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Chahar Mongols

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

The Chahars were originally one of estates of Kublai Khan located around Jingzhao (now Xian). They moved from Shaanxi to southeastern region controlled by the Mongolia-based Northern Yuan Dynasty 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 Mongolian Khans.

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 Manchus 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.

Last update 20-06-2012

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