Eliza Wheeler

Eliza Wheeler (* around 1839, † after 1857) was the youngest daughter of General Hugh Wheeler , who was stationed in India, and his wife, a member of a high-ranking Indian caste. Her supposed fate during the Indian Uprising of 1857 fascinated the Victorian public and was the subject of numerous contemporary plays and writings.

Eliza Wheeler was one of the British people trapped in the Kanpur garrison . This garrison was besieged in May and June 1857 by rebellious Indian troops led by Prince Nana Sahib . After several weeks of resistance, in which many of those trapped in the garrison were killed, the garrison accepted Nana Sahib's offer of surrender, which offered them the prospect of an unhindered exit. They should be allowed to go down the Ganges unhindered in boats and thus reach the garrison town of Allahabad , which is still in British hands . During the ascent of the boats, however, Indian troops opened fire, although it is still not clear whether it was a deliberate ambush or whether the fire was opened because of a misunderstanding. Most of the surviving British men were still executed on the spot. About 125 children and women were returned to Kanpur, where they were later killed in the Bibighar massacre . However, there were exceptions. In addition to another British woman, Eliza Wheeler was not brought back to Kanpur, but - at least according to contemporary tradition - kidnapped by one of the insurgent soldiers by the name of Ali Khan. Contemporary writings on the siege of Kanpur report that the kidnapped Eliza Wheeler executed her kidnapper and three members of his family by sword and then committed suicide by throwing herself into a well. A steel engraving in Charles Ball's contemporary History of the Indian Mutiny , on the other hand, shows a dramatic scene in which the young Eliza Wheeler heroically defends herself with a pistol against onrushing insurgents.

Contemporary historians have pointed out that eyewitness accounts were inconsistent and inaccurate, but regularly included the account of the fate of Eliza Wheeler. The behavior that Eliza Wheeler assumed of taking her own life after forced sexual intercourse and taking revenge on the kidnapper and his family beforehand corresponded so closely to the Victorian concept that it occupied the imagination of her contemporaries very much and was reflected in stories and plays.

A twenty-first century historian, Christopher Hibbert, points out that the actual fate of Eliza Wheeler may not have been exactly Victorian. According to him, there is evidence that Eliza Wheeler converted to Islam and married her kidnapper. Years later, she confided in a Roman Catholic priest in the Kanpur bazaar, but did not want any contact with the British authorities.

literature

• Christopher Herbert: War of no pity. The Indian Mutiny and Victorian Trauma. Princeton University Press, Princeton 2008, ISBN 978-0-691-13332-4
• Christopher Hibbert: The great mutiny: India 1857. Penguin Books, London [u. a.] 1988

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Herbert, p. 149
2. ↑ Hibbert, p. 195