#SEPOY MUTINY CAUSES AND EFFECTS TRIAL#
He survived and was put on trial and hanged on April 8, 1857.Īs the mutiny spread, the British began called mutineers "pandies." Pandey, it should be noted, is considered a hero in India, and has been portrayed as a freedom fighter in films and even on an Indian postage stamp. In the altercation, Pandey was surrounded by British troops and shot himself in the chest. Pandey rebelled by shooting a British sergeant-major and a lieutenant. His unit in the Bengal Army, which had refused to use the new rifle cartridges, was about to be disarmed and punished.
On March 29, 1857, on the parade ground at Barrackpore, a sepoy named Mangal Pandey fired the first shot of the uprising.
There is no doubt that conflict over the new rifle cartridges sparked the uprising in 1857, but the reality is that social, political, and even technological reforms had set the stage for what happened. Rumors began to spread that the grease used to make the cartridges was derived from pigs and cows, which would be highly offensive to Muslims and Hindus. The cartridges were wrapped in paper, which had been coated in grease which made the cartridges easier to load in rifle barrels. The traditional story of the Sepoy Mutiny is that the introduction of a new cartridge for the Enfield rifle provoked much of the trouble. The system was subject to abuse, and the company used it to annex territories in a questionable manner.Īs the East India Company annexed Indian states in the 1840s and 1850s, the Indian soldiers in the company's employ began to feel offended.Ī New Type of Rifle Cartridge Caused Problems Under a British policy called the "doctrine of lapse," the East India Company would take control of Indian states in which a local ruler had died without an heir. There was also a general feeling that English officers were losing touch with the Indian troops under them. Increasing numbers of Christian missionaries began arriving in India, and their presence gave credence to rumors of impending conversions. But in the 1830s and 1840s, tensions began to emerge.Ī number of Indians began to suspect that the British intended to convert the Indian population to Christianity. 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. The sepoys were generally under the command of British officers. Large numbers of native soldiers, known as sepoys, were employed by the company to maintain order and defend trading centers. A private company which first entered India to trade in the 1600s, the East India Company had eventually transformed into a diplomatic and military operation. In the illustration, a mutineer was depicted chained to the front of a British cannon, awaiting his imminent execution, as others were gathered to watch the grisly spectacle.īy the 1850s the East India Company controlled much of India. One common punishment was to tie mutineers to the mouth of a cannon and then fire the cannon, completely obliterating the victim.Ī popular American illustrated magazine, "Ballou's Pictorial", published a full-page woodcut illustration showing the preparations for such an execution in its issue of October 3, 1857. The uprising was put down, but the methods employed by the British were so harsh that many in the western world were offended. The events of 1857 have been considered the first outbreak of an independence movement against British rule. In India, it has been viewed quite differently.
#SEPOY MUTINY CAUSES AND EFFECTS SERIES#
In Britain and in the West, it was almost always portrayed as a series of unreasonable and bloodthirsty uprisings spurred by falsehoods about religious insensitivity. It is also known by other names: the Indian Mutiny, the Indian Rebellion of 1857, or the Indian Revolt of 1857. The Sepoy Mutiny was a violent and very bloody uprising against British rule in India in 1857.
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