Over the centuries, states formed and dissolved. Most of them were local but occasionally the region spawned, or became incorporated into, larger ones. In the seventeenth century, the delta became one of the Mughals’ conquered dependencies, a source of large amounts of tax and loot. Thus, well before the British rose to power in Bengal in the mid-eighteenth century, the inhabitants had been accustomed to a mulcting administration dominated by foreign officials. The imprint of the Mughal period on Bangladeshi culture is still noticeable.