Vellore Fort – History
Under Vijayanagara Empire:
Vellore
Fort was built by Chinna Bommi Reddy and Thimma Reddy Nayak, subordinate
chieftains under Sadasiva
Raya of the Vijayanagara Empire in the year of 1566 AD. Vellore Fort gained
strategic prominence following the re-establishment of Vijayanagar rule
with Chandragiri as
their 4th capital after the Talikota
battle. The Aravidu
Dynasty that held the title of Rayas
in 17th century resided in this fort, using it as a base in the battle of
Toppur in the 1620s. This major battle took place for the claiming of the Raya
title between two factions of the Raya family. Each faction included their
respective subordinates: the Nayaks
of Tanjore, the Gingee and the Madurai taking sides to
suit their interests.
The
Rayas also had long-running battles with their longtime rivals, the Bijapur
Sultans, and with the Nayaks
of Madurai and the Gingee over non-remittance of annual tributes. In the
1640s, during the reign of Sriranga Raya III, the fort was briefly captured by
the Bijapur army, but was eventually recaptured with the help of the Nayaks
of Tanjore. During Sriranga
Raya's reign in 1614, a coup broke out within the royal
family and the reigning Emperor Sriranga
Raya and his royal family were murdered by the rival
factions of the royal family, with the younger son Rama
Deva Raya of the emperor smuggled out
from the fort by supporting factions of the emperor.
These
events led to the Battle of Toppur in 1616, one of the largest South Indian
wars of the century. In 1639, Francis Day of the East India Company obtained a small strip of land in the Coromandel
Coast from the chieftains of the
Vellore-Chandragiri regions to do trading, which is in present-day Chennai.
Under Bijapur (1656–1678):
In the
1650s, Sriranga allied with the Mysore and Tanjore Nayaks and marched south to
attack Gingee and Madurai. His first stop was the capture of Gingee Fort,
but Thirumalai Nayak of Madurai responded by requesting the Sultan of
Bijapur to attack Vellore from the north to divert Sriranga's attention. The
Bijapur sultan promptly dispatched a large army and captured Vellore Fort.
Subsequently, both the Madurai-Bijapur armies converged on Gingee, defeating
the Vellore-Tanjore forces. After a melee, both the forts ended up in the hands
of the sultan of Bijapur. The defeat also marked the end of the last direct
line of Vijayanagara emperors. Within 20 years after this incident, the Marathas seized the fort
from the Bijapur sultans.
Under the Marathas (1678–1707):
In 1676,
the Marathas under Chatrapati Shivaji Maharaj marched south to the Tanjore country, which had
recently been attacked and captured by Chokkanatha
Nayak of Madurai. That same year,
Ekoji, the brother of Chatrapati Shivaji Maharaj, took control of Tanjore, but
was under threat from his immediate neighbours Madurai and Bijapur
Sultans, based in Gingee and Vellore
respectively. Chatrapati Shivaji Maharaj's army first captured the Gingee
Fort in 1677, but left the task of attacking Vellore to
his assistant and rushed to Deccan as his territories were being attacked
by Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb. In 1678, after a prolonged fourteen-month siege, the
fort passed on to the Marathas. Shivaji's representative strengthened the
fort's fortifications and ruled the area in relative peace.
Under the Mughals (1707–1760):
In 1707,
the year that Aurangzeb died, the Delhi Army under Daud
Khan captured Vellore
Fort after defeating the Marathas. The struggle for Delhi throne empowered the Deccan Muslim governors to declare independence. In 1710
the recently established Nawab
of Arcot under Sadat Ullah Khan
followed suit. Dost Ali, the
latter's successor in 1733, gifted the fort to one of his sons-in-law.
Under control of the British (1760–1947):
Following
the decline of Madurai Nayaks, and coinciding with the emergence of the British
on the Madras coast, conflict developed between the Nawab and his sons-in-law.
The Nawab was supported by the British and the rival claimants by the French; resulting in the Carnatic
Wars. The British victory in the 1760s at the Battle
of Plassey finally sealed the fate of
the French in India and launched Britain's dominance of the Indian
subcontinent. The British took possession of Vellore Fort with relative ease
and used the fort as a major garrison until Indian independence. In 1780, the fort was besieged by Hyder
Ali during the Second Anglo-Mysore War, but the English garrison held out for over two years
before the siege was lifted.
Vellore Mutiny (1806):
In 1806
Vellore Fort was used by the British to station two infantry regiments of
the Madras Army plus
four companies of an English regiment. The British commander-in-chief of the Madras Army had prescribed a new round hat
for the Madras sepoys to replace their turbans, plus the removal of
beards, caste markings and jewelry. These measures were intended merely to
improve the appearance of the Madras soldiers on parade but the sepoys
considered them to be an offensive meddling with their religious beliefs. The
situation was worsened by the fact that the hat included a leather cockade, made from cow hide.
On July
10, 1806, before sunrise, the Indian sepoys stationed in the fort attacked the
European barracks there, and by late morning had killed about 15
officers and 100 English soldiers and ransacked their houses. Some of the
rebelling soldiers also urged the sons of Tipu
Sultan to lead the campaign. The
news quickly reached the colonel commanding the cavalry cantonment in Arcot, who reached the fort with several squadrons of British
and Indian cavalry. The mutineers, numbering more than 800, were scattered with
heavy losses. By noon the mutiny was put down.
The
events lead to a court of inquiry by the British, who decided to shift the Tipu
Sultan's family from Vellore to faraway Calcutta, in isolation. The news of the Vellore
Rebellion sent shockwaves to England. The governor, Lord William Bentinck, and Commander-in-Chief of the Madras Army, Sir John Cradock both were recalled on this count. The Vellore
Mutiny was the first significant military rebellion experienced in India by the
British, although it has been largely overshadowed by the Bengal mutiny of
1857.
