The Great Rebellion of 1857

The Great Rebellion of 1857: 

The Great Rebellion of 1857 By Ruhit Roy Period 7/ Row 5 Mr. Jezer

The British East India Company : 

The British East India Company

The Beginning of the British East Indian Company : 

The Beginning of the British East Indian Company The British east Indian Company had begun its expansion in India in 1757, when they formally defeated the Mughal Emperor Shah Alam II in the Battle of Buxar. After a various assortment of battles with the native Indian such as the Anglo-Mysore Wars, the British were able to control most of Southern Indian which included most of Bengal, Bombay, Mudras, and Bihar. But the Indian native had put up a hard fight against the British invaders. Many Hindu and Muslims put aside their cultural differences to fight off the British. But the British were too strong for the Indian native to handle. The main Commander in Chief of the British army was General Wellesley. During the 19 th century he was able to create treaties with many of Indian provinces and help the British control most of India. Indian province were later called the princely states, because India was seen as a British jewel that they had control of

British Control of India: 

British Control of India

Causes of 1857 Rebellion : 

Causes of 1857 Rebellion

The Sepoy: 

The Sepoy The main reason for the rebellion was caused by the mistreatment that the sepoy had faced from the British government. The Sepoy were local people in India who had joined the Indian-British army. They mostly contained Hindu and Muslim citizens. The army was divided into three separate sectors, the Bombay, Madras, and the Bengal army. The Bengal was based on what castle you belong to because they accepted only the Rajput or Brahmins, while the other two branches where caste free, so any male could join. The reason why the sepoy rebelled against the British because they had learned that the cartridges that held their gun powder for their rifles were made from pig and cow fat. Muslims and Hindus were forbidden to eat pigs and cows, respectively, and they believed it would led them to bad misfortunes and damnation, if they had consumed these animals. Once the sepoy found out, they began an immediate uproar, but the British didn’t care and forced them to use these weapons anyway.

Cultural Restrictions: 

Cultural Restrictions When the British invaded India, they took over much of the land of the native people. Many nobility lost their land and title, and peasants had lost their homes. Many of the people who still had their land, had to pay high taxes to the British. The British also restricted many Indians to adopt children. Many rulers who didn’t have children, would usually adopt a child to take over their empire. Now that they couldn’t adopt or find suitable mates, they would loose their land and the British would take over when they had died. The British abolished the practice of sati, which was basically a ritual from Hindu culture that said that if a man had died, his wife must jump into the fire of where her husband had lain. The British felt that this practice was barbaric, and wanted to put an end to it. Indians were also mistreated in the court of law. Many British solider did not get punished after being accused of beating Indian civilians, while an Indian was hanged if he even fought with a British solider.

Cultural Restriction Part 2: 

Cultural Restriction Part 2 Many British solider had force the Indian civilians and solider to convert to Christianity believing that Hinduism and Islam were both wrong and that they were trying to save them from going to hell. Not only were Indian soldiers mistreated by their fellow British soldiers, but they were also paid much less. Many upper caste Indians had more money before the British came, and they wanted to get their land and money back. Many Indian soldiers were forced to go fight aboard, away from their families and friends, to fight in British wars, to land they had never even seen before

The Rebellion : 

The Rebellion

The Beginnings of Rebellion: 

The Beginnings of Rebellion Before the actual mutiny by the sepoy, there were a series of smaller rebellions that occurred. It started on January 22, 1857 when Indian soldiers began firing at the B ritish soldiers in the city of Calcutta. A soldier named Mangal Pandey, had open fire at one of his commanding officers. The B ritish officer had ordered the Indian officer, Jemadar Ishwari Prasad, to stop his soldier from firing his weapon, but he refused to. After several bullets were shot, Pandey decided to commit suicide instead of being court marshaled, but his attempts had failed. Pandey was later hanged for his mutiny on April 8 th . Jemadar Ishwari Prasad was also hanged on April 22 nd because of his disobedience to British superiors But the damage was done and the thought of rebellion in the Indian army had begun to spread around the I ndian armies. Weeks later, other sectors of the Indian army began to open fire at the British, in places like Berhampur, Agra, and Allahabad. M Mangal Pandey

The Indian Rebellion Part 2: 

The Indian Rebellion Part 2 The true spark of the Indian rebellion occurred on May 9, 1857, in the city of Meerut. In Meerut, members of the 3rd regiment of the Indian army disobeyed British command. Every member was imprisoned and many committed suicide knowing their fate. This caused an uproar among the other soldier. The soldiers gathered together and liberated the members of the 3rd regiment free from British command. Once freed, the 3rd regiment and the other soldiers began chaos in the city of Meerut as people started to attack the British soldiers. The Battle of Meerut had been fought between 2000 British soldiers against 2350 sepoy warriors. They major difference in this battle was that the British had control of machines guns that had demolished the Indian front and force the Indians to hold a truce.

Rebellion Part 3: 

Rebellion Part 3 The next major rebellion act came in the city of Delhi, when the sepoy soldiers stationed there decided to rage the city and attack the British and Indian Christians that lived there. Many citizen had joined the rebellion army push the B ritish out of the city. During the raid, the sepoy had sent out explosions with in the city to strike fear into the British. Six of the nine officer manage to escape and destroy the arsenal of the sepoy, but that wasn’t much of a problem, since nearby sepoy warriors gathered as many weapons as they could and help the Indian army in Delhi. The next day, the British were forced to sign a treaty and the sepoy had taken 59 officer as prisoners. This battle caused an upspring of many other rebellious movement around India as other cities wanted to be free from the British.

The End of Rebellion in India: 

The End of Rebellion in India Even though it looked like the sepoy had gotten the upper hand, the British were able to get an alliance with the Sikhs and the Punjabis With their help, the British were able to recapture Delhi and stop any other major rebellious attacks from occurring. The sepoy realized that they had no hope in winning this rebellion and on July 8 th , 1857, the sepoy had signed a peaceful treaty with the British. Even though they had a treaty, many British soldiers still wanted revenge against the sepoy. The British soldier had hung the rebels, and some even tied Indian soldiers to canons and literally blew them up. After this rebellion, there was tense between the British and Indians over the decades to come. It wasn’t until 1947, when India gained its true independence from Britain, and it divided into India and Pakistan.

Annotated Bibliography: 

Annotated Bibliography Collier, R. (1964). The Great Indian Mutiny New York: Dutton. This was the book I used for my project, mostly for the battles during the rebellion Patel, N. (1998). The sepoy rebellion (1857). Retrieved from http://english.emory.edu/Bahri/Mutiny.html . I used this website for mostly the causes of the war and partial of the battles. Bragg, M. "In Our Time: The Indian Mutiny." BBC. London. 18 02 2010. Lecture. This is the lecture of my project which really helped show the Indian side of rebellion. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/letters/6743844/Unfashionable-paintings-decaying-out-of-sight.html and http://www.allempires.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=30641 as my main places to gather pictures for this project