Rohillas are an Indian community of Pashtun ancestry, historically found in Rohilkhand, a region in the state of Uttar Pradesh, India. It forms the largest Pashtun diaspora community in India, and has given its name to the Rohilkhand region. The Rohilla military chiefs settled in this region of northern India in the 1720s, the first of whom was Daud Khan. The Rohillas are found all over Uttar Pradesh, but are more concentrated in the Rohilkhand regions of Bareilly and Moradabad divisions. Between 1838 and 1916, some Rohillas migrated to Guyana, Suriname and Trinidad and Tobago in the Caribbean region of the Americas in which they form a subset of the Muslim minority of the Indo-Caribbean ethnic group. After the 1947 Partition of India, many of the Rohillas migrated to Karachi, Pakistan as a part of the Muhajir community. Origin The term Rohilla first became common in the 17th century. Rohilla was used to refer to the people coming from the land of Roh. Roh was originally a geographical term which corresponded with, in its limited sense, the territory stretching from Swat and Bajaur in the north to Sibi in the south, and from Hasan Abdal (Attock) in the east to Kabul and Kandahar in the west. Roh was the homeland of the Pashtuns, in the southern foothills of the Hindu Kush. Historically, the region of Roh has also been called "Pashtunkhwa" and "Afghanistan". Pashtuns especially the Mandarr Yousafzai tribe living in this valley were also known as Rohillas when they settled the area then known as Katehr. It later became known as Rohilkhand which means the land of the Rohillas. A majority of Rohillas migrated from Pashtunistan to North India between the 17th and 18th century. History Early history The founder of the state of Rohilkhand was an Indian Muslim convert named Ali Muhammad Khan, the adoptive son of Daud Khan Rohilla. The first immigrant to the Katehr region was Shah Alam Khan, who had settled in Katehr in 1673 and had brought along a band of his tribe, the Barech. His son Daud Khan gained a number of villages in the Katehr region in the then northern India by Mughal emperor Aurangzeb (ruled 1658–1707) to suppress Rajput uprisings, which had afflicted this region. Originally, some 20,000 soldiers from various Pashtun tribes such as (Yusafzai, Ghori, Ghilzai, Barech, Marwat, Durrani, Tareen, Kakar, Naghar, Afridi, Bangash and Khattak) were hired by