A Popular Account of Thugs and Dacoits, the Hereditary Garotters and Gang-Robbers of IndiaHutton, James
History
A Popular Account of Thugs and Dacoits, the Hereditary Garotters and Gang-Robbers of India
Hutton, James
Dacoits; Thugs (Indic criminal group)
The scanty remnants of this last gang finding their former fastnesses
no longer secure, fled for refuge to the Rajah of Kottar within the
British territories, who readily accepted their presents, and in
return promised them his protection. From these new head-quarters
they frequently sallied forth, and joining their old comrades, made
inroads into Rohilcund and the Doab. Being unable to plunder in western
Oude, because the landowners in their strongholds defied both king and
Dacoits, they confined their depredations to the Company's territories,
and so constantly attacked and plundered the treasuries of the native
collectors, that the Government was compelled to fortify them and
impose a guard. Even this did not always prevail, and large sums of
money were oftentimes carried off, after the guard had been surprised
and overpowered.
The Budhuks dwelling in the eastern part of the Teraie were better
known as Seear Marwars, and were originally husbandmen, but took to
Dacoitee in the Nawabship of Shoojah-ood-Doolah. They numbered in all
from four to six thousand males, but were divided into colonies of
three or four hundred each, clustered round a rude fort. They were in
the habit of giving 25 per cent. of their booty to the Zemindars whose
protection they enjoyed, and by whom they were generally subsidized to
fight their battles with their neighbours, or with the farmers of the
revenue. In 1826-27 Mr., now Sir, Frederick Currie, the magistrate of
Goruckpore, organised a system of repression by means of a corps of
Irregular Cavalry under Major Hawkes, and an augmentation of his own
police force. That gentleman flattered himself that he had completely
put down this tribe of Dacoits, but, in fact, he had only driven them
into another district. Their old haunts no longer sheltering them from
pursuit, they removed their household gods to Rohilcund, the Doab
("Mesopotamia"), Rajpootana, and Gwalior. The Budhuk colonies, however
distant from one another, kept up an interchange of civilities and
intermarried with one another. Members of the same _gote_, or family,
though belonging to different colonies, could not intermarry, but as
there were several _gotes_ in every colony, the different settlements
could interchange sons and daughters. For instance Solunkee ("Mr.
Brown") could not marry a person of the same name in his own, or in any
another colony, but there was no objection to his taking to wife the
daughter of Powar ("Mr. Jones,") or Dhundele ("Mr. Robinson") however
closely they might be connected with him.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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