The Treaty of Amritsar was signed on this day between the British East India Company and Maharaja Ranjit Singh, the head of the Sikh kingdom. The British wanted to secure Ranjit Singh’s help in the case of a French invasion, following Napoleon’s Treaty of Tilsit with Russia in 1807, which made France and Russia allies. Ranjit Singh wanted to spread his dominion south of the Sutlej river and unite all Sikhs, including the Malwa Sikhs who lived between the Sutlej and Yamuna rivers.
Later, when it was unlikely that Napoleon would attack India, the British East India Company changed its policy as it did not need Singh’s support and more or less established the Sutlej as the border for him, preventing his expansion south of the river. But his power north of Sutlej remained unchallenged. The British subjugated the Sikh Empire in 1849, 10 years after his death.