According to James P. Sterba of The New York Times, Bhutto family traces its origins to Rajput warriors from the region now known as Rajasthan, India.[2] The family converted to Islam centuries ago and migrated southwest to the area near Larkana, in present-day Pakistan, along with their livestock.[2] Mitho Khan Bhutto, an ancestor of the family, was the first to settle in the region.[2] However, it was his descendant, Sardar Pirbuksh Bhutto, who expanded the family's landholdings.[2] As a tribal chief, Sardar Pirbuksh Bhutto accumulated around 40,000 acres of land through various means, including military conquests, land purchases, and by providing labor for British canal construction projects in return for land grants.[2]
According to another account by historian Stanley Wolpert, the Bhuttos originally migrated to Sindh in the early 18th century from the neighboring region of Gujratra (now Rajasthan in India). 'Sehto' was the first member of the Bhutto family, who converted to Islam during Mughal emperor Aurangzeb's reign. Following the conversion to Islam he took the title of Khan, becoming Sehto Khan.[3] In Sindh, the Bhuttos under Sehto Khan first settled at Ratodero, a few miles north of Larkana.
Shah Nawaz Bhutto, a direct descendant of Sehto Khan, came to prominence during the British Raj as a dewan of the princely state of Junagadh in the southwestern part of Gujarat in India. During the Partition of India in 1947, the Muslim Nawab of Junagarh wanted to accede his state to the newly created Pakistan but faced a rebellion by the Hindu majority population of Junagadh. The Indian government thwarted the accession to Pakistan, and the Bhuttos had to flee to Sindh in modern-day Pakistan. Shah Nawaz Bhutto moved to Larkana District in Sindh, where his land-ownership made him one of the wealthiest and most influential persons in Sindh.[4]
^Taseer, Salmaan (1980). Bhutto: a political biography(PDF). New Delhi: Vikas Pub. House. p. 9. Archived from the original(PDF) on 5 April 2020. Retrieved 19 August 2015.
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