VARIATIONS IN TRIBAL EXPLOITATION 43
Shahade taluka which broadens into a strip of extremely fertile plain of about 15 to 20 miles in width at its broadest. In the north of the Shahade and Talode talukas, the plains end with the steep rise of the Satpuda mountains which form ridge after ridge of rising mountains. Most of the parts of Akkalkuwa taluka which bounds the Talode taluka on the west is taken up by the Satpudas with a relatively narrow strip of the north-west basin included in its southern region. The Nandurbar taluka lies to the south of the Tapi. Here the plains end with a slow rise and increasingly rocky soil to end into the Sahyadri and Galna hills in the south-west. The Nawapur taluka which bounds Nandurbar taluka to the west lies entirely in this slow rise with a sparse forest covering a large part.
European travellers in the l6th century had described Khandesh as a rich and well peopled country yielding great abundance of grain, cotton wool and sugar with a big market for dry fruits. The husbandmen described by them were the Kunbis, the Bhils and the Gond Adivasis as the main class of cultivators.1 Contemporary Moghul records showed that the area north of the Tapi (comprising the Shahde-Taloda region today) was exclusively peopled and tilled by the Adivasi tribal population settled on land2, and ruled by the Moghuls through Rajput, Muslim as well as Maratha feudatories alongside the Adivasi chieftains.3
It is however relevent to point out that the prosperity of the region, indicated also by the high revenues of some talukas,4 was not predicated on the production of Adivasi cultivated lands. It was the crucial position of Khandesh on trade routes and the production of non-Adivasi cultivators on the fertile plains that contributed to the prosperity of the region. The importance of Khandesh as a nodal point in the trade-route in fact antedated Mughal rule. But it was during the relative administrative peace following Moghul sovereignty that Khandesh's towns became important links in the trade both within and without the country,6 forming as they did the confluence of the north-south trade along the Agra road and the east-west through Nandurbar. Adivasi existence formed a relatively autonomous enclave in the region tolerated in times of peace and stable trade movements.
But not for long ; for the very strategic position of Khandesh on the trade routes turned into the basis both for the ruin of Khandesh on the trade routes turned into the basis both for the ruin of Khandesh's prosperity and the oppression of the local peasantry—including the hitherto isolated Adivasis.6 Internecine wars between the Moghuls and Marathas and then amongst the latter feudatories had two principal effects on the local peasantry. The non-Adivasi peasantry both in the wake of, and anticipating, attacks on their property, emigrated from the area, relieved of not merely loss lo life, but the whole gamut of vexatious taxes imposed on them, consequent to the 'farming5 system practised by the Marathas. The Adivasi peasantry having no other 'homeland9 to flee to, turned