Chahar Mongols

Chahar Mongols

Regions with significant populations
China 299,000 (1987) [1]
Languages
Chakhar dialect of Mongolian
Religion
Tibetan Buddhism and Atheism
Related ethnic groups
Mongols, Mongols in China, Bortala Mongols and Dariganga Mongols

The Chahar (Mongol: Цахар) is a subgroup of the Mongol people that speak the Chahar dialect of Mongol language and predominantly live in southeastern Inner Mongolia.

The Chahars were originally one of estates of Kublai Khan located around Jingzhao (now Xi'an). They moved from Shaanxi to Southeastern Post-imperial Mongolia in the 15th century. The Chahar became a tümen of six tümen Mongols under Dayan Khan and were led by his successors, thus becoming personal appanage of the Khagans.

Oppressed by Altan Khan, the Chahars, led by Darayisung Gödeng Khan, moved eastward onto the Liao River in the middle of the 16th century. In the early 17th century Ligden Khan made an expedition to the west because of the Manchu pressure. When he died in Gansu on his way to Tibet, his son Ejei surrendered to the Manchu in 1635.

The Chahar royal family kept favorable relations with the Manchu imperial family until Makata gege, who was a daughter of Hong Taiji and married to the Chahar Mongol prince, died in 1663. When the Rebellion of the Three Feudatories erupted in 1673, the Chahar Mongol prince revolted against the Qing Dynasty. He was soon crushed and, as a result, the Chahar Mongols were reorganized into the Chahar Eight Banners and moved to around Zhangjiakou Hill. The Chahar Mongols did not belong to a league but were directly controlled by the Emperor. The Qing authority resettled part of them from suburbs of Hohhot and Dolonnur to Ili after the fall of the Zunghar Khanate in c. 1758. They were largely mixed with Ööled and Torguud of the region.

When Outer Mongolia declared its independence in 1911 from the Qing, 100 households under former vice-governor Sumya fled from Xinjiang via Russian border to Mongolia. They were resettled by the Khalkha in the west of Kyakhta. Sumiya and his Tsahars contributed to revolution of 1921. They are known as the Selenge's Tsahar since settled in Selenge.

See also

• Chahar, a province of China from 1912 to 1936.
• Mongols
• Ethnic Mongols in China
• Post-Imperial Mongolia
• Administrative divisions of Mongolia during Qing dynasty

References

1. ^ ethnologue.com information