The Sikh conquest of Kashmir was completed in 1819 under Misr Diwan Chand, after an earlier attempt in 1814 had failed on the passes. The valley had been under Afghan governors since 1753 and their administration is described in Kashmiri sources as the worst in the valley's memory.
Sikh rule lasted twenty-seven years, to 1846. It is not remembered kindly in Kashmir either. The shawl trade was taxed heavily, the Jama Masjid at Srinagar was closed for a period, and a famine in the 1830s was severely handled.
The valley was sold to Gulab Singh in March 1846 under the Treaty of Amritsar for seventy-five lakh rupees, in a transaction between the British and the Dogra ruler with the Kashmiris as the object of sale.
Punjab held Kashmir for a generation, and the connection is visible in the shawl weavers who settled at Amritsar, Nurpur and Ludhiana and gave those towns their wool industry.
The Kashmiri Muslim migration into Punjab's cities in the nineteenth century is one of the least examined population movements in the region.
The Sikh army crossed the Pir Panjal in 1819 and took Kashmir from its Afghan governor, and the valley was held from Lahore for twenty-seven years.
The administration was extractive. The shawl trade was taxed heavily and the accounts of the period, including European travellers', describe a declining and impoverished valley.
In 1846 the territory was transferred to Gulab Singh under the Treaty of Amritsar. Kashmir passed from one Punjab based power to another by a payment recorded in a treaty.