, and "all of the villages of the Siyins were destroyed and much of their grain was taken and rendered useless". Then in 1889-90, another British force was despatched against "the Tashons" resident in villages named Haka and Falam. (This is likely the expedition Zhu Pingchao refers to). The British forces captured Haka in February and Falam in March 1890, and subsequently established a post and a political officer at Haka. Thence followed gradual attrition against the existing political structures, and imposition of some sort of British hegemony.

For a very British account of the invasion/war (whereby "expeditions against the Chins were forced upon us by the tribesmen"), see J. George Scott and J.P. Hardiman, _Gazeteer of Upper Burma and the Shan States_ (Rangoon, 1900), Vol 1, pp. 441-473.