The Calcutta Black Hole was a dungeon where British POWs allegedly died in 1756. John Holwell’s account of the incident is disputed, with little objective support. The prisoners were confined to a small room with no water, and only 23 survived. Historians doubt the number of prisoners and question whether they could physically fit in the room. An obelisk was erected in honor of the victims but was moved in 1940 due to Indian nationalist objections.
The Calcutta Black Hole was a dungeon in colonial India in which large numbers of British POWs allegedly died on the night of June 20, 1756. John Holwell, one of the survivors of the incident, was responsible for the official story, but there there is little objective support for his claims. Modern historians believe he may have exaggerated or even fabricated the story as propaganda against the Indian forces that captured Fort William, where the black hole was located.
Fort William was built by the British East India Company in 1706. In 1756, the British began building military defenses of the fort as a precaution against French forces in the area. Siraj Ud Daulah, the Nawab of Bengal, a hereditary local governor, ordered the British East India Company to cease military buildup of the fort but was ignored. In response, his forces besieged Fort William.
Nearly four days of fighting followed, with many British casualties. The Indian forces eventually captured the fort and took the remaining British, led by John Holwell, as prisoners. The prisoners were initially treated well, but after some of them attacked the Nawab’s guards, they were confined to a guard room and locked up overnight. This room would become the infamous black hole of Calcutta. Accounts differ as to whether the Nawab himself or his soldiers initiated the captivity.
The Calcutta black hole was 14 by 18 feet (4.3 by 5.5 m) and had only two small barred windows. The night was hot and there was no water in the room, although the guards provided it when the prisoners begged for it. According to Holwell’s account, some prisoners were already dead by 9:00 and the room was not opened until 6:00 the next morning. Of the 146 prisoners allegedly confined to the black hole in Calcutta, only 23 survived.
There are a number of problems with Holwell’s account of what transpired in the Calcutta black hole. First of all, there is no independent support for the details he provides; even contemporary accounts varied widely on everything from the number of people confined to the conditions of the room itself. Only 43 garrison members were listed as missing from Fort William; however, Holwell listed sepoys and people of mixed race who would not be on the garrison membership roster. Some historians doubt as many as 146 people could have remained at the fort after a four-day siege.
The experiments tested whether the supposed amount of people confined to the black hole could actually physically fit into a space that size. Bengali landlord Bholanath Chunder found that far fewer than 146 of his tenants could fit in an area 15 by 18 feet (4.6 by 5.5 m), and Bengali villagers are on average smaller than English soldiers. Holwell’s figures would have left each prisoner with only 1.8 square feet (0.55 sq m). A 50-foot (15 m) obelisk was erected at the site of the tragedy in honor of the victims, but it was moved to nearby St. John’s Cemetery in 1940, as Indian nationalists found its implications offensive.
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