Mouths of the Indus River

Individual sites of humans existing on the Indus river has existed even during the Late Stone age, roughly around some 50,000 years ago. But the major settlement occurred during the well-known Indus Valley Civilization, roughly about 5,000 years ago from now. Almost all the prehistoric era sites around the Indus River is in today's Pakistan with a few scattered in the northwest Indian regions. Even if we exclude the famous Mohenjo-Daro and Harappa sites, much south of these were pastoral communities around Amri and Wahi Pandhi sites, in today's Sindh, Pakistan. A more dense cluster of civilization could also be found around the Mouths of the Indus between 2100 - 1600 BC and the settlements boomed severely during the post-Harappan period between 1750 - 900 BC, particularly to the west of Indus, in the Makran region of Balochistan. 

Moving on to the era of Ramayana and Mahabharata, the territory of Sindh was mentioned as Sauvira and the Mouths of the Indus could be denoted by Sindhusagara Sangam since the river has been mentioned as Sindhu. A more prominent kingdom marked around this region would be that of Patala, a name that has been mentioned even on 19th-century maps. A township of Varana is also mentioned in ancient Hindu scriptures, whose location would be around today's Karachi neighbourhood. Even during Alexander's campaign, it is said that he had built a harbour at Patala or how the Greeks would pronounce it as Patalene. During the 5th-4th centuries BC, when the Mediterranean was dominated by Greek city-states when the entire West Asian belt was under the Achaemenid Empire, the Sindhu river would drain down through the kingdom of Sindhu Vaktra (सिंधु वक्त्र) or Sindhu Janpad (सिंधु जनपद) or Pare Sindhu (पारे सिंधु). It would also pass through settlements of Sarkara, Rauruka and Brahmanaka (today's Bahmanabad or Brahmanabad referring to Mansura region around Hyderabad city of Sindh). 

When the Greeks marched in, they identified this region with two names - Krokola and Prasiana and it is this period when they mentioned the Sindh territory as Indos - the origin of the word India, Hind, Hindustan, etc. They would also mention a town named Bibakta, referring to today's Manora Point, Karachi. Interestingly, the Greeks also identified indigenous tribes such as Arabitai, Samarabriai, Singai, Sarophages, Megaroi, Sambrakenoi and Noboundai with Sindh. The region was also a base for Chandragupta Maurya's early conquests and the settlement of Patala is also known during this period. Ancient Greeks during this time would mention the Mouths of Indus as Sinus Canthi. The present boundary of Sindh also marked the westernmost border of the Mauryas under Chandragupta Maurya around 305 BC. All throughout the post-Mauryan era, the kingdom has been denoted by the name Sauvira or Sindhu (interchangeably) which existed till the 6th century AD. 

With the birth of Islam in the 7th century AD and its rapid rise throughout African and Asian countries, Sindh would see the first Arab influence between 711 to 713 AD when the Hindu king Chach of Aror (today's Rohri, Sindh) went into conflict with Muhammad Ibn Qasim, marking the first Islamic campaign on the Indian subcontinent. Although the region was conquered by Islamic powers, a certain clan of Guhilas still maintained their independence despite the constant oppression of surrounding kingdoms. While the Ghaznavids were occupied with their north Indian campaigns, at this time Sindh bordered the Quzdar Kingdom to its west and the Maru or Marwar territory to the east. 

During the Islamic period, an extremely important port of Tatta (written today as Thatta) served as the capital of Sindh throughout the medieval period. Debal (near Karachi) and Mansura were other important townships around the Indus River during this era. Interestingly, even though the region was under Islamic shadows, between the 8th to 12th centuries, Buddhist and Shaivite remains were found at Debal. There were constant skirmishes between the Ghurids and Mamluks for independence, in which the former were defeated in 1228. 

During the reigns of Khaljis and Tughlaqs, Sindh was an amalgamation of Hindu and Muslim rulers with dynasties such as Samma (1336 - 1524) which, although were subjugated by the Tughlaqs, achieved their independence in 1388. New settlements such as Muhammad Tūr, Sonda, Sehwan, Lārī Bandar etc. could be found during this period. Sonda is also the place where Muhammad bin Tughlaq died in 1351. These locations are around Thatta city in today's context. 

In the 16th century, the independence of Sindh was tossed again and the Arghun Dynasty defeated the Sammas between 1518 - 1522. Interestingly, the Arghuns were descendants of the Mongol fragmentation of Ilkhanate (Hülegü Ulus), spread between Turkey to Balochistan during the 13th and 14th centuries. Roughly 20 years from this period, another Sindhi town of Umarkot would be the birthplace of the third Mughal Emperor, Jalal-ud-din Muhammad Akbar, who ruled between 1556 to 1605. This was also the time when the Portuguese had exposed the Arabian Sea for trade and commerce and were in constant conflict with the Ottomans, the Omani Sultanates and the Gujarati Sultanates, all for dominating the sea power. And it was also during this period when in 1324 the famous Islamic saint Usman Shah Marwandi (popularly known as Lal Shahbaz Qalandar) was born at Sehwan, on the banks of Indus. With the reign of Akbar, the name Sindh would be now known as a sub-province of Tatta under the Subah of Multan that extended from the Pakistani coast to the Punjab region in the north. 

During this period when the European knowledge of the non-European world was improving, medieval maps would mention the terms such as Siduʃtan (to be pronounced as Sidustan) and Sindu to denote this territory. Another important port of Lari Bunder (or Laharibandar), the predecessor to today's Karachi, is known to the Europeans as one of the important trade centres, connecting Kandahar and Kabul in Afghanistan. When the European powers were establishing their trade posts on the western and eastern coast of India, Sindh (and entire Pakistan) was untouched by early Europeans, although sea-routes did connect Laharibunder to Surat, a major trading centre and a favourite choice of almost every European during the 17th century. 

During the 18th century, the Kalhora Dynasty of Sindh along with Las Bela and the Ahmadzais of Makran were made vassals to the Mughals in 1739, followed by Persians and Afghans respectively. During the Afghan period, Sindh remained vassalage under the confederacy of Talpur Mirs, whose capital is now the city of Hyderabad. The origin of both the Indian and Pakistani cities of Hyderabad could be traced to a common notion that it was named after the 7th century Caliph, the son-in-law of Prophet Muhammad, Ali ibn Abi Talib. However, the development of these Hyderabads has nothing significant in common. 

With the establishment of the British dominance in the subcontinent and the speedy annexations of territories to form the British Raj, Sind (as its spelt during this time) would be untouched till the early 19th century. On approaching the 1840s, when territories such as Punjab, Oudh (Awadh), Pegu (in Myanmar), Nagpur and Satara were being acquired by the British through confiscation, Sind was added to the list as well. The Talpur Mirs were defeated by the British in various battles fought at Hyderabad, Umarkot, Mirpur Khas and the new harbour of Karachi, Sind was now annexed to the Bombay Presidency in 1843 and remained so till 1936, when it was separated out as Sind Province. Focusing only on the coastal area, the Sind division was divided into three districts - Kurrachee (Karachi), Haidarabad (Hyderabad) and Thar-Parkar. The frontiers of Sind would now touch Beloochistan (Balochistan) to the west and Marwar or Joudpore (Jodhpur) to its east, while the Rann of Cutch (Kachchh) and the Cutch division to its south. 

The new harbour of Karachi (written on older maps as Curachee) would now be rapidly developing in the 19th century to connect Surat, Bombay and other major ports on the western Indian coast with the West Asian kingdoms of Omani Sultanate and others. During the Indian Independence War of 1857, Karachi was one of those posts where Indian troops were disarmed, although the entire Sind was untouched by the rebellion. In the late 19th century, the neighbouring kingdoms of Balochistan, Makran and Kalat were acquired by the British, thus marking the westernmost boundary of British India, which today is part of Pakistan. By the start of the 20th century, Sind (written as Scinde or Sinde) and the entire coastal area would be heavily populated with numerous settlements. 

The 20th century was the era of the independence movement in British India and a crucial event took place in Karachi in 1946, known as the Royal Indian Navy Mutiny, that majorly initiated from Bombay but soon spread across all the major ports of the then undivided India. Karachi would harbour ships such as HMIS (His Majesty's Indian Ship) Bahadur, Dilawar, Himalaya, Monze and Chamak which would also serve as naval bases during the Second World War. 

Soon after independence, Sind becomes part of Pakistan. The Princely State of Khairpur joins the same year, but the neighbouring State of Las Bela annexed in 1948. Karachi was made the capital of Pakistan in July 1948 and remained so till 1961 when it was shifted to Rawalpindi in the north. The current capital of Pakistan, Islamabad, was established in the early 1960s, and since 1963 it has remained so. During the partition of 1947, unlike the bloodbath that took place in Bengal and Punjab, Sind was relatively peaceful as even before the partition, the Hindus and Muslims rarely created a furore and lived mostly in harmony with each other for centuries. More likely because no district of Sind was partitioned, the only chaotic cases during 1947 were those of robberies, hooliganism but less bloody massacres, as compared to other regions. Also, unlike crossing the land borders between Punjab and Bengal, the Sindhi Hindus travelled by sea from Karachi and arrived at Indian ports of Bombay, Porbandar, Veraval and Okha. Even while crossing the land border into Rajasthan through trains and camels, there weren't many violent incidents either. 

Here's a recreation of a map of Mouths of the Indus dating 1816, originally drafted by the 18th-19th century English cartographer, Aaron Arrowsmith. The small harbour of Karachi is mentioned as Currachee.