ON THIS DAY · 15 JULY 1857

Siege of Cawnpore

27 Jun & 15 Jul 1857 — Nana Sahib promised the besieged British garrison safe passage, and it surrendered. At the river ghat, his men and rebel sepoys opened fire and killed most of the men. On 15 July, men acting for his court killed about 200 captive women and children at the Bibighar. Remember them.

The moment in context

The hatched lands on the January 1857 map show where recent Company expansion had disturbed established interests. Lord Dalhousie, the Governor-General and the Company's chief executive in India, had taken Satara, Jhansi and Nagpur under the Doctrine of Lapse. When a dependent ruler died without a natural son, the Company claimed his state even if he had adopted an heir. In 1856 Dalhousie also annexed Awadh (Oudh). There new revenue settlements assessed village ownership and tax obligations, depriving great landholders, the talukdars, of villages their families had held for generations. Many Bengal Army sepoys came from Awadh, so a change in government reached into the families of the Company's own soldiers. Their standing was threatened in another way: caste, the inherited rank governing whom a Hindu could marry or eat with, made overseas service dangerous to their place at home. Cartridges said to contain the fat of cows sacred to Hindus or pigs forbidden to Muslims raised fears of religious pollution.

From Indian Rebellion of 1857, chapter 1 of Indian Independence & Partition, 1857–1964 (JUL 1857).

The place: Siege of Cawnpore — map and full story →

The atlas that shows it

Indian Independence & Partition, 1857–1964

15 CHAPTERS · AN INTERACTIVE SITUATION MAP