The Sepoy Rebellion
Nick Ruffcorn
During the mid-1800’s the British East India Company grew in power enormously, so much so that they were able to be the main force behind the British colonization of India. The East India Company annexed many of the different Raj’s that were already in India at the time with a large, privately funded army and consolidated their holdings. After all of the territories had been annexed the company needed to find a way to hold onto their newly acquired territories and to do that they hired an army of 200,000 Sepoys that were trained and controlled by a private force of 40,000 British officers. Tensions rose between the Sepoys and the British rulers for a multitude of reasons which led to a full rebellion by the Sepoys against the British that ultimately led to major changes in India but not independence.
The tensions between the British and the Sepoys that they employed escalated for myriad of reasons. One of the major reasons for the rebellion of the Sepoys had to do with the religious backgrounds of many of the Sepoys, namely Muslims and Hindus. The rifles that the Sepoys fired required you to bite the end of a cartridge before you put it in the rifle. Often these cartridges contained parts of beef or pork which goes against the Hindu and Muslim religious doctrines respectably. When the Sepoys learned that they were being tricked by the British into going against their religious principles they were enraged. Another reason for the Sepoy Rebellion was the worry of Indian people that they were losing their cultural identity as they became more anglicized. The reason for these fears was that missionaries had been in India for years trying to convert Indians as well as the British East India Company itself. The company had no worry for the different peoples of India and because of this the Indian culture was slowly being destroyed in the quest for more profits.
The insurgency by the Sepoys began in in Meerut in 1857 and from there spread to Delhi. When the Sepoy Rebels were able to capture the city of Delhi they proclaimed that the Moghul dynasty would be returned and that Bahadur Shah would be their ruler. The British were distressed with this news and as the rebellion spread through the rest of British controlled India the British sent a letter to the English Parliament asking for help. It took over 6 weeks to get the letter there and even more time for the British to organize a force to take back India. Over a month since the plea to Parliament had been sent to England a British expeditionary force arrive to India. They slowly retook all of the Indian lands that the Sepoys had retaken.
After the rebellion of the Sepoys, many things changed in regards to the British influence in India. When the British Crown say how the British East India Company had run their holdings and how it turned out the Crown decided, after long debate, that they would need to take direct control over the territory of India. When the Crown decided to do this many steps were taken to prevent a mass revolt occurring again and taking control of India. The first of these precautions was the building of a telegram that reached from India all the way to Britain directly. This was a massive undertaking by the British government and required hundreds of treaties to be created with many countries between India and Britain. The second major way that the British assured themselves of their complete control of the colony of India was through the buying, and subsequent invasion, of Suez Canal. The canal had been created as part of a joint-stock company with many of the investors being French bourgeoisie who had created it in order to have greater and faster access to French lands without having to travel around Africa. The British eventually bought out all of the shares to the Suez Canal company but they were not done yet. They then invaded Egypt but left the Egyptian king in control of his country as a puppet king in an example of indirect rule of the New Imperialism age. These two changes helped immensely with the problem of India being too far away from England by greatly decreasing the time that it took for a message to get from England to India or vice versa as well as the time for getting resources to and from India from England was almost halved.
The Sepoy rebellion was the principle fact that allowed a stronger British presence in India. This was the opposite of what the Indians had desired when they rebelled against the British. Later, through peaceful means Gandhi was able to liberate the people of India from the choke of British imperialism. This difference between peaceful policies of some 20th century leaders versus the violent ideals of others played out all across the world in many different countries and both have their own merits but in India the one that was far more successful was the peaceful nonviolent protests of Mohandas Gandhi.
Bibliography
"British Empire: Forces: Campaigns: Indian Mutiny, 1857 - 58." British Empire: Forces: Campaigns: Indian Mutiny, 1857 - 58. United Kingdom, n.d. Web. 30 Mar. 2014.
"Indian Rebellion of 1857." World History: The Modern Era. ABC-CLIO, 2014. Web. 30 Mar. 2014.
Marshall, Peter. "British India and the "Great Rebellion"" BBC News. BBC, n.d. Web. 30 Mar. 2014.
Patel, Nilesh. "Sepoy Mutiny of 1857." Postcolonial Studies Emory. Emory, 1998. Web. 30 Mar. 2014.
Nick Ruffcorn
During the mid-1800’s the British East India Company grew in power enormously, so much so that they were able to be the main force behind the British colonization of India. The East India Company annexed many of the different Raj’s that were already in India at the time with a large, privately funded army and consolidated their holdings. After all of the territories had been annexed the company needed to find a way to hold onto their newly acquired territories and to do that they hired an army of 200,000 Sepoys that were trained and controlled by a private force of 40,000 British officers. Tensions rose between the Sepoys and the British rulers for a multitude of reasons which led to a full rebellion by the Sepoys against the British that ultimately led to major changes in India but not independence.
The tensions between the British and the Sepoys that they employed escalated for myriad of reasons. One of the major reasons for the rebellion of the Sepoys had to do with the religious backgrounds of many of the Sepoys, namely Muslims and Hindus. The rifles that the Sepoys fired required you to bite the end of a cartridge before you put it in the rifle. Often these cartridges contained parts of beef or pork which goes against the Hindu and Muslim religious doctrines respectably. When the Sepoys learned that they were being tricked by the British into going against their religious principles they were enraged. Another reason for the Sepoy Rebellion was the worry of Indian people that they were losing their cultural identity as they became more anglicized. The reason for these fears was that missionaries had been in India for years trying to convert Indians as well as the British East India Company itself. The company had no worry for the different peoples of India and because of this the Indian culture was slowly being destroyed in the quest for more profits.
The insurgency by the Sepoys began in in Meerut in 1857 and from there spread to Delhi. When the Sepoy Rebels were able to capture the city of Delhi they proclaimed that the Moghul dynasty would be returned and that Bahadur Shah would be their ruler. The British were distressed with this news and as the rebellion spread through the rest of British controlled India the British sent a letter to the English Parliament asking for help. It took over 6 weeks to get the letter there and even more time for the British to organize a force to take back India. Over a month since the plea to Parliament had been sent to England a British expeditionary force arrive to India. They slowly retook all of the Indian lands that the Sepoys had retaken.
After the rebellion of the Sepoys, many things changed in regards to the British influence in India. When the British Crown say how the British East India Company had run their holdings and how it turned out the Crown decided, after long debate, that they would need to take direct control over the territory of India. When the Crown decided to do this many steps were taken to prevent a mass revolt occurring again and taking control of India. The first of these precautions was the building of a telegram that reached from India all the way to Britain directly. This was a massive undertaking by the British government and required hundreds of treaties to be created with many countries between India and Britain. The second major way that the British assured themselves of their complete control of the colony of India was through the buying, and subsequent invasion, of Suez Canal. The canal had been created as part of a joint-stock company with many of the investors being French bourgeoisie who had created it in order to have greater and faster access to French lands without having to travel around Africa. The British eventually bought out all of the shares to the Suez Canal company but they were not done yet. They then invaded Egypt but left the Egyptian king in control of his country as a puppet king in an example of indirect rule of the New Imperialism age. These two changes helped immensely with the problem of India being too far away from England by greatly decreasing the time that it took for a message to get from England to India or vice versa as well as the time for getting resources to and from India from England was almost halved.
The Sepoy rebellion was the principle fact that allowed a stronger British presence in India. This was the opposite of what the Indians had desired when they rebelled against the British. Later, through peaceful means Gandhi was able to liberate the people of India from the choke of British imperialism. This difference between peaceful policies of some 20th century leaders versus the violent ideals of others played out all across the world in many different countries and both have their own merits but in India the one that was far more successful was the peaceful nonviolent protests of Mohandas Gandhi.
Bibliography
"British Empire: Forces: Campaigns: Indian Mutiny, 1857 - 58." British Empire: Forces: Campaigns: Indian Mutiny, 1857 - 58. United Kingdom, n.d. Web. 30 Mar. 2014.
"Indian Rebellion of 1857." World History: The Modern Era. ABC-CLIO, 2014. Web. 30 Mar. 2014.
Marshall, Peter. "British India and the "Great Rebellion"" BBC News. BBC, n.d. Web. 30 Mar. 2014.
Patel, Nilesh. "Sepoy Mutiny of 1857." Postcolonial Studies Emory. Emory, 1998. Web. 30 Mar. 2014.