Chuck,

You are *almost* right on the Brits partitioning scheme. If you look at
some older maps of the area you can see that the borders were drawn in
such a way as to split the various groups and lump them together.

Then a local leader was installed up to hold the mess together. The
local divisions insured that said leader would be kept busy and never
present much of a threat.

The divide and conquer method of rule is much older than the British
Empire but they used it very skillfully.

Mark Browne