Kharsawan

Kharsawan was the seat of a ruling family descended from the Singh chiefs of Porahat. Its lands lay among the wooded hills of Singhbhum, adjoining the estates of Seraikela and Porahat. Ho communities lived throughout this region, where the authority of hereditary chiefs and the autonomy of villages could come into conflict.

In 1793 the chief of Kharsawan, like his neighbour at Seraikela, was compelled to promise the East India Company that he would not shelter fugitives from its territories. In the 1830s Ho resistance and the wider Kol uprising brought Company forces into Singhbhum. After military operations in 1836–37, several Ho districts were detached from the neighbouring estates and placed under direct British administration as part of a new district called Kolhan.