TWT #191 –

On July 10th, 1806, Indian soldiers who were angry about their new dress code rebelled against their British officers, killing hundreds and capturing fort Vellore as their own… before being slaughtered by British backup.

The sun never sets on the British Empire… because the Brits got really good at killing anyone who got in their way.

In 1806, the British East India Company was a booming success. Not only were they raking in revenues equal to £1.3 BILLION per year in today’s money, they had also amassed a nice little private army of over 260,000 men (twice the size of the actual British army).

In November of 1805, these crazy British officers decided they wanted their Indian “sepoys” (aka infantrymen, but sepoy sounds way cooler) to dress in a more “soldierly appearance.”

Definitely not soldiery enough

To do so, they commanded all sepoys to replace their current turbans with fancy new round hats. Unfortunately they overlooked the fact that this hat was often associated with Indians who converted to Christianity (something the Muslim & Hindu sepoys did not appreciate).

The Brits also casually made it mandatory for Muslim sepoys to cut their beards, and prohibited Hindu’s from wearing religious marks on their foreheads. (If I know anything about Hindu’s, it’s that they love their forehead marks).

Another factor in play here were the sons of a defeated sultan. Tipu Sultan and his family had been confined in Fort Vellore since 1799 (don’t worry, they had their own private palace and were actually being paid by the East India company). Tipu’s sons talked a big talk about instigating a wide-spread uprising that would return their family to power (unfortunately once the fighting started, Tipu’s sons got a tidbit scared and didn’t actually get involved).

On the night of July 9th, many of the fort’s sepoy’s were sleeping in tents within the fort, so that they could be prepared for a morning parade. But in the wee hours of July 10th, the sepoys made their move.

They began the mutiny with a bang, killing 14 British officers and 115 men as they slept. By dawn, the sepoys had taken control of the city and declared Tipu’s son, Fateh Hyder, king (but remember, Fateh wasn’t all that stoked to be involved in fighting).

Naturally, the Brits weren’t too happy about this. Major Coopes escaped the bloodbath at Vellore and rode to the British garrison at Arcot. Once the alarm was rung at Arcot, Sir Rollo Gillespie reportedly left within 15 minutes with a band of a mere 20 men, while the larger force assembled itself and followed.

When Gillespie got to Vellore (ahead of the main force), he found that about sixty British soldiers were still holding a portion of Vellore’s ramparts, fighting the sepoys back without any ammo left. With no other way to get to these troops, Gillespie himself climbed the wall to reach the trapped men, and then led a bayonet charge to force back the mutineers.

Rollo Gillespie: Climber of walls, killer of sepoys.

Once the full British backup arrived and blew open the gates to the fort, Gillespie led another bayonet charge to clear a path for a British cavalry advance.

Now that the real fight was on, the Brits went about their absolutely brutal ways. One hundred sepoys who had hidden inside the palace were dragged out, lined up, and executed point blank.

All-in-all, the Brits killed about 350 mutineers, and wounded another 300 before they were satisfied with a hard day’s work.

But even that wasn’t really the end. A large number of sepoys had escaped Vellore and scattered throughout the surrounding countryside. These men were rounded up and put to trial.

Of the sepoys who went to trial, six of them were “blown from guns” which was the fun British way of saying “we tied them to the mouth of a cannon and shot a cannonball through them.”

Ouch.

Because of how unforgiving the British were to the mutineers, it would be nearly 50 years before another group of sepoys rebelled in the much larger Indian Rebellion of 1857… but that’s a Terrible story for another day.

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