The 1857 Uprising: A Global Imperial Event?

Abstract: The 1857 Indian Uprising has long been considered a turning point in the development of Indian nationalism, as well as for British understandings of loyalty, rebellion, and counterterrorism. Engaging with the philosophy and logic of the event, this essay showcases how settler fiction from the southern hemisphere repurposes the circulating colonial iconography of the non-European military recruit as treacherous, dangerous, and untrustworthy. It argues that the Indian Uprising cast a long shadow in Britain's settler colonies, with betrayal, mutiny, and rebellion frequently figuring as ways of condoning massacres and frontier warfare against Indigenous peoples. The Indian Uprising should thus be understood as a globally significant media event that acted as a point of reference for other resistance movements and colonial wars across the British empire.