Sati Chowra massacre
The Sati Chowra massacre is an incident that occurred on June 27, 1857, during the Indian Uprising of 1857 . After the British besieged in Kanpur had resisted the rebellious Indian troops for several weeks, they accepted Nana Sahib's offer of surrender in June 1857 . This offered them the prospect of an unhindered departure by boat to Allahabad . As they boarded the boats at Sati Chowra, a small river port in Kanpur , Indian troops opened fire on the retreating British. Almost all British men were massacred on the banks of the Ganges .
background
→ Main article: Indian uprising of 1857
Causes of the uprising
The cause of the uprising of 1857 are the social and economic policies pursued by the British East India Company, through which large parts of the Indian population lost land rights, employment opportunities and influence, as well as the increasing efforts in the 19th century to Christianize India and the annexation of others Indian princely states in previous years, this is considered to be one of the causes of the uprising. In addition, there was growing dissatisfaction among Indian troops with their British commanders. The starting point of the uprising were the infantry units of the Army of Bengal . The infantry units of this army sat down - unlike the armies of Madras and Bombay - largely of members of the higher Hindu - box ( Brahmin and Kshatriya ) together. Cavalry and artillery had a significantly higher proportion of Muslims. Since the British feared that the Hindu soldiers would take caste issues more important than their duty, the trading company saw this concentration as a threat to military discipline. To ensure that it had modern, powerful troops that it could deploy across Asia, the British East India Company became increasingly less considerate of caste issues and expanded its recruiting base to include Gurkhas and Sikhs . The latter met with strong rejection , especially among Brahmin sepoys . In 1856, the General Service Enlistment Act required new Indian recruits to serve outside of India. Out of consideration for sepoys of the higher Hindu castes, service abroad was voluntary up to this point, as they theoretically lost their caste membership when they crossed the open sea.
The external trigger for the uprising is generally considered to be the introduction of the Enfield rifle , whose cartridge cases, according to a rumor widespread among the British-Indian armed forces, were treated with a mixture of beef tallow and lard. The use of these cartridges was a violation of their religious duties for both devout Hindus and Muslims. On May 10, 1857, there was an open uprising in Merath , after troops stationed there were supposed to drill for the first time with this new rifle. About 50 British officers and civilians were murdered during the uprising. The insurgents withdrew to Delhi that night , where the 82-year-old Bahadur Shah Zafar II , the last of the Mughals , resided. His sphere of influence was limited to his palace, the Red Fort in Delhi. Nevertheless, he was considered a nominal sovereign by both the Indian population and the Indian provinces and states. Delhi was therefore the place where the insurgent troops gathered.
Nana Sahib's role in the uprising
Some of the Indian princes joined the uprising very quickly. Among these was Nana Sahib . The approximately 35-year-old Brahmin was an adopted son of Baji Rao II , the last Peshwa from Pune . Pune was one of the more important Marathas principalities, but its ruler Baji Rao had been dethroned by the British and exiled in Bithur . However, he received a generous annual pension from the British until his death in 1851. The British, however, refused to allow his adoptive son and heir Nana Sahib to continue this pension payment. In his sense of honor, Nana Sahib also felt offended because the British did not recognize him at least nominally as Maharaja of Bithur.
After the outbreak of the uprising, insurgents turned to Nana Sahib with a request to take a leading role in the uprising. After initial hesitation, he initially agreed to lead sepoy troops on their way to Delhi. However, members of his court dissuaded him from submitting himself as a high-ranking Hindu to the Muslim mogul in Delhi. Papers found after the end of the uprising suggest that Nana Sahib was considering not only retaking the throne of his adoptive father, but also making neighboring principalities his vassals. The conquest of the city of Kanpur on the road connecting Delhi and Benares should be the first step in this direction.
Course of the siege
→ Main article: Siege of Kanpur
The Indian troops stationed in Kanpur comprised three infantry regiments and one cavalry and one company of artillery and thus around 3,000 men. About 300 British soldiers served in Kanpur. Convinced that insurgent troops would withdraw to Delhi very quickly, Major General Hugh Wheeler in command had made little effort to prepare his garrison for a possible siege. When the signs of an uprising increased, the Europeans and Eurasians living in the city withdrew behind the entrenchments of the garrison. On the night of June 5, the uprising broke out, which quickly seized all Indian troops in Kanpur. At that time, almost 1,000 people were gathered in the garrison. In addition to the 300 European soldiers, there were about another 100 European men, 80 loyal sepoys, 400 women and children and a number of Indian servants. The defenders had sufficient muskets and ammunition, but little artillery.
The bombardment of the garrison by the insurgent troops quickly led to high losses among those barricaded there. None of the garrison buildings were built strong enough to withstand artillery fire, so that the besieged found nowhere protection from the bombardment. There was a lack of water and food. In the hope of reinforcement from Lucknow , the besieged held out until June 25th. On June 25, 1857, they accepted Nana Sahib's offer of surrender, which offered them the prospect of an unhindered withdrawal by boat to Allahabad .
The Sati Chowra massacre
Withdrawal of the besieged to Sati Chowra
On June 26, three officers belonging to the besieged garrison in Kanpur were given the opportunity to view the boats that had been prepared for them on the banks of the Ganges. Nana Sahib provided two elephants and a troop of sowars for her visit to the Sati Chowra. The officers found 24 boats on Sati Chowra. Not all boats were equipped with provisions and some lacked a bamboo roof to protect those leaving from the sun during their probably several days trip to Allahabad. Because of the dry season, the banks of the Ganges had largely dried up. The departing would have to push their boats several hundred yards into the water before rowing would be possible. Only nine of the boats had a full crew of four or five rowers during the officers' inspection. On the others there were only three rowers and five boats were not manned at all.
Originally, the besieged should leave that same evening. However, it was not possible to find enough sedan chairs and porters for the wounded, women and children. The departure of the besieged was postponed until the next morning. To guarantee Hugh Wheeler that the garrison would not be attacked that night, Nana Sahib took three hostages.
The column that left the garrison the next morning consisted of 16 elephants, around 80 sedan chairs and a large number of ox carts. The first attacks took place during the march. The retreating British had been assured that they were allowed to take their weapons with them. However, a number of sepoys snatched their weapons from their former officers. Some families were stripped of what clothes, valuables and memories they could save from the siege. During the withdrawal, a sawar came galloping up to inform the withdrawing party that they were not allowed to take their luggage or their Indian servants, who had loyally loyally remained in the garrison, with them. The sepoys then began pulling the ayahs and other British servants out of the column. The children in particular reacted with loud tears to the separation from their nannies, most of whom had looked after them since birth. At the end of the column there were also individual attacks on the British. The seriously wounded Colonel John Ewart of the 1st Native Infantry was pulled from his stretcher, first carried to the stairs of St. John, there questioned mockingly whether he liked the parade and then killed with sabers.
At the Sati Chowra, the boats were now lying on the bank. It is possible that the Ganges fell further during the night. However, it cannot be ruled out that the boats were pulled further ashore.
Climbing the boats
The provisions that the officers who had inspected the boats the previous afternoon had found had meanwhile disappeared. Some boats also lacked oars or ropes so that they could be pulled by other boats if necessary. Two European soldiers or young officers were assigned to each boat who, together with the boatmen, were supposed to push the boats into the deeper water. According to the Anglo-Indian understanding, the boats were only designed for six passengers. However, up to 15 women, men and children had to board each of the boats; nevertheless at 9 o'clock all boats were manned, but people were still standing on the bank or moving towards Sati Chowra. It is possible that one of the officers asked the officers of Nana Sahib for more boats. In no case did they wait for an answer. The first boats slowly pushed away from the bank and moved towards the parts of the river where the current was greatest.
The attack
At that moment came the call from the Sawaren that all boatmen should gather on the bank to receive their wages. At the same time, three cannons were fired west of the Sati Chowra. The boatmen left their boats and hurried to shore. Some of the bamboo roofs on the boats suddenly started to burn. Presumably shortly before leaving the boats, the boatmen had thrown glowing coal, which they had kept in their little clay ovens, on the bamboo roofs. The sawaren galloped away, while sepoy troops suddenly appeared all around and immediately opened fire on both the British on the bank and those on the boats.
The boats, the roof of which had been ignited, very quickly became completely ablaze and also set other boats on fire. Many of those on the boats jumped into the water, where some of the non-swimmers were pulled under the water and drowned. Part of it could stand in the water, but was hit by the heavy gunfire. Those who were too sick or injured to jump into the water burned to death on the boats. Those who remained on the bank were soon killed by horsemen. A few swimmers managed to reach the opposite bank. However, there were also sepoys there who also attacked them there. Half an hour after the attack began, Tantya Tope stopped the attacks. About 120 women and children survived on the banks of the Sati Chowra. Most of the men were slain. The third boat, which was able to detach itself from the bank of Sati Chowra with its occupants and had initially escaped, was intercepted by sepoys further down the Ganges on the same day. Its inmates were shot. The first boat managed not to fall into the hands of the sepoys until the next day. However, insurgent sepoys had followed the boat on the banks of the Ganges. Those on the boat decided to attack the sepoys. But they were overrun by an overwhelming force of sepoys. Ultimately, only four men who had been on the first boat managed to reach a place that was in British hands.
The surviving women and children were brought back to Kanpur and imprisoned in Bibighar . A few women were kidnapped by sepoys and sawars in the half-hour chaos on Sati Chowra. The sepoys and sawars were given strict orders to return the women. Apparently only European women were brought back. Most of the Eurasians among them remained in the captivity of their kidnappers. This is said to include Hugh Wheeler's youngest daughter, Eliza Wheeler, and Amy Horne , both Eurasians. Amy Horne also survived her captivity and is an eyewitness to the Sati Chowra massacre.
Survivors of the Sati Chowra massacre
The women and children incarcerated at Bibighar in Kanpur were massacred along with refugees from the siege of Fatehgarh on July 16, 1857, just before Sir Henry Havelock retook Kanpur. Their bodies were thrown into a well not far from the Bibighar. Most of the besieged Kanpur were killed. A few survived, who became important witnesses to the siege and massacre of Sati Chowra. In addition to Amy Horne, who was kidnapped on the banks of the Ganges, this includes Lieutenant Mowbray Thomson, who was one of the men who first escaped the massacre by swimming, then escaped down the Ganges on board the first boat and continued their escape on foot after the sepoys attacked.
The survivors included several Eurasians such as James Stewart and his wife. They had stayed in the deep water of the Ganges until the sepoys and their prisoners left for Kanpur. They also managed to reach Allahabad after 12 days of walking. Another group of women managed to hide in the alluvial wood on the banks of the Ganges until night fell. They first hid in a Muslim cemetery, later in a school and an elephant stable, and were among the first to greet British troops after the reconquest of Kanpur. Some Eurasian men had also managed to survive the siege of Kanpur because they were able to escape the garrison in time and, due to their language skills, had a better chance of escaping the attention of the sepoys in traditional clothing.
Single receipts
- ↑ Dalrymple, p. 10
- ↑ Hibbert, p. 47
- ↑ David (2006), p. 295
- ^ Wilson, p. 203
- ↑ David (2006), p. 295
- ↑ James, p. 234
- ↑ A more detailed characterization of Nana Sahib can be found in Hibbert, pp. 172–177
- ↑ James, p. 248
- ↑ Hibbert, p. 177
- ^ Ward, p. 304 and p. 305
- ^ Ward, p. 306
- ^ Ward, p. 309
- ^ Ward, p. 311
- ^ Ward, p. 312 and p. 313
- ^ Ward, p. 314
- ^ Ward, p. 317
- ^ Ward, p. 321 and p. 322
- ^ Ward, p. 323
- ^ Ward, p. 336 and p. 337
Web links
literature
- William Dalrymple : The Last Mughal - The Fall of a Dynasty, Delhi, 1857. Bloomsbury, London 2006, ISBN 978-0-7475-8726-2 .
- Saul David: The Indian Mutiny. 1857. Penguin Books, London 2003.
- Saul David: Victoria's Wars. Penguin Books, London 2006, ISBN 978-0-14-100555-3 .
- Astrid Erll: Premediation - Remediation. Representations of the Indian uprising in imperial and post-colonial media cultures (from 1857 to the present). Trier 2007.
- Niall Ferguson : Empire. The Rise and Demise of the British World Order. 2003, ISBN 0-465-02328-2 .
- 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 1988.
- Lawrence James: Raj - The Making of British India. Abacus, London 1997, ISBN 978-0-349-11012-7 .
- Dennis Judd: The Lion and the Tiger. The Rise and Fall of the British Raj, 1600-1947. Oxford 2004.
- Julian Spilsbury: The Indian Mutiny. Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London 2007, ISBN 978-0-297-84651-2 .
- PJO Taylor: What really happened during the mutiny. A day-by-day account of the major events of 1857-1859 in India. Oxford University Press, New Delhi [et al.], 1999.
- Andrew Ward: Our bones are scattered - The cawnpore massacres and the indian mutiny of 1857. John Murray, London 2004, ISBN 0-7195-6410-7 .
- AN Wilson: The Victorians. Arrow Books, London 2003, ISBN 0-09-945186-7 .