and eventually led to the First Anglo-Burmese war in the early 19th century. The Konbaung occupation further fused state and religion. A sequence of kings began to see themselves as protectors of Buddhism and Buddhists, even those who eventually came under the control of Britain in Arakan. While this link between state and religion severed during the colonial period in Burma, it remained a critical aspect of the Burmese Buddhist nationalist movement. According to Francis Buchanan, a group called the Rooing existed in the northern Arakan region by the late 18th century although he referred to the natives as Mohammedans and Rakhing (Ibrahim, 2016). As mentioned above, tensions surrounding the annexation of Arakan were the impetus for the 1824 Anglo-Burmese war. After two years, the Treaty of Yandabo was signed which ended the conflict. According to the treaty, the Konbaung throne ceded to British India the states of Manipur, Assam, Tenasserim, and Arakan as well as paying indemnity and allowing for diplomatic relations to be established between the Ava court and Britain (Aung, 1967). Despite the Yandabo peace agreement, fighting did not stop between the two domains, and in 1852 a second Anglo-Burmese war erupted. Britain was victorious once again, this time annexing the remainder of lower Burma. This move left the Konbaung dynasty isolated from the rest of the world. The outbreak of the third Anglo-Burmese war in 1885 meant that the country’s days of independence were numbered. Lasting just less than a month, the war ended with Britain’s annexation of the remaining Burmese territory and the official incorporation of Burma into the British India colony. Almost immediately following the conclusion of the war, Britain formally divided the new colonial region into central “Ministerial Burma” and the outer “Frontier Areas” (Myint-U, 2006). This essentially split the country along 3