Anti-Colonial Movements
The Indian Rebellion of 1857
The British East India Company
• Originally given an English Royal Charter in 1600
• Merged with a rival company in 1708
• Company granted authority to raise its own army
and navy to maintain power over colonial holdings
• British East India Company won control over India
by defeating French and Native Nawab forces in
Punjab at the Battle of Plassey (23 June 1757)
• British East India Company ruled most of India from
1757 to 1858
• Company traded Cotton, Silk, Indigo, Tea, and Opium
Anti-Colonial Movements
The Indian Rebellion of 1857
Military Causes of Revolt
• Sepoys – Combination of Hindu and Muslim Soldiers
recruited from high-caste Rajput & Brahmin
• Pre-1856 Company Policies:
1) Separate Dining Facilities
2) Observance of Dietary Restrictions
3) Recognition of Religious Festivals
4) Not required to serve overseas
• 25 July 1856 – General Service Enlistment Act Passed
requiring new recruits to accept overseas
service commitments
2nd Punjab Cavalry Regiment
• Adoption of the 1853 Enfield Rifles & Tallow-greased
Cartridges (paper cartridges coated in pork/beef fat)
Anti-Colonial Movements
The Indian Rebellion of 1857
Military Causes of Revolt
• Indian Officers were promoted at a slower
rate and behind European born officers
• Junior British Officers treated Indian
Soldiers as their racial inferiors
• Official British Blue Book (Military Regulations)
gave British Officers greater freedom and
additional appeals concerning abuse of their
Indian Soldiers
1st
Punjab Rifle Regiment
• By 1857, all these issues caused many native
Indian soldiers to join the Sepoy Mutiny
Anti-Colonial Movements
The Indian Rebellion of 1857
Civilian Causes of Revolt
• Doctrine of Lapse (1848 – 1856) was a policy that allowed the
British East India Company to annex any territory under their
direct influence
1)
Satara (1848)
2)
Jaipur and Sambalpur (1849)
3)
Nagpur and Jhansi (1854)
4)
Awadh (Oudh) (1856)
Lord Dalhousie, the
Governor-General of India
from 1848 to 1856, who
devised the Doctrine of Lapse
• Several groups of Indian Society became enraged by changes
1)
Nobility – Lost titles and domains
2)
Rural Landlords – Lost lands to peasants
due to Land Reforms
3)
Peasants – Forced to pay heavy taxes
Anti-Colonial Movements
The Indian Rebellion of 1857
Additional Causes of Revolt
• The presence of Christian Missionaries
threatened existing Hindu/Muslim
traditional beliefs
• Competing Indian groups all wanted their
own rulers to be placed on the throne
• Sunni and Shi’a Muslims called for Jihad
against each other and non-mulsims
• Shi’a under Aga Khan and Sikh & Pathan
of Northwestern India supported the British
presence in India
• Internal problems caused civilians to follow
the example of the Sepoy Mutiny
Anti-Colonial Movements
The Indian Rebellion of 1857
• On 24 April 1857: Sepoy soldiers at the British Camp at Meerut refused to use tallowgreased cartidges, were arrested and hastily court-martialed
• On 10 May 1857: Sepoy soldiers broke out of the prison and attacked British authorities
• 5 – 25 June 1857 : Massacre of Cawnpore
ended with hundreds of
British subjects killed &
wounded (about 1200)
• As a result of the initial violence:
 Company administrators moved their
families & servants to places of safety
 Military Commanders attempted to
disarm Sepoys to prevent future revolts
Anti-Colonial Movements
The Indian Rebellion of 1857
• 6 June – 27 Nov 1857: Siege of Lucknow
 Resulted in over 2,500 British
killed, wounded and missing
 British abandoned the city of
Lucklow as a military outpost
• 8 June – 21 Sep 1857: Siege of Delhi
 Rebels from Meerut arrived;
attacked British authorities
and civilians; and seized the
city as a rebel stronghold
 British troops and Punjab troops
supported by 42 pieces of heavy
artillery bombarded & recovered
the city
Anti-Colonial Movements
The Indian Rebellion of 1857
British Retribution is Justified
• Punishment of Native Indians by the British “Army of
Retribution” were considered to be appropriate and
largely justified
• Rumors of rape committed by Indian Rebels against
European women were accepted in falsified reports and
published in various newspapers as fact
• Novelists like Charles Dickens called for the
extermination of the “race upon whom the
stain of the late cruelties rested”
• Political cartoonists expressed British
attitudes in publications like the New York
Times and the periodical known as Punch
Anti-Colonial Movements
The Indian Rebellion of 1857
British Retribution is Justified
British poet Martin Tupper — "in a ferment of indignation" — played a major part in
shaping the public's response
His poems were filled with calls for lifting the siege of Delhi and the erection of
monuments to the honored British dead in India
"And England, now avenge their wrongs by vengeance deep and dire,
Cut out their canker with the sword, and burn it out with fire;
Destroy those traitor regions, hang every pariah hound,
And hunt them down to death, in all hills and cities ‘round."