Behind the Story: The Four Butchers of Cawnpore

 

The Massacre at the Bibighar

 The four Butchers of Cawnpore is set several years after the Indian Mutiny/Rebellion. I use the separating slash because the incident is called differently depending on your perspective. To the English, the Indian sepoy troops under their command committed mutiny when they attacked British forces and holdings in India. These were disloyal soldiers. To the Indians, it was a rebellion against an oppressor who had stolen their country. Today many Indian historians refer to it as the First War of Independence, and it is celebrated as a national holiday.

 Many atrocities on both sides occurred during the revolt. One of the worst was the massacre at the Bibighar.

 The Indian Mutiny of 1857

Map of British expansion in India in the 19th century. Cawnpore is in the north along the Ganges.

In 1857 Indian soldiers, native rulers and thousands of ordinary people rose up against the British East India Company.

The Company, as it was known, came in to being during the 17^th century to trade with the Mughal Empire. India was not a unified country, but a variety of territories. Through conquering and trade, the British East India Company gained control of much of the subcontinent, recruiting native armies to protect them. While at first blending with the native culture, soon the British began to impose their authority without regard to Indian culture. For the native soldiers of the Bengal Army, lack of pay and promotion along with cultural and racial insensitivity fomented discontent.

 The revolt began In May of 1857 after sepoys (designation of the native Indian infantryman in service to the British) were jailed for refusing to use the new Enfield rifle cartridges because they were greased with pork and cow fat. To use the cartridges a soldier would bite off the end to pour the powder, forcing them to consume some of the animal fat, against Hindu and Muslim religion. It was almost exclusively soldiers of the Bengal Army who mutinied, joined by local rulers angered at the Company’s annexation of native states. Thousands of common people also became involved for religious reasons, loyalty to their old rulers, and increasing tax demands. The main centers of the rebellion were Delhi, Cawnpore, Lucknow, Jhansi and Gwalior.

 Cawnpore

 Maj. Gen. Sir Hugh Wheeler was the British commander in Cawnpore (Kanpur). Wheeler’s wife was Indian, and he felt he had influence to prevent an outbreak in Cawnpore. He was wrong. In June of 1857 Wheeler and his forces were attacked. Desperate for escape, the General negotiated with the local ruler Nana Sahib for safe passage on the river to the next secure town. But when the British soldiers began to evacuate, the rebels killed nearly all of them. 

'The treacherous massacre of English women and children at Cawnpore by Nena Sahib', 1857. Tinted lithograph by T Packer, published by Stannard and Dixon, 7 Poland St, London, 12 October 1857

The women and children were rounded up and taken to a building called the Bibighar, or House of Women. Initially meant to be held as a negotiating tool, Nana Sahib soon realized his captives were a liability as a British force under General Havelock marched determinedly towards Cawnpore.

Ground plan of the bibighar from Shepherd's “A Personal Narrative of the Outbreak and Massacre at Cawnpore During the Sepoy Revolt of 1857”

 

Nana Sahib, along with other leaders of the revolt, decided to kill their prisoners. The captive women in the bibighar had boarded up the doors, though, and so the sepoy troops were ordered to fire inside the building through the windows. 

From the magazine "Ballou's Pictorial Drawing Room Companion" 1858

After one volley, the troops refused to continue. Accounts differ slightly on the details that followed, though the result was horrifyingly the same. When the troops refused to continue firing, men from the town were recruited to finish off the remaining women and children with the use of swords. Some say that four men of the butcher’s profession were sent for and used their cleavers to finish the business. Regardless, the job was done, and the bodies were flung down a nearby well.

 The scene is described by J.W. Shepherd, one of a few survivors of the massacre, in his book “A Personal Narrative of the Outbreak and Massacre at Cawnpore During the Sepoy Revolt of 1857”.

from “A Personal Narrative of the Outbreak and Massacre at Cawnpore During the Sepoy
Revolt of 1857”

 

“Some of the scenes, most horrifying and dreadful that eye could witness, were to be met with by persons who visited that house of terrible carnage and blood, where the helpless women and children had been butchered on the 15th July. On a near approach to the building, the mind imperceptibly filled with the most harrowing thoughts, felt as if a strange indescribable something hovered round the place which impressed one with awe, and the deepest melancholy.”

from “A Personal Narrative of the Outbreak and Massacre at Cawnpore During the
Sepoy Revolt of 1857”

“Then, as the horrified beholder entered the court-yard and stood at the threshold, his eyes fell upon the floor inside, covered over with blood, it came over his shoes as he stepped in. Tresses of women's hair, some nearly a yard long, mats steeped in gore, children's shoes, and articles of female wear, hats, bonnets (some hanging against the wall), leaves of Bibles and other religious books, children's frocks and locks, ladies' boots, broken daguerreotype cases, small earthen pots and pans, bottles and water vessels, broken and unbroken, were to be seen strewn all about the place, dotted thickly with blood. One small room was a pool of blood about two inches deep. There were the marks of bullets and sword cuts on the walls and pillars in the room and on the door posts. Into these sword cuts in places long tresses of ladies' hair had been carried by the edge of the weapon and there hung--a most painful spectacle.

It is stated that one of the five executioners mentioned at page 118, named Sarwur Khan, had no less than three swords broken while slaughtering the helpless victims, for he was seen repeatedly emerging out of the building with his broken sword to procure another from the Nana's quarters in the hotel.”

 And so evolved the story of the Four Butchers of Cawnpore.

 It is worth noting that this massacre was by all accounts horrendous. But the British retaliated with atrocities of their own. Indians, innocent or guilty, were executed. One of the most brutal methods was to tie someone to a cannon. Not only was this a horrible way to die, but because their bodies were blown to bits, they would not be able to receive a proper religious burial.

Mutineers about to be blown from guns by the Bengal Horse Artillery, 1858. Watercolor by Orlando Norie 

 The last major action of the rebellion occurred at the city of Gwalior in June of 1858, where the British Major-General Sir Hugh Rose recaptured the city from the Indian Queen Rani Lakshmi Bai. Britain retained control of India, but because of the rebellion the governance was shifted from the British East India Company to the Crown. In 1877 Queen Victoria was crowned Empress of India. While Britain established some political and religious reforms following the rebellion, scars remained from a colonial empire’s contempt of another people’s history and culture in their attempt to civilize them.