The Revolt of 1857, also known as the First War of Indian Independence, was a significant uprising against British colonial rule in India. This event and Pandey's subsequent punishment led to more resentment among the sepoys of the Bengal Army ultimately aiding in the Revolt of 1857.. Mason, Philip (1974), pages 186 and 313 "A Matter of Honour", London: Holt, Rhinehart & Winston. Dalhousie had also appointed Inam Commission with powers to confiscate land. However much of this sense of the invincibility of the British was lost in the First Anglo-Afghan War where poor political judgment and inept British leadership led to the massacre of Elphinstone's army (which included three Bengal regiments) while retreating from Kabul. Mike Dash is a contributing writer in history for Smithsonian.com. The revolt began on May 10, 1857, at Meerut as a sepoy mutiny. As mutineers were captured, they were often killed on the spot, and many were executed in dramatic fashion. 1857 revolt started firstly on 29th March 1857 from Bairakpur (West Bengal) by Mangal Pandey. But the wars against the Afghans and the Sikhs and then the annexations of Dalhousie alarmed and outraged them. The Sepoy Mutiny was a violent and very bloody uprising against British rule in India in 1857. Hostname: page-component-7f44ffd566-7cttp Throughout May and June 1857 more units of Indian troops mutinied against the British. Economically and socially, there had been much dislocation in the landholding class all over northern and western India as a result of British land-revenue settlements, setting group against group. 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. Ferocity led to grave excesses on both sides, distinguishing this war in horror from other wars of the 19th century. This included an increase in the taxation on land. A rumor that spread like wildfire among the sepoys (Indian soldiers) stationed at cantonments throughout the north of the country was that the British had come up with yet another diabolical contrivance for breaking their caste and defiling their bodies: the greased cartridge. To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org You can find out more about our use, change your default settings, and withdraw your consent at any time with effect for the future by visiting Cookies Settings, which can also be found in the footer of the site. He was Amazon.com's first-ever history editor and has bylines in New York, the Chicago Tribune, and other national outlets. Thus, long after the chapattis reached their northern-most point of Meerut, there was another northwards distribution from Cawnpore to Fattehgarh, which was widely reported in the newspapers The circulation took place along well-established routes of transmission, which followed the main trade and pilgrimage routes between the bigger cities. McNamara, Robert. Since the batta made the difference between active service being considered munificent or burdensome, the sepoys repeatedly resented and actively opposed inconsiderate unilateral changes in pay and batta ordered by the Military Audit department. The Sepoy Mutiny of 1857. The Muslims had lost the large state of Avadh; the Marathas had lost Nagpur, Satara, and Jhansi. A chowkidaran Indian village watchman. From Delhi the revolt spread in June to Kanpur (Cawnpore) and Lucknow. Privacy Statement Historians have identified diverse political, economic, military, religious and social causes of the Revolt of 1857 (First War of Indian Independence 1857). The events of 1857 have been considered the first outbreak of an independence movement against British rule. Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service. When Muslim and Hindu troops learned that the tip of the Enfield cartridge had to be bitten off to prepare it for firing, a number of troops refused, for religious reasons, to accept the ammunition. He is on the expert panel on weapons for several museums of Rajasthan. Mason, Philip (1974), pages 226-228 "A Matter of Honour", London: Holt, Rhinehart & Winston. As the mutiny spread, the British began called mutineers "pandies." Though it is debatable whether the greased cartridges actually had cow and pig fat, the truth remains that from 1855 to 1857, the sepoys were told to carry the England-made cartridges, which surely had animal fat, to check whether they could resist Indian weather. Once defiled, the theory went, men who had consumed the forbidden meal would be shunned by their co-religionists and would be easier to bring into the Christian fold, or could be sent as soldiers overseas (crossing the black water being forbidden to Hindus of high caste). The Politics of a Popular Uprising: Bundelkhand in 1857 (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1994);Mark Thornhill. [1] As early as the Charter Act of 1813 Christian missionaries were encouraged to come to Bombay and Calcutta under EEIC control. History of the Siege of Delhi (Edinburgh: A&C Black, 1861);John Kaye. A private company which first entered India to trade in the 1600s, the East India Company had eventually transformed into a diplomatic and military operation. Sepoys throughout India were issued with a new rifle, the Pattern 1853 Enfield rifled musketa more powerful and accurate weapon than the old but smoothbore Brown Bess they had been using for the previous decades. The military cause was both particular and general. Sepoy units in the south of India remained loyal, but in the north, many units of the Bengal Army turned on the British. "useRatesEcommerce": false Mason, Philip (1974), pages 291-292 "A Matter of Honour", London: Holt, Rhinehart & Winston. What was the main cause of revolt of 1857? Whether the cartridge was unballed or balled, it was necessary, in loading a muzzle-loader, to open the end of the cartridge. This allowed different meanings an interpretations to be attributed to them, and the chapattis became an index of peoples thoughts and worries. The company had developed a military organization where, in theory, the fealty of the sepoys to the company was considered the height of "izzat" or honour, where the European officer replaced the village headman with benevolent figures of authority, and where regiments were mostly recruited from sepoys belonging to the same caste, and community. 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. All the people in the palace wondered what it could mean. The Personal Adventures and Experiences of a Magistrate During the Rise, Progression and Suppression of the Indian Mutiny (London: John Murray, 1884);Kim A. Wagner. Large numbers of native soldiers, known as sepoys, were employed by the company to maintain order and defend trading centers. Kim Wagner, who has made the most recent study of the phenomenon, concludes that the movement had its origins in Indore, a princely state still nominally independent of British rule, and that it began as an attempt to ward off the ravages of cholera: The geographic circulation of the chapattis was not systematic or exponential; their transmission was erratically linear and different currents moved at different speeds. They later stood in Chandni Chowk, the main square, and asked the people gathered there, "Brothers, are you with those of the faith? In a large military camp (called a cantonment) at Meerut, near Delhi, a number of sepoys refused to use the new rifle cartridges in early May 1857 and began to revolt. Cookie Settings. For both Indians and British, the period was haunted with dark memories of the mutiny, and numerous measures were taken by the British raj to avoid another conflict. An uprising in several sepoy companies of the Bengal army was sparked by the issue of new gunpowder cartridges for the Enfield rifle in February 1857. This war of Independence marked the end of rule by the British East India company. From the interrogation of an official at the King of Delhis court: I did hear of the circumstance. 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. A hardcore corporate, he initially worked for Hindustan Unilever and was later Director of Brooke Bond, India. The Lucknow garrison held out in the residency from July 1, in spite of the death of Sir Henry Lawrence on July 4. What are the oldest known civilizations of India? By the time of the chupatty movement, no more than a handful of aged India hands could remember such long-ago events as the Vellore Mutiny. An uprising in several sepoy companies of the Bengal army was sparked by the issue of new gunpowder cartridges for the Enfield rifle in February 1857. A rumour spread that the cartridges of the new Enfield rifles were greased with the fat of cows and pigs. He survived and was put on trial and hanged on April 8, 1857. ThoughtCo. The Revolt ended the rule of the English East India Company. By a campaign in Avadh and Rohilkhand, Campbell cleared the countryside. At some point the chapattis passed beyond the limits of their meaningful transmission and simply continued through the country as a blank message. The next phase was the central Indian campaign of Sir Hugh Rose. [17], Officers of an evangelical persuasion in the company's Army (such as Herbert Edwardes and Colonel S.G. Wheler of the 34th Bengal Infantry) had taken to preaching to their Sepoys in the hope of converting them to Christianity. His name has become synonymous with the revolt of 1857. 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. Other irregular units were raised in frontier areas from communities such as Assamese or Pashtuns to maintain order locally. History of the Sepoy War in India, 1857-58 (London, 3 vols. There is no question that atrocities were committed by both sides, and stories of events of 185758 lived on in both Britain and India. This movement became much more than a military mutiny. [18], The General Services Enlistment Act of 1856 required new recruits to serve overseas if asked. Greased Cartridges: It is believed to be one of the major causes behind the 1857 uprising. Q. 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. "The Sepoy Mutiny of 1857." The resumption of tax-free land and confiscation of jagirs (the grant or right to locally control land revenue) caused discontent among the jagirdars and zamindars. each other as brothers.4 So when the issue of greased cartridges arose, with fear of pollution from beef and pork, they would unite as one on the single cry of the defence of their faith or "Deen". 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. But in the 1830s and 1840s, tensions began to emerge. Lands were confiscated from the landlords and auctioned. And where had the chowkidar got them? Loading the Enfield often required tearing open the greased cartridge with one's teeth, and many sepoys believed that the cartridges were greased with cow and pig fat. Prior to the outbreak of the Revolt, Bahadur Shah Zafar lived in Delhi as a Pensioner of the British. No, it is not by any means a custom; I am 50 years old, and never heard of such a thing before. Though the revolt was suppressed later, it shook the foundation of British rule in India. To load the rifle, the end of the cartridge containing the powder had to be bitten off so that the charge would ignite. It was initiated by sepoys in the Bengal Presidency against the British officers. B. [2][3], Religious disquiet as the cause of rebellion underlies the work of historian William Dalrymple who asserts that the rebels were motivated primarily by resistance to the actions of the English East India Company(also called British East India Company), especially under James Broun-Ramsay reign, which were perceived as attempts to impose Christianity and Christian laws in India. Western inventions such as the telegraph and railways aroused the prejudice of a conservative society (though Indians crowded the trains when they had them). By the time the British came to examine the causes of the rebellion, therefore, the chupatty movement had assumed a fresh significance. is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings @kindle.com emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply. 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. The powder and bullet for the new rifle were put together in a paper cartridge. Destructive 'Super Pigs' From Canada Threaten the Northern U.S. In the late 1700s and early 1800s, sepoys tended to take great pride in their military prowess, and they exhibited enormous loyalty to their British officers. Company officers became aware of the rumours through reports of an altercation between a high-caste sepoy and a low-caste labourer at Dum Dum. In the altercation, Pandey was surrounded by British troops and shot himself in the chest. Victoria added the title "Empress of India" to her royal title. Host of Midian: the chapati circulation and the Indian Revolt of 1857-58. Studies in History 16 (2000);Christopher Hibbert. 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.'. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings. Advertising Notice 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. The chapati circulation and the Sikhs and then the annexations of dalhousie alarmed and outraged.... The outbreak of the major causes behind the 1857 uprising was put on trial and hanged April... Interpretations to be bitten off so that the cartridges of the 19th century Indian of! Serve overseas if asked, Philip ( 1974 ), pages 226-228 a. More units of Indian troops mutinied against the Afghans and the Sikhs and then annexations! 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