Frey James - The Indian Rebellion, 1857-1859

PASSAGES: KEY MOMENTS IN HISTORY

The Indian Rebellion,
18571859

A Short History with Documents

PASSAGES: KEY MOMENTS IN HISTORY

The Indian Rebellion,
18571859

A Short History with Documents

James Frey

Hackett Publishing Company, Inc.
Indianapolis/Cambridge

Though every reasonable effort has been made to contact the owners of the copyrighted materials included in this book, in some instances this has proven impossible. Hackett Publishing will be glad to receive information leading to a more complete understanding of the permissions required for this book and in the meantime extends its apologies for any omissions.

Copyright 2020 by Hackett Publishing Company, Inc.

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Library of Congress Control Number: 2020932115

ISBN-13: 978-1-62466-904-0 (cloth)

ISBN-13: 978-1-62466-903-3 (pbk.)

ePub3 ISBN: 978-1-62466-947-7

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Contents

The page numbers in curly braces {} correspond to the print edition of this title.

The Indian Rebellion was my gateway to the study of history. I wrote this book, in part, because I have always found this particular topic fascinating, as well as a good introduction to historiography and South Asian Studies. A close scrutiny of this book will reveal many scholars fingerprints: those of Eugene Irshick, Thomas R. Metcalf, Ronald Goldman, and George L. Hart, who first taught me about Indian civilization when I was an undergraduate at the University of California at Berkeley; and, from my graduate school days at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, those of Robert Eric Frykenberg, Andr Wink, and many others. In graduate school, I was able to pursue my interest in the East India Company, its sepoy armies, and the dynamics of mutiny in a colonial context. Under my premarital name, Hoover, my PhD dissertation was published by Manohar and titled Men Without Hats: Dialogue, Discipline, & Discontent in the Madras Army, 18061807 (2007). Later, I contributed to Dr. Crispin Batess Mutiny at the Margins project. In recent years, my work has focused on Indian maritime history and lascars, as well as different aspects of trade (especially saltpeter and cochineal), and the rise of nineteenth-century globalization. All these threads of inquiry, however, have in one way or another intersected with the Indian Rebellion, and their traces can be found in this work.

I wish to acknowledge my wife, Heidi Frey, who visited Delhi, Lucknow, and Calcutta with me during a recent trip to India, and who helped me stay focused and productive during the writing of this book. I also want to thank the students in my class on the Indian Rebellion, who used the primary sources presented here, as well as part of the first draft of the narrative, and offered me enthusiastic support and advice. Finally, I am indebted to my departmentto colleagues who have established a strong record of research and writing, and an atmosphere that encourages this kind of scholarly pursuit.