Africans in the Indian Mutiny
For centuries, Africans were shipped to the Indian subcontinent and sold as slaves to regional rulers. Rosie Llewellyn-Jones tells the story of those who went to Lucknow to serve the Nawab of Oudh and who joined the Indian Mutiny when he was deposed by the British. For this allegiance their descendants, whom she has traced, still pay a price.
During the Indian Mutiny of 1857-58, the British were faced by highly professional opponents in the city of Lucknow. Soldiers were repeatedly picked off by a sniper who was positioned up a tree.When finally dislodged, the sniper was discovered to be not Indian but African and a woman at that. Moreover, she was one of several female African soldiers counted among the dead after the siege. All had been loyal to their slave-owning Indian master.
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