greased cartridges revolt of 1857

The statement, if lacking in precision, may have been true as to the common information or belief in 1857, but at the present time there may probably be few readers of these pages who could explain thus, or with more exactitude, why a cartridge in those times had to be greased, and why or how, if greased, it required to be bitten. Both Hindu and Muslim sepoys refused to use them. What was the issue of cartridges? Dalhousie had also appointed Inam Commission with powers to confiscate land. Furthermore, the superstitious impulse that still encourages the transmission of chain letters clearly applied in 1857: Although the original specific meaning of the chapattis had been lost early in the distribution, the dire consequences of breaking the chain of transmission remained, and thus ensured their successful circulation over an immense area. Few of these participated in the rebellion, and one contingent in particular (the recently raised Punjab Irregular Force) actively participated on the British side. 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. : WH Allen, 1864);Tapti Roy. Most worryingly of all, some very similar rumors had once been recorded far to the south, in the Madras Presidency in 1806, at the time of a serious outbreak of mutiny among Indian soldiers stationed at Vellore. 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. 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). One of the first officials to encounter it was Mark Thornhill, magistrate in the little Indian town of Mathura, near Agra. The immediate cause of the Indian Revolt of 1857, or Sepoy Mutiny, was a seemingly minor change in the weapons used by the British East India Company's troops. His name has become synonymous with the revolt of 1857. The Revolt ended the rule of the English East India Company. History of the Siege of Delhi (Edinburgh: A&C Black, 1861);John Kaye. Outraged by events such as the massacre of women and children at Cawnpore, some British officers believed that hanging mutineers was too humane. Centers and leaders of the revolt of 1857. In another, however, the appalling atrocities visited by the Companys armies on the people of northern India were far from justified, since the British proved to be just as prone to rumors and panics as their Indian subjects. was the rumour that the newly issued rie cartridges would be greased either with tallow, derived from beef and thereby oensive to Hindus, or lard, derived from pork and thereby oensive to Muslims. The Great Fear of 1857: Rumours, Conspiracies and the Making of the Indian Uprising (Oxford: Peter Lang, 2010);Andrew Ward. ThoughtCo. 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. A Chowkeydar ran up to another village with two chupatties. With this information, the sepoys believed that the British deliberately introduced the greased cartridges for defiling their religions. Is the sending of such articles about the country a custom among the Hindoos or Mussulmans; and would the meaning be at once understood without any accompanying explanation? Your Privacy Rights Many Animals, Including the Platypus, Lost Their Stomachs. '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. 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 "[26] Their rule in India had begun with the Battle of Plassey in 1757. In 1824, there was another mutiny by a regiment ordered overseas in the First Anglo-Burmese War, who were refused transport to carry individual cooking vessels and told to share communal pots. A Chowkeydar, on receiving one of these cakes, has had five or six more prepared, and thus they have passed from village to village. An idea has been industriously circulated that the Government has given the order. The greased cartridges had to be opened by biting off the top with your teeth. please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. Mason, Philip (1974), pages 186 and 313 "A Matter of Honour", London: Holt, Rhinehart & Winston. Stbere im grten eBookstore der Welt und lies noch heute im Web, auf deinem Tablet, Telefon oder E-Reader. The rapid spread of disorder in 1857when regiment after regiment had mutinied, and revolts against British rule had sprung up throughout most of northern and central Indiamade it almost impossible to believe that the rebellion could have been spontaneous (as most modern historians concede it was), and considerable effort was made to chronicle the movement and trace the spread of the anomalous chapatis. Robert J. McNamara is a history expert and former magazine journalist. The Politics of a Popular Uprising: Bundelkhand in 1857 (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1994);Mark Thornhill. 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. A rumour spread that the cartridges of the new enfield rifles were greased with the fat of cows and pigs. The Sepoy Mutiny of 1857. To save content items to your account, 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). 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. https://www.thoughtco.com/sepoy-mutiny-of-1857-1774014 (accessed March 1, 2023). More disturbing to traditional sensibilities were the interventions, in the name of humanity, in the realm of Hindu custome.g., the prohibition of suttee, the campaign against infanticide, the law legalizing remarriage of Hindu widows. 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. Total loading time: 0 For instance, once the rebellion was underway, Mughal Emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar met the sepoys on 11 May 1857, he was told: "We have joined hands to protect our religion and our faith." This would have insulted both Hindu and Muslim religious practices; cows were considered holy by Hindus, while pigs were considered unclean (Haram) by Muslims. This reinforced the belief that the original issued cartridges were indeed greased with lard and tallow. Yet discreet inquiries soon revealed that many hundreds of chapatis were passing through his district, and through other parts of India as welleverywhere from the Narmada river in the south to the border with Nepal several hundred miles to the north. The system was subject to abuse, and the company used it to annex territories in a questionable manner. It came as a greater shock than the loss of the American colonies, and prompted reprisals far more hysterical and vicious than those visited on rebellious subjects elsewhere in the Empire. 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. From Delhi the revolt spread in June to Kanpur (Cawnpore) and Lucknow. Or it might have been an aristocratic plot, set off too soon by the Meerut outbreak. The next phase was the central Indian campaign of Sir Hugh Rose. A hardcore corporate, he initially worked for Hindustan Unilever and was later Director of Brooke Bond, India. Destructive 'Super Pigs' From Canada Threaten the Northern U.S. The Muslims had lost the large state of Avadh; the Marathas had lost Nagpur, Satara, and Jhansi. 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. On the fourth side of the . The Indian Rebellion of 1857 was doomed to fail, but the religious and cultural tensions it inflamed would ultimately topple the British raj. From the confidential physician to the King of Delhi: Nobody can tell what was the object of the distribution of the chupatties. However, in those two years, they were not ordered to use them. Mason, Philip (1974), pages 203-204 A Matter of Honour", London: Holt, Rhinehart & Winston. He survived and was put on trial and hanged on April 8, 1857. McNamara, Robert. 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. His unit in the Bengal Army, which had refused to use the new rifle cartridges, was about to be disarmed and punished. The sepoys were generally under the command of British officers. Nationalist historians have seen in it the first Indian war of independence. Wild stories circulated freely in the panic-stricken atmosphere of 1857, and there were enough real massacres and murders to make almost anything seem possible. This included an increase in the taxation on land. "The Sepoy Mutiny of 1857." | READ MORE. This incident is an important event in modern Indian history because it ignited what eventually . To facilitate its passage, the cartridges were greased with tallow, which, in the U.K., was made of beef and pork fat. Muslim religion opposed pork and Hindus were against the beef so it harmed the sentiment of all the sepoys. Before loading these rifles the sepoys had to bite off the paper on the cartridges. 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. Mason, Philip (1974), page 236 "A Matter of Honour", London: Holt, Rhinehart & Winston. In contrast to their Indian predecessors, the British considered such refusals at times to be outright "mutinies" and therefore to be suppressed brutally. 530-Grain Pritchett or a Burton-Mini ball had also appointed Inam Commission with powers to confiscate.. Sir Hugh Rose women and children at Cawnpore, some British officers believed the! Massacre of women and children at Cawnpore, some British officers belief that Government... The top with your teeth an aristocratic plot, set off too soon by the Meerut outbreak to off. They were not ordered to use the new rifle cartridges, was about to be disarmed and punished his has... 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