This fascinating collection explores hitherto ignored diversities of the Great Rebellion That rate was particularly disconcerting because it was vastly swifter than the fastest British mails, and urgent inquiries were made as to the source and meaning of the movement. They yielded the information that the breads were being distributed far more widely than anyone in Agra had yet realized, and that the Indians who received them generally took them as some sort of a sign. Following the fighting of 185758, India was legally considered a colony of Britain, ruled by a viceroy. When the mood of the sepoys turned against their masters, they remembered Kabul and that the British were not invincible. ), 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. 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. [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. But the wars against the Afghans and the Sikhs and then the annexations of Dalhousie alarmed and outraged them. 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. Thereafter he headed the National Mineral Water Company in Muscat, Oman. 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. 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 Revolt of 1857-58 was the biggest and bloodiest conflict against any European colonial power during the nineteenth century. His unit in the Bengal Army, which had refused to use the new rifle cartridges, was about to be disarmed and punished. The grease used was tallow, probably containing both cow and pig fat. The traditional story of the Sepoy Mutiny is that the introduction of a new cartridge for the Enfield rifle provoked much of the trouble. This meant that when they came to be threatened by modernizing regimes in Calcutta, from the 1840s onwards, the sepoys had become accustomed to very high ritual status, and were extremely sensitive to suggestions that their caste might be polluted. A keen cricketer and tennis player, he now lives in Delhi and serves as director of a few companies. Mopping-up operations followed, lasting until the British capture of rebel leader Tantia Topi in April 1859. In some districts like Muzaffarnagar and Saharanpur, Bose and Jalal argue that "the revolt took on a distinctly millenarian flavor. 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. A rumor spread that the cartridges of the new Enfield rifles were greased with the fat of cows and pigs. In 1885, however, the founding of the Indian National Congress marked the beginnings of effective, organized protest for national self-determination. A small British army was improvised, which held the ridge before Delhi against greatly superior forces until Sir John Lawrence was able to send a siege train under John Nicholson. There was therefore both resentment and unease among the old governing class, fanned in Delhi by the British decision to end the Mughal imperial title on Bahdur Shahs death. A cartridge of this kind, containing powder and nothing more, is often specified as an unballed cartridge. And the leaders were not united, because they sought to revive former Hindu and Muslim regimes, which in their heyday had bitterly clashed. is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings One could say that the major causes of this revolt were the usage of cow fat to grease rifle cartridges, the British attempting to convert Sepoys to Christianity, and the British taking over the town of Oudh. Throughout May and June 1857 more units of Indian troops mutinied against the British. But something important was required to provoke so many to seize the opportunity of a military uprising to stage a war of independence. It was no secret that the Companys armies had been making preparations for the introduction of a new sort of ammunition for a new model of Enfield rifle. What are the oldest known civilizations of India? 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. Ferocity led to grave excesses on both sides, distinguishing this war in horror from other wars of the 19th century. The next phase was the central Indian campaign of Sir Hugh Rose. Indian soldiers in the East India Company's armies believed they risked defilement because the new rounds were being issued greased with the fat of pigs and cowsuntrue, but sufficient to spark the most dangerous uprising against British imperial rule since the American Revolution. Both Hindu and Muslim sepoys refused to use them. 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. Western inventions such as the telegraph and railways aroused the prejudice of a conservative society (though Indians crowded the trains when they had them). Christian organisations from Britain had additionally created 222 "unattached" mission stations across India in the decade preceding the rebellion. Tall tales, panic and misapprehension spread readily in such a climate, and plenty of people felt a certain disquiet in the early months of 1857. Fighting in some places continued well into 1858, but the British were ultimately able to establish control. The Indian Rebellion of 1857 was a major uprising in India in 1857-58 against the rule of the British East India Company, . Books and articles about the bloody fighting and heroic deeds by British officers and men were published for decades in London. Musket cartridges circa 1858 The Sepoys in the East India Company were first issued with the Enfield Pattern 1853 rifle-musket in 1857. Richard Barter. Greased Cartridges: It is believed to be one of the major causes behind the 1857 uprising. The Bengal army of some 130,000 Indian troops may have contained as many as 40,000 Brahmans as well as many Rajputs. "The Sepoy Mutiny of 1857." Mike Dash is a contributing writer in history for Smithsonian.com. At some point the chapattis passed beyond the limits of their meaningful transmission and simply continued through the country as a blank message. These changes caused widespread resentment not only among the landed aristocracy but also caused great havoc to a larger section of the middle-class people. ThoughtCo, Jul. The greased cartridges thus posed precisely the same threat to observant sepoys as would flour adulterated with the blood of pigs and cows, and though the British recognized the problem early on, and never issued a single greased cartridge to any Indian troops, fear that the Company was plotting to defile them took hold among the men of many Indian regiments and resulted in the outbreak of rebellion in the cantonment of Meerut in April 1857. The Revolt of 1857 started as a Mutiny of the sepoys. The sepoys were generally under the command of British officers. [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. The revolt is known by several names. 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. The officers continued to be British, but they were more closely linked with their men. I had no conversation with the King on the subject; but others talked in his presence about it, wondering what could be the object. 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. 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 came the Western innovations of the now overconfident British. This included an increase in the taxation on land. 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. Pandey rebelled by shooting a British sergeant-major and a lieutenant. Jaiwant Paul "The Greased Cartridge: The Heroes and Villains of 1857-58" In most accounts of the revolt, the greased cartridge has been referred to as the spark and tinder that lit the flames o. 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. please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. 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. 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. A. One popular story, widely believed, suggested that the British were attempting the mass conversion of their subjects to Christianity by adulterating their flour with bone meal from cows and pigs, which was forbidden to Hindus and Moslems, respectively. The Revolt of 1857 eventually broke out over the incident of greased cartridges. Dalhousie had also appointed Inam Commission with powers to confiscate land. The Indian garrison at Delhi joined them, and by the next nightfall they had secured the city and Mughal fort, proclaiming the aged titular Mughal emperor, Bahdur Shah II, as their leader. Nationalist historians have seen in it the first Indian war of independence. Your Privacy Rights Terms of Use The Sepoy Mutiny was a violent and very bloody uprising against British rule in India in 1857. Following the fighting of 185758, India was legally considered a colony Britain! To provoke so many to seize the opportunity of a new cartridge for the Enfield provoked! 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