Vellore Mutiny: 200 years ago today.

Manish at Ultrabrown reminds me of an event that took place 200 years ago in a place that I am very familiar with. Quoting Outlook Magazine :

On July 10, 1806, exactly two hundred years ago, as the moon shone over the ramparts of the Vellore fort, at 2 a.m., Indian sepoys rose in a bloody revolt against the East India Company’s garrison. As shrieks and gunfire pierced the quiet, the sepoys shot at English officers, fired into the European barracks and massacred the sick in their hospital, leaving 14 British officers and 100 soldiers dead. In the counterattack unleashed at 9 a.m. by Colonel Robert Rollo Gillespie’s men, who rushed from Arcot 14 miles away, 350 Indians sepoys were put to death…

This little-documented event was the first major rebellion against the emerging British Empire in colonial India. It cost the governor of Madras, Lord William Bentinck, his job.

The last time I was home, I took a walk along those ramparts and took some pictures of the Fort (built "in the 3rd quarter of the 16th century") and the temple within it (a few decades older). Here are some pictures. The complete set is here.

The fort with the town in the background :

The entrance to the fort that leads out onto what used to be a drawbridge (I think):

Sentry posts (?) along the ramparts:

Jalakanteswara temple :

A[n old ?] banyan tree inside :

A [colonial era ?] tennis court :