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.

The Pashtun or primarily Yusufzai migrations towards Northern India could be traced to their expulsion from Kandahar due to the Turko-Mongol invasions, who were subsequently resettled in Kabul, where they were again dispelled by the Timurids and forced to settle in Swat, where they assimilated the native Dardic and Tajik Dehqan population, who were collectively termed Yusufzais to the outside.

[29][30][page needed][31] Finally, a large number of newer Pashtun arrivals from the Northwest swelled their ranks, who were termed "Vilayati".

[35][page needed] His son Daud Khan gained a number of villages in the Katehr region by working for the Mughals and various Rajput Zamindars.

In late 1743, he try capture Almora, after which the king Kalyan Chand fled and sought the protection of the Raja of Garhwal, who forgave his previous mutual animosity and offered military support.

[38][need quotation to verify] Safdar Jang, the Nawab of Oudh,[39] warned the Mughal emperor Muhammad Shah[40] of the growing power of the Rohillas.

Most of his soldiers has already settled in the Katehar region during Nadir Shah's invasion of northern India in 1739 increasing the Rohilla population in the area to 100,000.

[43] The Marathas invaded Rohilkhand, and as the chiefs could offer no effective resistance, they fled to the Terai, whence they sought the aid of Shuja-ud-Daula of Awadh.

[citation needed] Qutb Khan Rohilla defeated and beheaded the Maratha general Dattaji at Burari Ghat.

[44][full citation needed] In the Third Battle of Panipat (1761) one of the Rohilla Sardars, Najib-ud-Daula, allied himself with Ahmad Shah Abdali[b] against the Marathas.

[citation needed] Shah Alam II held the captured the family of Zabita Khan and Maratha ruler Mahadji Shinde looted his fort and desecrated the grave of Najib ad-Dawlah.

[45] With the fleeing of the Rohillas, the rest of the country was burnt, with the exception of the city of Amroha, which was defended by some thousands of Amrohi Sayyid tribes.

Hafiz Rehmat, abhoring unnecessary violence unlike the outlook of his fellow Rohillas such as Ali Muhammad and Najib Khan, prided himself on his role as a political mediator and sought the alliance with Awadh to keep the Marathas out of Rohilkhand.

When Hafiz Rahmat Khan Barech was killed, in April 1774, Rohilla resistance crumbled, and Rohilkhand was annexed by the kingdom of Oudh.

[citation needed] From 1774 to 1799, the region was administered by Khwaja Almas Khan, a Jat Muslim convert from Hoshiarpur, Punjab,[51] as representative of the Awadh (Kingdom of Oudh) rulers.

[53] In 1799, the British East India Company annexed the territory, and started to pay a pension to the family of Hafiz Rahmat Khan.

[55][better source needed] The Qissa-o-Ahwal-i-Rohilla written by Rustam Ali Bijnori in 1776 provides an example of the refined Urdu prose of the Muslim Rohilla elite in Rohilkhand and Katehr.

He was a patron of education and began the collection of Arabic, Persian, Turkish and Hindustani manuscripts which are now housed in the Rampur Raza Library.

[citation needed] They were generally settled in villages, in many of which they own and cultivate the soil, and in some of which they formed large brotherhoods, approaching those of Jats and Rajputs, with a similar constitution.

[citation needed] Evidence from 1857 suggests that the survival of degrees of Pathan-derived lineage based identity in villagers of the old Rohilkhand districts.

Conditions improved after some years and migration from the North West Frontier Province and Afghanistan recommenced, adding to the Rohilla population.

During this period, the Rohillas were also effected by the reformist movement of Sir Syed Ahmed Khan, with many taking to modern education.

[citation needed] While a majority of Rohillas remained landowners and cultivators, a significant minority took to western education, and entered professions such as law and medicine.

They mainly live in Karachi, Hyderabad, Sukkur, Dera Ismail Khan, Pharpur, RangPur, Haripur, Abbottabad and other urban areas of Sindh.