September 14, 2015 • 29 mins
In 1756, after a skirmish between the British East India Company and the nawab of Bengal, dozens of captives were put into a holding cell intended for only a few people overnight. Most of them didn't make it out alive.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class Fun How
Stuff Works dot Com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
I'm Holly Fry and I'm Tracy V. Wilson, and today
we're gonna cover a little bit of India's history. We
don't really talk about India enough quite frankly, so it's time.
(00:24):
And this is an incident that some people have probably
heard of, but many have also not. One of the
lectures that I watched and preparing this particular episode's notes
mentioned that fifty years ago, most people that you asked
on the street would know about this incident, but that
today that number is really a great deal smaller. And
I will mention that I had not heard of it
before I started researching it, but Tracy had, so in
(00:47):
our sample set of two, there's only a fifty percent
knowledge rate, so well, well, and my knowledge of it
came from a non history class source, and not even
a history is historically accurate source, which is that the
very first job I ever had, I worked as a
summer employee at a finance office at the place that
my mom worked up and they had a file room
(01:13):
that the uh, the finance manager referred to as the
black Hole of Calcutta, and it was extremely hot, and
extremely crowded and extremely dirty. Uh And I gleaned from
all of that that's the dark Hole of or the
black Hole of Calcutta was a dark, dirty, hot, oppressive,
terrible place. But I did not know anything else specifically
(01:35):
about it. So the Black Hole of Calcutta actually refers
to two things, or rather the same thing, but in
two different ways. So first, it was in fact a
small prison cell, like a kind of like the cell
you would put um, you know, people that were intoxicated
in overnight in old timey Westerns. Like it was a
small little cell um. And that was in Fort William,
(01:56):
which was in Calcutta, and we're going to talk a
little bit about Fort William. But second, it also refers
to this specific incident that is quite horrific and happened
there in that cell in the mid seventeen hundreds. I
feel like I should explain why I just laughed in
the background, which is that I grew up in North Carolina,
where the Andy Griffiths Show is on TV at all times,
(02:17):
and there is a I mean, in hindsight, it's very sad.
It's an alcoholic named Otis who blacks himself up in
the jail, and the image of that made me chuckle
while you were talking exactly that's kind of what I
think of to you, like this was roughly akin to
like the Pokey in the Andy Griffith Show, Like it
was intended to be like a small misdemeanor situation. And
(02:38):
we'll talk about that some more as we go on,
but first we're going to kind of set the political
scene that was going on in India at the time.
In the late sixteen hundreds and early seventeen hundreds, that
was really a time of rising tensions in India. The
Mughal Empire was losing its power and had the centralized
provincial governors known as no bobs shared the power that
(03:01):
was previously held by the Mughal dynasty, and British commercial
efforts had set up a base of trade operations in Calcutta,
and they had erected a fort, Fort William to safeguard
these interests. The East India Company had been slowly building
its power base there over the years since the late
sixteen hundreds, and it had reached a point where it
(03:23):
basically controlled all of the commerce in the city. In fact,
Calcutta is the Anglicized version of the city's name, which
was the official name until its two thousand and one.
At that point, the Indian government renamed the city Kolkata
to more closely reflect the Bengali pronunciation. So while we're
going to leave the title of the episode with the
(03:44):
anglicized name to reflect the way that this story is known,
Kolkata is the more accurate name for the city. Yeah,
so going forward, we'll use the more accurate name. But
I doing a quick search online using the Kolkata spelling
usually just redirects you back to Calcutta if it finds things,
So that's why we're leaving the episode name that way. Well,
(04:06):
And that's a balance that you and I kind of
have to strike sometimes between an episode that people can
identify from the name and know what it's about enough
to want to actually listen to it and then find
out the more accurate story, right, and also for searchability online,
it's you know, we'll we'll tag it with both of
the ways so that people can easily find it. But
(04:27):
we're just you gotta fall in line with some of
these historical ones. So, uh, first, we're going to talk
about two men in particular who ended up being really
pivotal players in this event, and the first is suraj
Al Dawla, who was the Naab of Bengal, having succeeded
his grandfather in the position in seventeen fifty six. And
sarage Aldola was born somewhere between sevente and seventeen thirty three,
(04:49):
depending on which sorts you look at, but basically he
was in his mid twenties when he gained power and
was in the midst of this. John the whole Well
was born in double In in seventeen eleven. He was
a surgeon by trade and he took a position as
a surgeon's mate on a ship that was bound for
Kolkata in seventeen thirty two. He was eventually hired as
(05:11):
a surgeon major for the East India Company and he
settled in Kolkata in seventeen thirty six. So, in the
middle of the eighteenth century, the East India Company had
a garrison in Fort William to defend the city in
British interests there and there had been repeated instructions throughout
the years from the parent company to those running things
(05:31):
in Colkata to ensure that the ports and the company
holdings were always protected and quote to make your fortifications
strong enough to discourage or sustain any attempts of the moors,
but in as private a manner as you can. The
East India Company had already been fortifying Fort William for
some time by the summer of seventeen fifty six, which
(05:52):
incensed the Bengal Noab. It had further stepped up these
efforts in the anticipation of a con lickd with France,
which eventually manifested as the Seven Years War. Siraj al
Dalla was, to put it mildly, quite displeased with this
increased defensive effort on the part of the British. So
the Nawab, believing that all this fortification was really a
(06:15):
direct challenge to his power, uh sent an order to
the British to cease with this fortification project, and no
response was given to this order. The British didn't even
acknowledge that they had ever gotten it, and the work
on the fort continued. They were both shoring up the
physical fort and bringing in more troops, and so Sir
Raj al Dowlah, feeling that he had no other choice,
(06:38):
attacked Kolkata. His forces included between thirty thousand and fifty
thousand men, along with five hundred elephants and fifty cannons.
Their approach was really systematic and moved first through the
outlying areas of the city, working their way slowly inward.
This attack began on June sixteenth, seventeen fifty six. As
(07:00):
the army of the Naab approached the fort, the governor,
Roger Drake, his staff and many other British residents of
the fort fled. They made their way to the harbor
and two awaiting ships, and this left behind a number
of women and children, about a hundred and seventy soldiers,
which were commanded by John Zephaniah whole Well, John's Wholewell
that we talked about earlier, and Drake was later dismissed
(07:24):
by the company after this whole incident, he was charged
with incompetence and let go. As sarage al Dalla advanced,
the people in Fort William grew increasingly aware of the
very poor odds that they were facing. On the evening
of June eighth, it was decided that all European women
still remaining should be escorted to boats on the river
(07:46):
and after that whole, Well, having been left there alone,
rallied what men he could, even those who had not
been in the military, to prepare to defend themselves and
those left behind by Roger Drake, and he ended up
with approximately of hundred people in total. Only half of
those were Europeans. The other half was made up of Armenians,
Indo Portuguese and Indians. When Suraj al Dallah and his
(08:11):
men reached Fort William on the morning of June twenty
Holwell and his meager crew really did not have much
of a chance. Their morale was extremely poor. There had
been talk of retreating to the harbor and taking flight
and ships, although all the boats were gone by this time,
some of the remaining makeshift military simply ran. In addition
(08:32):
to being ridiculously outnumbered, their defenses at Fort William were
virtually non existent. So they had two murders at the fort,
but they were useless because all of the powder had
gotten wet. This is also a very humid area and
it hadn't really been cared for and stored properly, and
the grape shot that they had on hand had also
been damaged and degraded in storage. All sort of ironic
(08:53):
when you consider that part of what had incensed the
Bengal nuab was the fact that Fort William was building
up its defenses. Apparently they were not doing a very
good job of that on the weapons front. But in
any case, hole Well stood as commander of the fort's garrison,
and that was simply by being one of the highest
ranking British men left there. He was kind of nominated
(09:14):
into that position by the people that were left behind.
He had zero military experience, recalled that he was in
fact a surgeon, and the men under him, who were
actually soldiers and not civilian volunteers, basically mutinied. They knew
that Holwell was not capable of handling them or the situation,
and many of them deserted. So in the end hole
Well ended up with about a hundred and fifty men.
(09:37):
So hole Well ended up surrendering within hours after the
few available firearms had exhausted the small ammunition supply that
was on hand. He believed that he and those with
him would be treated honorably. Hol Well was brought before Sarage,
who expressed his disdain for the European fortifications at Fort William.
The non Europeans who had stood along with Holwell were released,
(10:00):
and whole Well and all the other European captives were
left with Sarage's guards. Some of the captives were apparently
intoxicated in that whole mutiny thing. Apparently there was a
break into some liquor supplies, and these intoxicated people got
a little aggressive with the guards. They were just a
little difficult to handle, and at some stage of these
(10:21):
kind of tense interactions, the guards became really frustrated, to
the point that someone insisted that these captives absolutely had
to be confined. That night, around eight pm, whole Well
his men, several of whom were wounded, and somewhere between
one and five women. Accounts really vary on exactly how
many were locked up in a cell that was nicknamed
(10:41):
the black Hole. And before we get to the details
of the night that these prisoners spent in the black Hole,
we're gonna pause before it gets because it gets kind
of dark here coming up, So we're gonna pause now
for a word from one of the great sponsors that
keeps us going. So the black Hole, the cell itself
was simply a room. It was approximately eighteen feet that's
(11:03):
five point five meters long and about fourteen feet ten
inches or roughly very roughly four meters wide, and the
size of the actual cell very somewhat in terms of
whose description you're reading. And the building was actually demolished
in eighteen eighteen, so verification on this one is a
lost cause. It wasn't a recessed cell into the ground. Um.
(11:25):
There were two small barred windows in the black hole,
and now this space, as we mentioned earlier, was built
in the four as a sort of lock up for
minor offenses, and it certainly was not intended to hold
the number of people that were shut into it that night.
To compound the horror of the situation, the weather at
this time was well trainly hot, not uncommon for temperatures
(11:47):
in Kolkata in June to reach the high nineties fahrenheit,
which is the mid to high thirties celsius. Yes, and
again this is one of those things where we only
have historical accounts, but there are several people that say
that it reached record some close to record highs this
particular year. So even surpassing those numbers and with people
(12:08):
that were crammed into the black hole together, we're climbing
over each other for access to the windows and a
chance at just getting a breath of freshish air. And
they were also left minimal water for the night, so
they fought over the meager supply that they had. The
prisoners called to the guards for assistance or for mercy,
but there please were really met with laughter. They tried
(12:30):
to bribe the guards, but to no avail. Whole Will
likely survived because he was often near the windows trying
to reason with the guards for some kind of assistance.
And there was actually part of Holwell's description of this
event where he talks about one guard that did seem
almost sympathetic to their plight, and it seems like this
ray of hope, and this particular guard was offered money
(12:53):
to shift some of the prisoners from the cell in
the black hole to like any other place that they
could be confined. And the guard left and it seemed
like he was going to take some action, but then
he returned after a little while and said that the
Naab was sleeping and that no one was allowed to
wake him to ask if moving the prisoners would be acceptable. Allegedly,
(13:13):
one of the prisoners drank the sweat rolling off of
whole well and into his sleeves. Hold Well said that
he attempted to drink his own urine in desperation, but
it could not handle the taste. Uh when another guard
brought a small amount of water, Like I think the
account is that there were two small skins of water
for the group, because these people were all sweating, the
(13:36):
air was getting heavy with just moisture and they were
just getting super de hydrated. But a fight ensued and
a lot of that water was actually spilled, and hold
Well really felt that like this may have been a
nice gesture, but the bottom line was that it did
more harm than good. And as the evening went on,
some of the men that were just exhausted just laid
(13:56):
down on the floor and died quietly, while others made
sort of these last desperate rushes for the windows. At
one point, Hallwell pulled out his knife and intended to
cut his own arteries and commit suicide, but he reconsidered.
He wound up losing consciousness a short time later, And
according to Howell's account, one and forty six people were
(14:18):
locked into that tiny room, And this account has been
widely disputed. We'll talk about the numbers a little bit
more in a bit, But even the reduced number of
people that we're going to discuss that some modern scholarship
has has sort of determined was more accurate, it still
would have been an incredibly tight and frankly inhumane situation.
And so when the door was opened the next morning,
(14:41):
only twenty three people were still alive. The rest had
either died of suffocation or by having been crushed as
multiple people tried to break the door open on mass
It took more than twenty minutes to clear the bodies
away from the door to let the survivors of the
ten hours in the black hole get out. Holwell was
found under a pile of bodies. Once those who were
(15:05):
still alive were free of the cramped room, they were
allowed to lie down in the grass at the front
of the fort, and the handling of the dead is
described a little bit differently from account to account. In
some the bodies were hastily buried in sort of a
mass grave or a pit, and in others they were
merely thrown into an existing ditch. Holwell was taken before
(15:28):
sarage and tried to tell the nab of the horrible
ordeal that he had somehow managed to survive, but Sarage
wasn't interested in the story. Instead, he wanted information about
a rumored stronghold of riches that was somewhere in the fort.
Holwell didn't know of any such thing, which really frustrated Surage,
and he ordered the whole Well be sent away. So
(15:50):
at this point John Holwell was taken with three other
prisoners to Mershabod and his health at this point was
extremely poor. He was covered allegedly in boils, and after
several weeks as sort of a prisoner of war, he
was released on July seventeenth, And in part this is
because it was recognized that during his time working in
Kolkata he had treated the Indian population really quite well,
(16:13):
and particularly he had been very kind to those in
need of medical attention and even kind of helping out
in his role as a doctor for people that really
he had no um responsibility to take care of. It
took five months for Wholewell to get back to Great Britain,
and he did so on a sloop called the Siren.
During his time at sea, he penned his account of
(16:35):
what had happened during those ten hours trapped in a
small room with dozens of people. Meanwhile, while he was traveling,
word of these many deaths that had occurred at Fort
William reached the East India Company's offices in Madras, and
by October a two pronged military attack was launched against Surage.
Robert Clive led land forces that attacked Fort William and
(16:58):
Admiral Charles Watson led a fleet of ships to bombard
the stronghold from the harbor. In January seventifty seven, British
forces regained control of the fort from the Nawab and
his troops. Surage Aldalla was once again defeated by the
British the Battle of Plassy in June of seventeen fifty seven,
and he was executed. This is often cited as a
(17:20):
major turning point in the history of India, as it
marked the true establishment of British power there. So, before
we get to some of the discrepancies in these stories
that were told and and Wholewell's account versus what was
the realistic numbers, We're gonna have another brief word from
a great sponsor. So, after the horrors of the black
(17:41):
Hole incident were revealed to the public, the story was
actually used to bolster anti Indian sentiment. In Britain, it
was touted as what was obviously an example of how
primitive and savage people of other lands were when they
didn't have sensible leadership from Great Britain, and in effect
it became this piece of pro empire proper ganda, never
mind the fact that you know, this British company had
(18:04):
come in and taken over a city in another country.
Clearly that city needed it. According to the point of
view that was put forth by people who really wanted
to use this story to benefit their interests, no one
had any strong desire at this point either to question
hole Well's details in the matter or verify any of
his numbers, because they were too busy focusing on getting revenge.
(18:26):
And that's twentieth century. The details of hole Well's account
have really been called into question. In ninetif H Little,
a schoolmaster from Britain, noted a number of discrepancies in
whole Well's description of the event and really discredited his
version of the story. Yeah, there were just a lot
of little things that when you go back and look
at the the details and the records, there are a
(18:49):
lot of things that just don't quite add up. Um
and Again, we've talked about before how one memory is fallible,
incredibly fallible, and to particularly you know, in a post
trauma situation, some things can get really warped, and it's
that just happens naturally. So I don't want to paint
(19:09):
it like people think whole Well was just being a
big fibure. He just was wrong about some of the details. Um. Additionally,
another author and professor, Brigian Gupta, conducted his own research
into the matter in the nineteen fifties and he used
again records and some calculations to determine that the real
number of men put into the black Hole was less
(19:31):
than half of what was reported by whole Well, probably
sixty four. And the number of survivors, however, was very similar.
Uh Gupta puts it at twenty one versus whole Well's
account of twenty three, So the proportion of survivors was
actually much higher than had been believed for more than
a hundred and fifty years up to that point. That's
(19:51):
really a huge number of people to be in a
space stat's eyes, in that level of heat. Yeah, even
at half of what whole Well reported, it's a horrific
situation for people to be in. Gouda's research revealed that
all accounts that had been given about the night of
June seventeen fifty six were linked back to whole Well, So,
(20:12):
in other words, none of them was given independently without
his influence, which is again sort of natural. These people
all knew each other and had been through this traumatic event,
but it is believed that whole Well may have kind
of helped bolster his own story in talking about it
with other people the way people socialize, and they'll go,
do you remember when that thing happened? And it was
like this, and they're kind of collective recollection got a
(20:34):
little warpy, uh. And in addition to this discrepancy in numbers,
these later examiners of the events also indicate through their
research that noad sarraj Aldowla actually did not order this
cruel incarceration of the prisoners. He was, in fact, likely
completely unaware of it until after the fact. So even
when Wholewell was brought before him the next morning and
(20:56):
was trying to explain what had happened, the sarage wasn't like, oh, yeah,
a bunch of people died, that's great, whatever, Where's Where's
the gold in the rubies. He really had no idea
what had taken place the night before. So you might
think that John Z. Holwell would have never wanted to
return to Calkata, but in fact he did just that
in seventeen fifty nine. He was named governor in seventeen sixty,
(21:18):
but disagreements with the East India Company's board of directors
led him to resign just a few months later. And
during his time as governor, whole Well erected a monument
near the site of the black Hole in memory of
the people that had died there, although this monument was
pulled down for reasons unknown in eighteen twenty one, and
after his resignation, he once again returned home to Britain
(21:40):
and he retired there. He spent the rest of his
years in Pinner, where he died in late seventeen. There's
an obelisk memorial in Kolkata, although it's not in the
location of the black Hole. It was originally erected in
nineteen o two at the actual black hole site, but
it was moved to the grounds of St. John's churchs
which was built by the East India Company in the
(22:02):
ninett yeah. That church had been there since I think
the seventeen hundreds. So after the many deaths by any accounting,
whether you take the amended UH numbers or not UM
in the black Hole, this event was still used as
a cautionary tale about lack of aration enclosed spaces, and
(22:23):
considering that the space in the black Hole was somewhere
around three hundred square feet or twenty eight square meters,
and that it was very hot in the space with
little air circulation, it was just an obvious recipe for disaster,
but it wasn't something that had been thought of in
that way prior to this event. If the prisoners had
(22:43):
stayed absolutely perfectly, still more of them might have survived,
but there still would have likely been quite a few
deaths because of the extreme heat and the dehydration, and
of course those who died from being crushed and suffocated
during the attempt to break down the door would have
been spared as well. Yeah, but we just don't know.
(23:04):
I mean, it's kind of like the hot car situation,
except it's like putting dozens of people in a slightly
larger hot car. But that's basically what we're talking about,
So I know, UM, in reading some accounts of it,
or some people talking about it online, They're like, how
could all those people die so quickly? It just didn't.
(23:25):
They were in a cell, there were windows, and it's like,
oh no, no, like we're talking about really actually horrific conditions. Um.
So that is the rather jarring and horrible story of
the black Hole of Calcutta or Colcatta, if you use
the modern pronunciation or the accurate pronunciation, I should say, Uh,
it's a little bit of a downer, but it's pretty
(23:46):
fascinating and it does make you think about how sort
of simple negligence can really cause some awful moments in history. Yeah,
the foul room at my first job was definitely not
that horrifying. It was just a dark room in an
attic that was not your conditioned and full of looming
(24:08):
boxes of files, which can also be dangerous, but not
that dangerous. Yeah. Yeah, And it is an interesting one
because when you read historians discussing this issue today, there
really is sort of this sense that at no point
was anybody thinking like, oh, we will shove all these
(24:29):
people in here to die. They just were not considering
how lethal the environment was. So again, it's just through
more negligence than like intent. Even it's very horrifying. I
can't imagine what an awful situation that would be. But
that is the story of the black Hole. It's a
completely different context, but it reminds me of stories now
(24:52):
of people who are trying to cross a border sometimes
because they are fleeing atrocities in their own country, who
wind up suffocating in like the backs of trucks and
under seats in cars and stuff like that because it's
just so hot. Which is it like a horror in
(25:12):
it whole different way. Uh So we're gonna shift gears
now and go to listener mail, which is not about
people suffocating, Thank goodness, it's much happier. Listener mail is.
This is from our listener Anna, and she says, Hi,
Tracy and Holly, I am a new listener to your
podcast for a little over six months, but I've been
(25:33):
binge listening to make up for lost time. I really
love how you hit so many different topics and you
always keep it interesting. I recently went on a trip
to China, so I listened to all of your China
related podcasts before I left, and I considered it studying. Uh,
she said, I was listening today to your Virginia ACAR podcast.
Very nicely done, and I was amused along with you,
that a huge breakthrough in medicine came from the simple
(25:55):
concept of look at the baby. I wish I could
tell you that concept has since been fully grasped, but
it hasn't. I work as a nurse in a large
pediatric I see you there are always lots of monitors, wires, bells,
and whistles attached to our patients, and they do not
always cooperate as they should. They alarm when nothing is wrong,
or vice versa. The nurse that trained me used to say, quote,
(26:16):
these monitors tell me nothing except that I need to
look at my patient. At times, it has even lent
to arguments with doctors. I once had a resident refused
to discharge a patient that was all better and ready
to go home with a family, very excited to leave
the hospital. He said it was because the patient had
unstable heart rhythms overnight. I had heard nothing of this
from the night nurse, so he had to show me
(26:36):
where he was talking about on the monitor screen. I
assured him that those monitor irregularities were from someone patting
the baby, but he would not believe me. I had
to have him watch the monitor while I went over
and patted the baby, reproducing the unstable heart rhythms to
convince him. And the baby and his very relieved parents
were happy to go home later that day. All that
(26:57):
to say, we may have technology out the wazoo, but
once still has to look at the baby. I feel
like that should be a shirt now I do to
look at the baby. We should get on that. And
we also need a moon Beaver's a lunar beaver shirt. Yeah,
I've been working on a lunar Beaver's one. I just
haven't got it where I want it. But I feel
like there was, oh oh, there was the one that
(27:18):
I want that says mispronunciating. Since we'll do it. Uh.
And I goes on to say, I know you guys
like to hear what people do while they listen to
your podcast. I make cakes. I'm only a part time nurse,
and I now have my own custom cake design studio
called Savior Fork. I appreciate you guys keeping me company
for long hours in the bakery. I emailed Anna back,
(27:39):
but oh, my goodness, the cake she makes art art,
they're so incorcredibly, they're so good. She does everything from
like sort of fun whimsical stuff to just crazy elegant,
beautiful things. I'm envious of her skill and completely wowed
by it. I am sad she does not live in
(27:59):
a look san where I can be like, hey, I
have a thing coming up. Yeah, those are some good
looking cakes. She has a beautiful gallery. Uh we will
ask her if it's cool if we link to her
gallery and maybe our show notes, because you guys will
want to see these gorgeous, gorgeous cakes. Uh So, if
you would like to write to us, you can do so.
That is a history podcast at how stu works dot com.
(28:23):
We're also at Facebook dot com, slash missed in history
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or bags or mugs or phone cases or what have you.
(28:46):
If you would like to do some research on your own,
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(29:08):
site ms in history dot com for more on this,
thousands of other topics. Isn't how stuff Works dot com
Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class Fun How
Stuff Works dot Com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
I'm Holly Fry and I'm Tracy V. Wilson, and today
we're gonna cover a little bit of India's history. We
don't really talk about India enough quite frankly, so it's time.
(00:24):
And this is an incident that some people have probably
heard of, but many have also not. One of the
lectures that I watched and preparing this particular episode's notes
mentioned that fifty years ago, most people that you asked
on the street would know about this incident, but that
today that number is really a great deal smaller. And
I will mention that I had not heard of it
before I started researching it, but Tracy had, so in
(00:47):
our sample set of two, there's only a fifty percent
knowledge rate, so well, well, and my knowledge of it
came from a non history class source, and not even
a history is historically accurate source, which is that the
very first job I ever had, I worked as a
summer employee at a finance office at the place that
my mom worked up and they had a file room
(01:13):
that the uh, the finance manager referred to as the
black Hole of Calcutta, and it was extremely hot, and
extremely crowded and extremely dirty. Uh And I gleaned from
all of that that's the dark Hole of or the
black Hole of Calcutta was a dark, dirty, hot, oppressive,
terrible place. But I did not know anything else specifically
(01:35):
about it. So the Black Hole of Calcutta actually refers
to two things, or rather the same thing, but in
two different ways. So first, it was in fact a
small prison cell, like a kind of like the cell
you would put um, you know, people that were intoxicated
in overnight in old timey Westerns. Like it was a
small little cell um. And that was in Fort William,
(01:56):
which was in Calcutta, and we're going to talk a
little bit about Fort William. But second, it also refers
to this specific incident that is quite horrific and happened
there in that cell in the mid seventeen hundreds. I
feel like I should explain why I just laughed in
the background, which is that I grew up in North Carolina,
where the Andy Griffiths Show is on TV at all times,
(02:17):
and there is a I mean, in hindsight, it's very sad.
It's an alcoholic named Otis who blacks himself up in
the jail, and the image of that made me chuckle
while you were talking exactly that's kind of what I
think of to you, like this was roughly akin to
like the Pokey in the Andy Griffith Show, Like it
was intended to be like a small misdemeanor situation. And
(02:38):
we'll talk about that some more as we go on,
but first we're going to kind of set the political
scene that was going on in India at the time.
In the late sixteen hundreds and early seventeen hundreds, that
was really a time of rising tensions in India. The
Mughal Empire was losing its power and had the centralized
provincial governors known as no bobs shared the power that
(03:01):
was previously held by the Mughal dynasty, and British commercial
efforts had set up a base of trade operations in Calcutta,
and they had erected a fort, Fort William to safeguard
these interests. The East India Company had been slowly building
its power base there over the years since the late
sixteen hundreds, and it had reached a point where it
(03:23):
basically controlled all of the commerce in the city. In fact,
Calcutta is the Anglicized version of the city's name, which
was the official name until its two thousand and one.
At that point, the Indian government renamed the city Kolkata
to more closely reflect the Bengali pronunciation. So while we're
going to leave the title of the episode with the
(03:44):
anglicized name to reflect the way that this story is known,
Kolkata is the more accurate name for the city. Yeah,
so going forward, we'll use the more accurate name. But
I doing a quick search online using the Kolkata spelling
usually just redirects you back to Calcutta if it finds things,
So that's why we're leaving the episode name that way. Well,
(04:06):
And that's a balance that you and I kind of
have to strike sometimes between an episode that people can
identify from the name and know what it's about enough
to want to actually listen to it and then find
out the more accurate story, right, and also for searchability online,
it's you know, we'll we'll tag it with both of
the ways so that people can easily find it. But
(04:27):
we're just you gotta fall in line with some of
these historical ones. So, uh, first, we're going to talk
about two men in particular who ended up being really
pivotal players in this event, and the first is suraj
Al Dawla, who was the Naab of Bengal, having succeeded
his grandfather in the position in seventeen fifty six. And
sarage Aldola was born somewhere between sevente and seventeen thirty three,
(04:49):
depending on which sorts you look at, but basically he
was in his mid twenties when he gained power and
was in the midst of this. John the whole Well
was born in double In in seventeen eleven. He was
a surgeon by trade and he took a position as
a surgeon's mate on a ship that was bound for
Kolkata in seventeen thirty two. He was eventually hired as
(05:11):
a surgeon major for the East India Company and he
settled in Kolkata in seventeen thirty six. So, in the
middle of the eighteenth century, the East India Company had
a garrison in Fort William to defend the city in
British interests there and there had been repeated instructions throughout
the years from the parent company to those running things
(05:31):
in Colkata to ensure that the ports and the company
holdings were always protected and quote to make your fortifications
strong enough to discourage or sustain any attempts of the moors,
but in as private a manner as you can. The
East India Company had already been fortifying Fort William for
some time by the summer of seventeen fifty six, which
(05:52):
incensed the Bengal Noab. It had further stepped up these
efforts in the anticipation of a con lickd with France,
which eventually manifested as the Seven Years War. Siraj al
Dalla was, to put it mildly, quite displeased with this
increased defensive effort on the part of the British. So
the Nawab, believing that all this fortification was really a
(06:15):
direct challenge to his power, uh sent an order to
the British to cease with this fortification project, and no
response was given to this order. The British didn't even
acknowledge that they had ever gotten it, and the work
on the fort continued. They were both shoring up the
physical fort and bringing in more troops, and so Sir
Raj al Dowlah, feeling that he had no other choice,
(06:38):
attacked Kolkata. His forces included between thirty thousand and fifty
thousand men, along with five hundred elephants and fifty cannons.
Their approach was really systematic and moved first through the
outlying areas of the city, working their way slowly inward.
This attack began on June sixteenth, seventeen fifty six. As
(07:00):
the army of the Naab approached the fort, the governor,
Roger Drake, his staff and many other British residents of
the fort fled. They made their way to the harbor
and two awaiting ships, and this left behind a number
of women and children, about a hundred and seventy soldiers,
which were commanded by John Zephaniah whole Well, John's Wholewell
that we talked about earlier, and Drake was later dismissed
(07:24):
by the company after this whole incident, he was charged
with incompetence and let go. As sarage al Dalla advanced,
the people in Fort William grew increasingly aware of the
very poor odds that they were facing. On the evening
of June eighth, it was decided that all European women
still remaining should be escorted to boats on the river
(07:46):
and after that whole, Well, having been left there alone,
rallied what men he could, even those who had not
been in the military, to prepare to defend themselves and
those left behind by Roger Drake, and he ended up
with approximately of hundred people in total. Only half of
those were Europeans. The other half was made up of Armenians,
Indo Portuguese and Indians. When Suraj al Dallah and his
(08:11):
men reached Fort William on the morning of June twenty
Holwell and his meager crew really did not have much
of a chance. Their morale was extremely poor. There had
been talk of retreating to the harbor and taking flight
and ships, although all the boats were gone by this time,
some of the remaining makeshift military simply ran. In addition
(08:32):
to being ridiculously outnumbered, their defenses at Fort William were
virtually non existent. So they had two murders at the fort,
but they were useless because all of the powder had
gotten wet. This is also a very humid area and
it hadn't really been cared for and stored properly, and
the grape shot that they had on hand had also
been damaged and degraded in storage. All sort of ironic
(08:53):
when you consider that part of what had incensed the
Bengal nuab was the fact that Fort William was building
up its defenses. Apparently they were not doing a very
good job of that on the weapons front. But in
any case, hole Well stood as commander of the fort's garrison,
and that was simply by being one of the highest
ranking British men left there. He was kind of nominated
(09:14):
into that position by the people that were left behind.
He had zero military experience, recalled that he was in
fact a surgeon, and the men under him, who were
actually soldiers and not civilian volunteers, basically mutinied. They knew
that Holwell was not capable of handling them or the situation,
and many of them deserted. So in the end hole
Well ended up with about a hundred and fifty men.
(09:37):
So hole Well ended up surrendering within hours after the
few available firearms had exhausted the small ammunition supply that
was on hand. He believed that he and those with
him would be treated honorably. Hol Well was brought before Sarage,
who expressed his disdain for the European fortifications at Fort William.
The non Europeans who had stood along with Holwell were released,
(10:00):
and whole Well and all the other European captives were
left with Sarage's guards. Some of the captives were apparently
intoxicated in that whole mutiny thing. Apparently there was a
break into some liquor supplies, and these intoxicated people got
a little aggressive with the guards. They were just a
little difficult to handle, and at some stage of these
(10:21):
kind of tense interactions, the guards became really frustrated, to
the point that someone insisted that these captives absolutely had
to be confined. That night, around eight pm, whole Well
his men, several of whom were wounded, and somewhere between
one and five women. Accounts really vary on exactly how
many were locked up in a cell that was nicknamed
(10:41):
the black Hole. And before we get to the details
of the night that these prisoners spent in the black Hole,
we're gonna pause before it gets because it gets kind
of dark here coming up, So we're gonna pause now
for a word from one of the great sponsors that
keeps us going. So the black Hole, the cell itself
was simply a room. It was approximately eighteen feet that's
(11:03):
five point five meters long and about fourteen feet ten
inches or roughly very roughly four meters wide, and the
size of the actual cell very somewhat in terms of
whose description you're reading. And the building was actually demolished
in eighteen eighteen, so verification on this one is a
lost cause. It wasn't a recessed cell into the ground. Um.
(11:25):
There were two small barred windows in the black hole,
and now this space, as we mentioned earlier, was built
in the four as a sort of lock up for
minor offenses, and it certainly was not intended to hold
the number of people that were shut into it that night.
To compound the horror of the situation, the weather at
this time was well trainly hot, not uncommon for temperatures
(11:47):
in Kolkata in June to reach the high nineties fahrenheit,
which is the mid to high thirties celsius. Yes, and
again this is one of those things where we only
have historical accounts, but there are several people that say
that it reached record some close to record highs this
particular year. So even surpassing those numbers and with people
(12:08):
that were crammed into the black hole together, we're climbing
over each other for access to the windows and a
chance at just getting a breath of freshish air. And
they were also left minimal water for the night, so
they fought over the meager supply that they had. The
prisoners called to the guards for assistance or for mercy,
but there please were really met with laughter. They tried
(12:30):
to bribe the guards, but to no avail. Whole Will
likely survived because he was often near the windows trying
to reason with the guards for some kind of assistance.
And there was actually part of Holwell's description of this
event where he talks about one guard that did seem
almost sympathetic to their plight, and it seems like this
ray of hope, and this particular guard was offered money
(12:53):
to shift some of the prisoners from the cell in
the black hole to like any other place that they
could be confined. And the guard left and it seemed
like he was going to take some action, but then
he returned after a little while and said that the
Naab was sleeping and that no one was allowed to
wake him to ask if moving the prisoners would be acceptable. Allegedly,
(13:13):
one of the prisoners drank the sweat rolling off of
whole well and into his sleeves. Hold Well said that
he attempted to drink his own urine in desperation, but
it could not handle the taste. Uh when another guard
brought a small amount of water, Like I think the
account is that there were two small skins of water
for the group, because these people were all sweating, the
(13:36):
air was getting heavy with just moisture and they were
just getting super de hydrated. But a fight ensued and
a lot of that water was actually spilled, and hold
Well really felt that like this may have been a
nice gesture, but the bottom line was that it did
more harm than good. And as the evening went on,
some of the men that were just exhausted just laid
(13:56):
down on the floor and died quietly, while others made
sort of these last desperate rushes for the windows. At
one point, Hallwell pulled out his knife and intended to
cut his own arteries and commit suicide, but he reconsidered.
He wound up losing consciousness a short time later, And
according to Howell's account, one and forty six people were
(14:18):
locked into that tiny room, And this account has been
widely disputed. We'll talk about the numbers a little bit
more in a bit, But even the reduced number of
people that we're going to discuss that some modern scholarship
has has sort of determined was more accurate, it still
would have been an incredibly tight and frankly inhumane situation.
And so when the door was opened the next morning,
(14:41):
only twenty three people were still alive. The rest had
either died of suffocation or by having been crushed as
multiple people tried to break the door open on mass
It took more than twenty minutes to clear the bodies
away from the door to let the survivors of the
ten hours in the black hole get out. Holwell was
found under a pile of bodies. Once those who were
(15:05):
still alive were free of the cramped room, they were
allowed to lie down in the grass at the front
of the fort, and the handling of the dead is
described a little bit differently from account to account. In
some the bodies were hastily buried in sort of a
mass grave or a pit, and in others they were
merely thrown into an existing ditch. Holwell was taken before
(15:28):
sarage and tried to tell the nab of the horrible
ordeal that he had somehow managed to survive, but Sarage
wasn't interested in the story. Instead, he wanted information about
a rumored stronghold of riches that was somewhere in the fort.
Holwell didn't know of any such thing, which really frustrated Surage,
and he ordered the whole Well be sent away. So
(15:50):
at this point John Holwell was taken with three other
prisoners to Mershabod and his health at this point was
extremely poor. He was covered allegedly in boils, and after
several weeks as sort of a prisoner of war, he
was released on July seventeenth, And in part this is
because it was recognized that during his time working in
Kolkata he had treated the Indian population really quite well,
(16:13):
and particularly he had been very kind to those in
need of medical attention and even kind of helping out
in his role as a doctor for people that really
he had no um responsibility to take care of. It
took five months for Wholewell to get back to Great Britain,
and he did so on a sloop called the Siren.
During his time at sea, he penned his account of
(16:35):
what had happened during those ten hours trapped in a
small room with dozens of people. Meanwhile, while he was traveling,
word of these many deaths that had occurred at Fort
William reached the East India Company's offices in Madras, and
by October a two pronged military attack was launched against Surage.
Robert Clive led land forces that attacked Fort William and
(16:58):
Admiral Charles Watson led a fleet of ships to bombard
the stronghold from the harbor. In January seventifty seven, British
forces regained control of the fort from the Nawab and
his troops. Surage Aldalla was once again defeated by the
British the Battle of Plassy in June of seventeen fifty seven,
and he was executed. This is often cited as a
(17:20):
major turning point in the history of India, as it
marked the true establishment of British power there. So, before
we get to some of the discrepancies in these stories
that were told and and Wholewell's account versus what was
the realistic numbers, We're gonna have another brief word from
a great sponsor. So, after the horrors of the black
(17:41):
Hole incident were revealed to the public, the story was
actually used to bolster anti Indian sentiment. In Britain, it
was touted as what was obviously an example of how
primitive and savage people of other lands were when they
didn't have sensible leadership from Great Britain, and in effect
it became this piece of pro empire proper ganda, never
mind the fact that you know, this British company had
(18:04):
come in and taken over a city in another country.
Clearly that city needed it. According to the point of
view that was put forth by people who really wanted
to use this story to benefit their interests, no one
had any strong desire at this point either to question
hole Well's details in the matter or verify any of
his numbers, because they were too busy focusing on getting revenge.
(18:26):
And that's twentieth century. The details of hole Well's account
have really been called into question. In ninetif H Little,
a schoolmaster from Britain, noted a number of discrepancies in
whole Well's description of the event and really discredited his
version of the story. Yeah, there were just a lot
of little things that when you go back and look
at the the details and the records, there are a
(18:49):
lot of things that just don't quite add up. Um
and Again, we've talked about before how one memory is fallible,
incredibly fallible, and to particularly you know, in a post
trauma situation, some things can get really warped, and it's
that just happens naturally. So I don't want to paint
(19:09):
it like people think whole Well was just being a
big fibure. He just was wrong about some of the details. Um. Additionally,
another author and professor, Brigian Gupta, conducted his own research
into the matter in the nineteen fifties and he used
again records and some calculations to determine that the real
number of men put into the black Hole was less
(19:31):
than half of what was reported by whole Well, probably
sixty four. And the number of survivors, however, was very similar.
Uh Gupta puts it at twenty one versus whole Well's
account of twenty three, So the proportion of survivors was
actually much higher than had been believed for more than
a hundred and fifty years up to that point. That's
(19:51):
really a huge number of people to be in a
space stat's eyes, in that level of heat. Yeah, even
at half of what whole Well reported, it's a horrific
situation for people to be in. Gouda's research revealed that
all accounts that had been given about the night of
June seventeen fifty six were linked back to whole Well, So,
(20:12):
in other words, none of them was given independently without
his influence, which is again sort of natural. These people
all knew each other and had been through this traumatic event,
but it is believed that whole Well may have kind
of helped bolster his own story in talking about it
with other people the way people socialize, and they'll go,
do you remember when that thing happened? And it was
like this, and they're kind of collective recollection got a
(20:34):
little warpy, uh. And in addition to this discrepancy in numbers,
these later examiners of the events also indicate through their
research that noad sarraj Aldowla actually did not order this
cruel incarceration of the prisoners. He was, in fact, likely
completely unaware of it until after the fact. So even
when Wholewell was brought before him the next morning and
(20:56):
was trying to explain what had happened, the sarage wasn't like, oh, yeah,
a bunch of people died, that's great, whatever, Where's Where's
the gold in the rubies. He really had no idea
what had taken place the night before. So you might
think that John Z. Holwell would have never wanted to
return to Calkata, but in fact he did just that
in seventeen fifty nine. He was named governor in seventeen sixty,
(21:18):
but disagreements with the East India Company's board of directors
led him to resign just a few months later. And
during his time as governor, whole Well erected a monument
near the site of the black Hole in memory of
the people that had died there, although this monument was
pulled down for reasons unknown in eighteen twenty one, and
after his resignation, he once again returned home to Britain
(21:40):
and he retired there. He spent the rest of his
years in Pinner, where he died in late seventeen. There's
an obelisk memorial in Kolkata, although it's not in the
location of the black Hole. It was originally erected in
nineteen o two at the actual black hole site, but
it was moved to the grounds of St. John's churchs
which was built by the East India Company in the
(22:02):
ninett yeah. That church had been there since I think
the seventeen hundreds. So after the many deaths by any accounting,
whether you take the amended UH numbers or not UM
in the black Hole, this event was still used as
a cautionary tale about lack of aration enclosed spaces, and
(22:23):
considering that the space in the black Hole was somewhere
around three hundred square feet or twenty eight square meters,
and that it was very hot in the space with
little air circulation, it was just an obvious recipe for disaster,
but it wasn't something that had been thought of in
that way prior to this event. If the prisoners had
(22:43):
stayed absolutely perfectly, still more of them might have survived,
but there still would have likely been quite a few
deaths because of the extreme heat and the dehydration, and
of course those who died from being crushed and suffocated
during the attempt to break down the door would have
been spared as well. Yeah, but we just don't know.
(23:04):
I mean, it's kind of like the hot car situation,
except it's like putting dozens of people in a slightly
larger hot car. But that's basically what we're talking about,
So I know, UM, in reading some accounts of it,
or some people talking about it online, They're like, how
could all those people die so quickly? It just didn't.
(23:25):
They were in a cell, there were windows, and it's like,
oh no, no, like we're talking about really actually horrific conditions. Um.
So that is the rather jarring and horrible story of
the black Hole of Calcutta or Colcatta, if you use
the modern pronunciation or the accurate pronunciation, I should say, Uh,
it's a little bit of a downer, but it's pretty
(23:46):
fascinating and it does make you think about how sort
of simple negligence can really cause some awful moments in history. Yeah,
the foul room at my first job was definitely not
that horrifying. It was just a dark room in an
attic that was not your conditioned and full of looming
(24:08):
boxes of files, which can also be dangerous, but not
that dangerous. Yeah. Yeah, And it is an interesting one
because when you read historians discussing this issue today, there
really is sort of this sense that at no point
was anybody thinking like, oh, we will shove all these
(24:29):
people in here to die. They just were not considering
how lethal the environment was. So again, it's just through
more negligence than like intent. Even it's very horrifying. I
can't imagine what an awful situation that would be. But
that is the story of the black Hole. It's a
completely different context, but it reminds me of stories now
(24:52):
of people who are trying to cross a border sometimes
because they are fleeing atrocities in their own country, who
wind up suffocating in like the backs of trucks and
under seats in cars and stuff like that because it's
just so hot. Which is it like a horror in
(25:12):
it whole different way. Uh So we're gonna shift gears
now and go to listener mail, which is not about
people suffocating, Thank goodness, it's much happier. Listener mail is.
This is from our listener Anna, and she says, Hi,
Tracy and Holly, I am a new listener to your
podcast for a little over six months, but I've been
(25:33):
binge listening to make up for lost time. I really
love how you hit so many different topics and you
always keep it interesting. I recently went on a trip
to China, so I listened to all of your China
related podcasts before I left, and I considered it studying. Uh,
she said, I was listening today to your Virginia ACAR podcast.
Very nicely done, and I was amused along with you,
that a huge breakthrough in medicine came from the simple
(25:55):
concept of look at the baby. I wish I could
tell you that concept has since been fully grasped, but
it hasn't. I work as a nurse in a large
pediatric I see you there are always lots of monitors, wires, bells,
and whistles attached to our patients, and they do not
always cooperate as they should. They alarm when nothing is wrong,
or vice versa. The nurse that trained me used to say, quote,
(26:16):
these monitors tell me nothing except that I need to
look at my patient. At times, it has even lent
to arguments with doctors. I once had a resident refused
to discharge a patient that was all better and ready
to go home with a family, very excited to leave
the hospital. He said it was because the patient had
unstable heart rhythms overnight. I had heard nothing of this
from the night nurse, so he had to show me
(26:36):
where he was talking about on the monitor screen. I
assured him that those monitor irregularities were from someone patting
the baby, but he would not believe me. I had
to have him watch the monitor while I went over
and patted the baby, reproducing the unstable heart rhythms to
convince him. And the baby and his very relieved parents
were happy to go home later that day. All that
(26:57):
to say, we may have technology out the wazoo, but
once still has to look at the baby. I feel
like that should be a shirt now I do to
look at the baby. We should get on that. And
we also need a moon Beaver's a lunar beaver shirt. Yeah,
I've been working on a lunar Beaver's one. I just
haven't got it where I want it. But I feel
like there was, oh oh, there was the one that
(27:18):
I want that says mispronunciating. Since we'll do it. Uh.
And I goes on to say, I know you guys
like to hear what people do while they listen to
your podcast. I make cakes. I'm only a part time nurse,
and I now have my own custom cake design studio
called Savior Fork. I appreciate you guys keeping me company
for long hours in the bakery. I emailed Anna back,
(27:39):
but oh, my goodness, the cake she makes art art,
they're so incorcredibly, they're so good. She does everything from
like sort of fun whimsical stuff to just crazy elegant,
beautiful things. I'm envious of her skill and completely wowed
by it. I am sad she does not live in
(27:59):
a look san where I can be like, hey, I
have a thing coming up. Yeah, those are some good
looking cakes. She has a beautiful gallery. Uh we will
ask her if it's cool if we link to her
gallery and maybe our show notes, because you guys will
want to see these gorgeous, gorgeous cakes. Uh So, if
you would like to write to us, you can do so.
That is a history podcast at how stu works dot com.
(28:23):
We're also at Facebook dot com, slash missed in history
on Twitter at misston history at pinterest dot com, slash
missed in history at missed in history dot tumbler dot com.
And you can visit us and get shirts and we
will try to make good on some of those we
just talked about at miss in history dot spreadshirt dot com,
so you can get those crazy designs on your shirts
or bags or mugs or phone cases or what have you.
(28:46):
If you would like to do some research on your own,
you can visit our parents site, which is how st
works search for almost any topic your mind can conjure
and there's almost surely something covering it. Or you can
visit us online at mist in history dot com. Or
we have all of our show notes for any of
the episodes Tracy and I have worked on together. You
can't do that in a whole lot more Again, both
our parents site how works dot com and at our
(29:08):
site ms in history dot com for more on this,
thousands of other topics. Isn't how stuff Works dot com
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Holly Frey
Tracy Wilson
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