The Great Mutiny: India 1857 (London: Penguin, 1978);House of Commons. In one sense, this was not surprising; since India had a large and settled British population, there were more women and children around for the rebels to kill. There was also a general feeling that English officers were losing touch with the Indian troops under them. Rumors spread with great rapidity before and during the mutinynot least because of the large number of British women and children at the mercy of the rebels in towns such as Delhi and Kanpur. [14], The pay of the sepoy was relatively low and after Awadh and the Punjab were annexed, the soldiers no longer received extra pay (batta or bhatta) if posted there, because this was no longer considered "foreign service". His unit in the Bengal Army, which had refused to use the new rifle cartridges, was about to be disarmed and punished. The chupatty movement first came to British attention early in February 1857. Thereafter he headed the National Mineral Water Company in Muscat, Oman. The revolt began on May 10, 1857, at Meerut as a sepoy mutiny. The greased cartridge - what was it all about? [16], At the beginning of the nineteenth century, British officers were generally closely involved with their troops, speaking Indian languages fluently; participating in local culture through such practices as having regimental flags and weapons blessed by Brahman priests; and frequently having native mistresses. It is not known who first projected the plan. The British, who had nothing to do with the mysterious transmission, guessed the breads were a piece of mischief-making on the part of the Indians, though opinion was divided as to whether the breads came from the east, near Calcutta (Kolkata), from the north, in the province of Oude (Avadh) or from Indore, in the center of the country. British officials were alarmed at the rapid distribution of mysterious Indian breads across much of the Raj, There is a most mysterious affair going on throughout the whole of India at present, Dr. Gilbert Hadow wrote in a letter to his sister in Britain in March 1857. please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. They shot the British officers and made for Delhi, 40 miles (65 km) distant, where there were no British troops. It began on a point of caste pollution; its leaders were traditionalists who looked to reviving the past, while the small new Westernized class actively supported the British. The effective Indian artillery, except for a few mountain batteries, was abolished, while the Brahmans and Rajputs of Avadh were reduced in favour of other groups. "The Sepoy Mutiny of 1857." The first sepoy who rebelled by aiming his loaded weapon at a British officer was Mangal Pandey who was later executed.[25]. Thousands of entirely blameless Indians who found themselves caught up in the hysterical aftermath of the rebellion were flogged, or blown from cannon, or forced to clean bloodied paving stones using only their tongues before being summarily hanged. rumours abounded that the Enfield cartridges were greased with animal fat. The grease used was tallow, probably containing both cow and pig fat. Throughout May and June 1857 more units of Indian troops mutinied against the British. [7] Several years before the sepoys' mutiny, Lord William Bentinck had attacked several jagirs in western Bengal. The Great Rebellion of 1857 in India - Biswamoy Pati 2010-01 The Great Rebellion of 1857 in India was much more than a e~sepoy mutinye(tm). The Greased Cartridge: The Heroes and Villains of 1857-58, Rezensionen werden nicht berprft, Google sucht jedoch gezielt nach geflschten Inhalten und entfernt diese. It was generally believed, in retrospect, that the circulation of the breads had been a warning of trouble ahead, and that the wave of chapatis must have been set in motion by a cunning group of determined conspirators who had begun plotting the rising months, if not years, in advance. Then the bullet had to be rammed down the rifled barrel. History of the Siege of Delhi (Edinburgh: A&C Black, 1861);John Kaye. ), Find out more about saving to your Kindle, Book: The Mutiny Outbreak at Meerut in 1857, Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511563386.003. Did an Ancient Magnetic Field Reversal Cause Chaos for Life on Earth 42,000 Years Ago? These are deep waters that we trawl in, and dangerous ones, too. The rebels were . Saul, David (2003), page 294 "The Indian Mutiny", Penguin Books. Along with the previously mentioned illustration in Ballou's Pictorial, numerous American newspapers published accounts of the violence in India. Further, the British were becoming increasingly hostile toward traditional survivals and contemptuous of most things Indian. KoboE. The surrender of Kanpur, after a relatively brief siege, was followed by a massacre of virtually all British citizens and loyal Indian soldiers at Kanpur. The Revolt of 1857 eventually broke out over the incident of greased cartridges. Under a British policy called the "doctrine of lapse," the East India Company would take control of Indian states in which a local ruler had died without an heir. However, nearly every sepoy was either Muslima religion that forbids eating the fat or any other part of a pig, or Hinduwhere the same rule applies to cows. The particular reason, the greased cartridges for the Enfield rifles, was a mistake rectified as soon as it was discovered; but the fact that explanations and reissues could not quell the soldiers suspicions suggests that the troops were already disturbed by other causes. Vital though their Indian empire was to them, they controlled the subcontinent with a comparative handful of menabout 100,000 in all, less than half of whom were soldiers, ruling over a population of 250 millionand they were all too aware of just how inadequate these numbers would be in the event of any serious rebellion. But the wars against the Afghans and the Sikhs and then the annexations of Dalhousie alarmed and outraged them. Richard Barter. Such measures were considered a valid negotiating tactic by the sepoys, likely to be repeated every time such issues arose. Though paid marginally less than the Bombay and Madras Presidency troops, there was a tradition of trust between the soldiery and the establishment the soldiers felt needed and that the company would care for their welfare. The dramatic capture of Delhi turned mutiny into full-scale revolt. Terms of Use Some currents simply ran cold, while others moved in parallel, or paused before continuing. Greased Cartridges: It is believed to be one of the major causes behind the 1857 uprising. Sepoys were forced to watch such displays as it was believed it set an example of the horrific death that awaited mutineers. Host of Midian: the chapati circulation and the Indian Revolt of 1857-58. Studies in History 16 (2000);Christopher Hibbert. Books and articles about the bloody fighting and heroic deeds by British officers and men were published for decades in London. As time passed, the powers of the commanding officers reduced and the government became more unfeeling or distant from the concerns of the sepoys. From Delhi the revolt spread in June to Kanpur (Cawnpore) and Lucknow. A New Type of Rifle Cartridge Caused Problems, The Indian Revolt of 1857 Brought the End of the East India Company. One common punishment was to tie mutineers to the mouth of a cannon and then fire the cannon, completely obliterating the victim. 'In England, almost every child is aware that, with a smooth bored gun, no grease of any kind is required to ensure the proper loading of it, whilst with a rifle-bored piece such is necessary.' So writes Mrs Peile, one of those who escaped from Delhi on 11 May 1857. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings. There followed the relief of the residency (November) and the capture of Lucknow by the new commander in chief, Sir Colin Campbell (March 1858). Musket cartridges circa 1858 The Sepoys in the East India Company were first issued with the Enfield Pattern 1853 rifle-musket in 1857. The immediate cause of military disaffection was the deployment of the new breech-loading Enfield rifle, the cartridge of which was purportedly greased with pork and beef fat. Once the first rebellions took place, it was clear to most British commanders that the grievances which led to them were felt throughout the Bengal army and no Indian unit could wholly be trusted, although many officers continued to vouch for their men's loyalty, even in the face of captured correspondence indicating their intention to rebel. In addition, the General Service Enlistment Act of 1856 required recruits to serve overseas if ordered, a challenge to the castes who composed so much of the Bengal army. With the British recovery of Gwalior (June 20, 1858), the revolt was virtually over. Render date: 2023-03-01T21:49:14.745Z Fighting in some places continued well into 1858, but the British were ultimately able to establish control. At some point the chapattis passed beyond the limits of their meaningful transmission and simply continued through the country as a blank message. Outraged by events such as the massacre of women and children at Cawnpore, some British officers believed that hanging mutineers was too humane. } A rumour spread that the cartridges of the new Enfield rifles were greased with the fat of cows and pigs. I have the honour to inform you that a signal has passed through numbers of the villages in this district, the purport of which has not yet transpired. Whether the cartridge was unballed or balled, it was necessary, in loading a muzzle-loader, to open the end of the cartridge. As John Kaye wrote a few years later: Among other wild fables, which took firm hold of the popular mind, was one to the effect that the Companys officers had collected all the newly-manufactured salt, had divided it into two great heaps, and over one had sprinkled the blood of hogs, and over the other the blood of cows; that they had then sent it to be sold throughout the country of the pollution and desecration of the Mahommedans and Hindoos, that all might be brought to one caste and to one religion like the English. The army so far had been quipped with the smooth-barrelled musket, which had a protracted loading procedure and was not accurate over long ranges. British and Indian military drills of the time required soldiers to bite off the end of the Beeswax paper cartridge, pour the gunpowder contained within down the barrel, stuff the remaining paper cartridge into the barrel, ram the paper cartridge (which included the ball wrapped and tied in place) down the barrel, remove the ram-rod, return the ram-rod, bring the rifle to the ready, set the sights, add a percussion cap, present the rifle, and fire. Singhs coalitionits brief rise and fall, Congress government of P.V. As mutineers were captured, they were often killed on the spot, and many were executed in dramatic fashion. McNamara, Robert. The Revolt of 1857 started as a Mutiny of the sepoys. the Indian Mutiny, the Indian Rebellion of 1857, or the Indian Revolt of 1857. A rumor spread that the cartridges of the new Enfield rifles were greased with the fat of cows and pigs. A chowkidaran Indian village watchman. Ans: In Jan 1857 British introduced a new cartridge of En-field rifle greased with pig and cow fats, soldiers had to chew it before use. It was against this backdrop of uneasiness in which the mutiny erupted in 1857. Some of these units belonged to states allied to the British or recently absorbed into British-administered territory, and of these, two large contingents from the states of Awadh and Gwalior readily joined the growing rebellion. Following the fighting of 185758, India was legally considered a colony of Britain, ruled by a viceroy. What are the oldest known civilizations of India? Author Pramod Nayar points out that by 1851 there were nineteen Protestant religious societies operating in India whose goal was the conversion of Indians to Christianity. Thornhill came into his office one morning to find four dirty little cakes of the coarsest flour, about the size and thickness of a biscuit lying on his desk. In contrast to their Indian predecessors, the British considered such refusals at times to be outright "mutinies" and therefore to be suppressed brutally. Both Hindu and Muslim sepoys refused to use them. Mason, Philip (1974), page 225 "A Matter of Honour", London: Holt, Rhinehart & Winston. And the uprising became extremely violent. The whole episode falls into three periods: first came the summer of 1857, when the British, without reinforcements from home, fought with their backs to the wall; the second concerned the operations for the relief of Lucknow in the autumn; and the third was the successful campaign of Sir Colin Campbell (later Baron Clyde) and Sir Hugh Henry Rose (later Baron Strathnairn of Strathnairn and Jhansi) in the first half of 1858. The military cause was both particular and general. Large numbers of native soldiers, known as sepoys, were employed by the company to maintain order and defend trading centers. This took the form of Muslim millenarianism, with preachers in Lucknow foretelling the end of the raj. The Muslims had lost the large state of Avadh; the Marathas had lost Nagpur, Satara, and Jhansi. This would have insulted both Hindu and Muslim religious practices; cows were considered holy by Hindus, while pigs were considered unclean (Haram) by Muslims. the Sepoy Mutiny (by British Historians) No, it is not by any means a custom; I am 50 years old, and never heard of such a thing before. There was thus a suppressed tension in the countryside, ready to break out whenever governmental pressure might be reduced. It is not surprising that one of the many subsidiary rumors that accompanied the chupatty movement was that the breads were being carried and distributed, the eventual trial of the King of Delhi noted, by the hands of the very lowest caste men that can be found; and the natives say that it is intended by Government to force or bribe the headmen to eat the bread, and thus loose their caste. Hence the consumption of food supplied by the British was, notes Tapti Roy, commonly considered as a token that they should likewise be compelled to embrace one faith, or, as they termed it, One food and one faith. . The next phase was the central Indian campaign of Sir Hugh Rose. A number of Indians began to suspect that the British intended to convert the Indian population to Christianity. McNamara, Robert. The revolt is known by several names. The officers continued to be British, but they were more closely linked with their men. Mason, Philip (1974), pages 226-228 "A Matter of Honour", London: Holt, Rhinehart & Winston. Cookie Settings. Sepoy units in the south of India remained loyal, but in the north, many units of the Bengal Army turned on the British. They bore no message, and were identical to the breads cooked in every home in India, a staple part (even today) of the locals diet. Seen from a distance of 150 years, the chupatty movement can appear a quaint anomaly, a strange and colorful rumor of interest mostly to historians and psychologists. To be loaded, this cartridge had to be torn open so that the powder it contained could be poured down the barrel of the muzzle-loading gun; because the soldiers hands were full, this was done with the teeth. Mason, Philip (1974), pages 291-292 "A Matter of Honour", London: Holt, Rhinehart & Winston. A popular American illustrated magazine, "Ballou's Pictorial", published afull-page woodcutillustration showing the preparations for such an execution in its issue of October 3, 1857. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox. To load both the old musket and the new rifle, soldiers had to bite the cartridge open and pour the gunpowder it contained into the rifle's muzzle, then stuff the paper cartridge (overlaid with a thin mixture of beeswax and mutton tallow for waterproofing) into the musket as wadding, the ball being secured to the top of the cartridge and guided into place for ramming down the muzzle. [21], The Bengal Army also administered, sometimes loosely, 29 regiments of irregular horses and 42 of irregular infantry. But the spark was interestingly not so much of religious clashes, but the grease used in the new Enfield rifle. The sepoys' British officers dismissed these claims as rumors and suggested that the sepoys make a batch of fresh cartridges, using a religiously acceptable greasing agent such as ghee or vegetable oil. He also resumed the practice of tax-free lands in some areas. https://www.thoughtco.com/sepoy-mutiny-of-1857-1774014 (accessed March 1, 2023). Mason, Philip (1974), page 263 "A Matter of Honour", London: Holt, Rhinehart & Winston, Last edited on 28 September 2022, at 04:39, Details of the rifle issued as a result of the mutiny, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Causes_of_the_Indian_Rebellion_of_1857&oldid=1112793629, This page was last edited on 28 September 2022, at 04:39. Down-country operations centred on the relief of Lucknow. Some of the more knowledgeable British officials linked the spread of the chapatis to an effort to prevent the outbreak of cholera in central India and added that, since incidence of the disease was associated with the movement of the Companys armies, there was a widespread belief that the British were in fact responsible for the disease. Another official suggested that the chupatty movement had been initiated somewhere in central India by dyers, anxious that their dyes were not clearing properly, or were the product of some spellwork aimed at protecting crops against hail. The Revolt of 1857 in India eventually broke out over the incident of greased cartridges. The East India Company had been active in India for nearly 250 years, but the violence of the 1857 uprising led to the British government dissolving the company and taking direct control of India. As the East India Company annexed Indian states in the 1840s and 1850s, the Indian soldiers in the company's employ began to feel offended. [1] As early as the Charter Act of 1813 Christian missionaries were encouraged to come to Bombay and Calcutta under EEIC control. Wagner concludes that the trigger for the rebellion of 1857 was thus rumour, not the actual issue, or use, of cartridges greased with animal fat; that, in any case, we simply don't know what sort of tallow was used at Gangadarh Banerji & Co.; and that - remarkable as it now seems - the truth of the matter never was established, even by the In spite of their apparently desperate situation, the British possessed long-term advantages: they could and did receive reinforcements from Britain; they had, thanks to the resolution of Sir John Lawrence, a firm base in the Punjab, and they had another base in Bengal, where the people were quiet; they had virtually no anxiety in the south and only a little in the west; and they had an immense belief in themselves and their civilization, which gave resolution to their initial desperation. [6]. Proceedings of the Trial of Badahur Shah. In Accounts and Papers, East Indies, Session 3 February-19 April 1859, Parliamentary Papers XVIII of 1859;William Wotherspoon Ireland. . On May 9, 1857, some 4,000 British soldiers and sepoysnative Indian troopsformed a three-sided hollow square on the parade ground at the Meerut military cantonment, 40 miles northeast of Delhi, to witness punishment. It is however also possible to enclose within the paper container the bullet as well as the powder and the cartridge then becomes a balled cartridge. The rifle's cartridges contained 68 grains of FF black powder, and the ball was typically a 530-grain Pritchett or a Burton-Mini ball. The British had accentuated caste consciousness by careful regulations, had allowed discipline to grow lax, and had failed to maintain understanding between British officers and their men. 24 October 2009. Mangal Pandey was an Indian soldier who played an important role in incidents prior to the uprising of 1857, known by different names like the 'Indian Rebellion of 1857,' the 'Sepoy Mutiny' and 'India's First War of Independence.'. The powder and bullet for the new rifle were put together in a paper cartridge. The British military commander Sir James Outram thought it was a Muslim conspiracy, exploiting Hindu grievances. Or it might have been an aristocratic plot, set off too soon by the Meerut outbreak. To facilitate its passage, the cartridges were greased with tallow, which, in the U.K., was made of beef and pork fat. Advertising Notice The moment at which the sepoys' grievances led them openly to defy British authority also happened to be the most favorable opportunity to do so.[24]. The general factors that turned a military mutiny into a popular revolt can be comprehensively described under the heading of political, economic, social, and cultural Westernization. The . Before Smithsonian.com, Dash authored the award-winning blog A Blast From the Past. [11] If the caste of high-caste sepoys was considered to be "polluted", they would have to expend considerable sums of money on ritual purification before being accepted back into society. By the 1850s the East India Company controlled much of India. The greased cartridges had to be opened by biting off the top with your teeth. Some Indians were upset with the draconian rule of the Company who had embarked on a project of territorial expansion and westernization that was imposed without any regard for historical subtleties in Indian society. Lands were confiscated from the landlords and auctioned. A few suggested that the chapatis might conceal seditious letters that were forwarded from village to village, read by the village chief, again crusted over with flour, and sent on in the shape of a chupatty, to be broken by the next recipient, but examination of the breads revealed no hidden messages. B. During the late eighteenth century and the early part of the nineteenth century, the armies of the East India Company, in particular those of the Bengal Presidency, were victorious and indomitable the term "high noon of the sepoy army" has been used by a military historian. Beyond that, however, opinions remained divided. He was informed that they had been brought in by one of his Indian police officers, who had received them from a puzzled village chowkidar (watchman). Before loading these rifles the sepoys had to bite off the paper on the cartridges. is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings The grotesque executions by cannon became even became widely known in America. Match the following: Answer: [10], Caste privileges and customs within the Bengal Army were not merely tolerated but encouraged in the early years of the company's rule. The transfer of the number 66th which was taken away from a regular Bengal Sepoy regiment of the line disbanded over refusal to serve without batta, and given to a Gurkha battalion, was considered by the Sepoy as a breach of faith by the company. The magistrates tried to stop it, but, in spite of all they could do, it passed along to the borders of the Punjab. The revolt of 1857, which the British call the Indian Mutiny but many Indians prefer to think of as the First War of Independence, was the defining event in British imperial history. On 29 March 1857, Mangal Pandey, a sepoy of the 34 th Bengal Native Infantry (BNI) mutinied against his commanding officers of the East India Company. As early as 1806, concerns that the sepoys' caste may be polluted had led to the Vellore Mutiny, which was brutally suppressed. As further evidence, he observes that the Urdu sources of the pre- rebellion and post- rebellion periods usually refer to the British not as angrez (the English), goras (whites) or firangis (foreigners), but as kafir (disbeliever) and nasrani (Christians). Scottish Highlanders charge during the suppression of the rebellion of 1857. Match the Country with Its Hemisphere Quiz, Baron Strathnairn of Strathnairn and Jhansi. Q. Cookies collect information about your preferences and your devices and are used to make the site work as you expect it to, to understand how you interact with the site, and to show advertisements that are targeted to your interests. In Britain and in the West, it was almost always portrayed as a series of unreasonable and bloodthirsty uprisings spurred by falsehoods about religious insensitivity. When soldiers of the Bengal army mutinied in Meerut on May 10, 1857, tension had been growing for some time. There is no doubt that conflict over the new rifle cartridges sparked the uprising in 1857, but the reality is that social, political, and even technological reforms had set the stage for what happened. The breads formed, in short, what amounted to a culinary chain letter, one that was spreading with such spectacular rapidity that Thornhills boss, George Harvey, in Agra, calculated that a wave of chapatis was advancing across his province at a rate somewhere between 100 and 200 miles a night. And, historically, much the same thing had happened before in times of trouble. Hostname: page-component-7f44ffd566-7cttp From the confidential physician to the King of Delhi: Nobody can tell what was the object of the distribution of the chupatties. In some cases, they used an execution method of lashing a mutineer to the mouth of a cannon, and then firing the cannon and literally blasting the man to pieces. He survived and was put on trial and hanged on April 8, 1857. Western inventions such as the telegraph and railways aroused the prejudice of a conservative society (though Indians crowded the trains when they had them). When the mood of the sepoys turned against their masters, they remembered Kabul and that the British were not invincible. A cartridge for the new Enfield rifle. Coconuts had passed at great speed from village to village in central India in 1818, at a time when the mofussil was being ravaged by large bands of merciless looters known as the Pindaris. In the 1870s the British government formalized its role as an imperial power. Before loading these rifles the sepoys had to bite off the paper on the cartridges. As the mutiny spread, the British began called mutineers "pandies." One thing did not change in this new weapon the loading process, which did not improve significantly until the introduction of breech loaders and metallic, one-piece cartridges a few decades later. The soldiers performed well on the field of battle in exchange for which they were rewarded with symbolic heraldic rewards such as battle honors in addition to the extra pay or "batta" (foreign pay) routinely disbursed for operations committed beyond the established borders of Company rule. The British Governor-General of India from 1848 to 1856 was Lord Dalhousie who passed the Widow Remarriage Act of 1856 which allowed widows to remarry, like Christian women. The cartridges were wrapped in paper, which had been coated in grease which made the cartridges easier to load in rifle barrels. Virtually over used in the new Enfield rifles were greased with the British greased cartridges revolt of 1857 and made for Delhi 40... To be disarmed and punished in 1857 a number of Indians began to suspect that British. Numbers of native soldiers, known as sepoys, were employed by the 1850s the East India Company 1978! 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