This week's edition of History's Mystery: We Never Learn is somewhat kairotic, given the recent election. As many (hopefully all) of you probably know, Donald Trump is widely criticized for his angry rhetoric, especially towards Muslims, racial minorities and women. Shortly after his historic victory over Hillary Clinton on November 8, riots and protests erupted across the country, and the hashtag #NotMyPresident went viral on all platforms of social media. This is what happens after you treat a certain person (or in this case a group of people) poorly for too long.
The story I have for you all today is the Black Hole of Calcutta. There's not much to it, to be honest. Our journey begins in the mid-1700s. As is the grand tradition of European nations, England was colonizing different continents. This tale in particular took place on the Asian subcontinent of India. Britain and France were the world's two largest empires at the time, and naturally were constantly trying to one-up each other in pretty much everything. In the late 1600s, Britain had a port in the city of Calcutta, and as the years went on they continued to fortify it to protect it from any possible French attack. The Indians were getting increasingly mad. They were angry to begin with because India wasn't Britain's land to begin with, so they had no right to be there anyway. The continuation of foritfying the port of Calcutta was only adding to the anger.
The Nawab of Bengal, Siraj-ud-daula, eventually had had enough of the nonsense. He told the governor of Calcutta to tell the Brits to stop fortifying. And what did the British do? Ignored him. Surprise, surprise. The Indians did not come to play. They marched on Calcutta with hundreds of elephants and scores of cannons. Thousands of people died. Heaps of British officials ran for cover in the ships and left the port with like, two men to defend it. (I'm kidding, there were about 200) On June 20, 1756, 146 prisoners were herded into a jail called the "Black Hole". It was 18 ft. by 14 ft. with two small windows. Because of the small area, large number of people, intense Indian summer heat, and only two small windows, most of the prisoners suffocated. Only twenty-three people survived.
The Indians' reactions are not uncommon for this sort of thing. In the words of my wise European history teacher, "People will only put up with so much crap before they snap." Examples of this can be seen throughout history, from the Boston Tea Party, which followed the Black Hole of Calcutta by only a few short decades, to the French storming the Bastille, to the East German riots, to the Arab Spring in 2010, and even to the Black Lives Matter and #NotMyPresident protests and riots that are going on right now. Throughout the centuries, people in power have been trying to oppress their citizens, and for centuries the citizens have been rising up and demonstrating that they won't take any more of it. So the next time someone posts on Facebook about people "whining about the outcome of the election", feel free to tell them that this sort of thing has been going on for centuries, and in fact, this country would not be here if it weren't for reactions like these.
This is an awesome last post. I love how you tied it back to today's time because it always seems like people think these movements are some new thing that people are just 'whining' about. THey're the same type of people that would have said the colonists were whining in the Boston Tea Party had they been alive at the time
ReplyDeleteNice use of our vocab words on your introduction sentence ;)
ReplyDeleteI will miss your blog posts. I think it was a great idea to use examples from history to support your claims about the present and I can tell that you are passionate about your topics. I appreciate your fiery voice in your posts and I hope that you don't stop writing like this!