Most of present-day Pakistan had been under independent rulers at the start of the nineteenth century.

Sindh is ruled by the Muslim Talpur mirs (chiefs) in three small states that are annexed by the British in 1843.

In the Punjab, the decline of the Mughal Empire had allowed the rise of the Sikhs, first as a military force and later as a political administration in Lahore.

The kingdom of Lahore is at its most powerful and expansive during the rule of Maharaja Ranjit Singh, who has extended Sikh control has been beyond Peshawar, and had added Kashmir to his dominions in 1819.

After Ranjit Singh's death in 1839, political conditions in the Punjab have deteriorated, and the British fight two wars with the Sikhs.

The second of these wars, in 1849, sees the annexation of the Punjab, including the present-day North-West Frontier Province, to the company's territories.

Kashmir is transferred by sale in the Treaty of Amritsar in 1850 to the Dogra Dynasty, which will rule the area under British paramountcy until 1947.