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Britain: Losing and Gaining an Empire, 1763–1914

William Sleeman’s campaign against Thagi

  • 3 things to know
  • Paper 3

Overview

Recall questions on what Thagi was said to be, Sleeman's methods, how the campaign is viewed today, sati and infanticide, missionaries, and Macaulay's Minute.

What you need to know

Answer each one before you reveal it.

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Key term

What was William Sleeman's campaign against Thagi?

Who and when

What social reforms did the British pursue in India?

Key term

What was Thagi?

Questions from this subtopic

Each one with the model answer underneath.

  1. 1

    What was William Sleeman's campaign against Thagi?

    Model answer

    A drive in the 1830s to suppress the Thugs, gangs accused of ritual robbery and murder of travellers.

  2. 2

    What social reforms did the British pursue in India?

    Model answer

    Campaigns against practices such as sati (widow-burning) and female infanticide, alongside growing missionary activity.

  3. 3

    What was Thagi?

    Model answer

    The alleged practice of organised bands who befriended and then strangled travellers, which British officials treated as a hereditary criminal cult.

  4. 4

    How did Sleeman conduct his campaign?

    Model answer

    By collecting confessions and informers' evidence, compiling registers and genealogies, and prosecuting through special courts between 1830 and the 1840s.

  5. 5

    How is the Thagi campaign viewed by historians today?

    Model answer

    Sceptically: the scale and organisation were probably exaggerated by the evidence-gathering methods, and the campaign justified extensive surveillance and policing.

  6. 6

    What was sati and how was it treated?

    Model answer

    The burning of widows on their husbands' pyres, banned by Bentinck in 1829 after campaigning by Ram Mohan Roy and British evangelicals.

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