WI American Revolution suppressed by Indian Indians?

WI Indian Indians suppress American Revolution?

Americans fighting for freedom were not invincible. As demonstrated by CSA. 9 million population of CSA, 4 million slaves, leaving 5 million free CS citizens. USA did wear them down in a 4 year war of attrition.
1770s USA was 2,8 million people - probably 2 million citizens. Yet in the war of attrition, 1775 to 1781, it was Britain who was worn down.

Suppose that Honourable East India Company recruits an army to fight in America. Sure, their sepoys were ordinarily signed up to fight in India only. But if they invite for volunteers to fight specifically overseas, would they find any?

With the result that USA loses - and a bunch of Indian veterans are promised land.
The chilly weather of New England is not to their taste, or farming experience. Whereas the subtropical summers of South Atlantic suit them better than the migrants from England.
Common sepoys get smallholdings, while officers and jemadars get slightly bigger plantations... and purchase some Negro slaves.
The result being that Virginia and Carolinas wind up having a significant community of profest heathens who build Hindu temples, are although not as dark as pure Negroes quite comparable or darker than some Quadroons and mulattoes, bear arms, own freehold land, the richer of them also own Negro slaves and quadroon slaves whiter than their owners... and they also vote at elections.
How would the communities of white English tories get along with Indian Indians? With the Negroes (a minority of Negroes) freed for military service and some of them enriched so far as to buy other (still slave) Negroes?
 
This is a fun idea. Reminds me of Stirling's "Peshawar Lancers" which had a hybrid Indian-British culture.

I take it the Indians will eventually integrate with European culture, creating their own melting pot of cultural influences. They probably won't be better treated than they were in India, which makes for a kind of racist disdain. If we imagine the Indians developing a militarized semi-feudal society (now I'm just copying Stirling) they might become a serious backbone of British military strenght in the Americas. They won't be friends with the americans, who will see them as semi-black and as enemy combatents, but the French in Louisiana might warm up to them. Say a new war erupts between France and England over the colonies - if the sepoy are treated poorly enough they might follow become mercenaries for France? I don't know what's realistic at this point, but it sure would be interesting.
 
WI Indian Indians suppress American Revolution?

Americans fighting for freedom were not invincible. As demonstrated by CSA. 9 million population of CSA, 4 million slaves, leaving 5 million free CS citizens. USA did wear them down in a 4 year war of attrition.
1770s USA was 2,8 million people - probably 2 million citizens. Yet in the war of attrition, 1775 to 1781, it was Britain who was worn down.

Probably helps to have a whole ocean between you. For reference:

British population in 1776: ~8 million. Roughly 4x the free population of the 13 colonies.

Free US population in 1861, excluding Confederate states: 22 million. Roughly 4.4x the free population of the Confederacy.

Unfortunately I can't find an exact resource for the population of British India in 1775, but it was probably around 40-50 million altogether. There had just been an absolutely devastating famine in 1770 that had killed about a quarter of the population of Bengal.

I think the biggest risk for the British would be that shipping tens of thousands of loyal sepoys out of India would leave their Indian territories vulnerable to attack from Maratha and Mysore. I think you'd need to butterfly away the First Anglo-Maratha War (1775-1782) at the least. Moving those troops away would probably result in significant territorial losses in British India.
 
Last edited:
Well, there's culture. While the taboo of kalapani (loss of caste by crossing the sea) has often been exaggerated, it's still real among high-caste Indians. In 1795, for example, sepoys in the Bengal Army mutinied rather than attack Ceylon and other Dutch possessions as they had been scheduled for, and similar mutinies occurred during the invasion of Burma. Hence even if the troops are willing to forsake their homeland to fight in America, which is already quite strange, there are cultural sensibilities in play.

Then why not use middle or low castes and Muslims? Well, the British were prejudiced towards low castes, often excluding them altogether from joining. Furthermore, the sepoy ranks of the early years were absolutely dominated by high-caste Hindus; as late as 1825 80% of the Bengal Army were high-caste Hindus and only 10% were Muslims (the Madras Army had more Muslims, but even at their height the Muslims were no more than a third of the sepoys there). This is because the British believed the higher castes were stronger, more respectable, more well-behaved, and more loyal and equated the role of certain Hindu castes as yeomen farmers, who were believed to be the best infantrymen. So it is rather unlikely that the British would be willing to recruit Muslims en masse unless the American Revolution was a direct threat to British India, which it is not.

Second is the geopolitical situation in India. The British empire in India was in very real danger of total collapse during the American Revolutionary War, because they were fighting two great foes simultaneously: the Maratha Confederacy (First Anglo-Maratha War, 1775-1782) and Mysore (Second Anglo-Mysore War, 1780-1784). The British have much bigger fish to fry. And even if 50,000 Muslim sepoys were somehow brought to America and destroyed the Americans, they can't stay. It would be politically disastrous. So they are brought back to India, and now what? The loyalty of Muslim sepoys are still in question since Mysore is still around as a major Islamic power - they mutinied several times during the Second Anglo-Mysore War in favor of their coreligionist, Haidar Ali.

Then there's the logistics and even the question of why the East India Company chooses to do this...
 
Then there's the logistics and even the question of why the East India Company chooses to do this...

I would assume that the East India Company would do it because the British government would be directly paying them for it.

The logistics would be a mess. The invasion force probably wouldn't be able to land in North America until late 1776. The British had a hard enough time organizing and getting their regular army across the Atlantic in such large numbers.
 
well, we've discussed the problems the UK would have in dealing with the colonies in the event of the rebels losing the war (immigration, movement west, taxes, customs, smuggling,etc.) in lots of other threads. Add to all that the fact that the colonists will see this as quartering troops of 'savage armed heathen mercenaries' among them... not a happy mix all around...
 
The British scoured the Germanies for troops. They tried to hawk themselves to Catherine. But they never considered sepoys. Doesn't that suggest the idea won't work?
 
I would think this would be unfeasible due to distance. It was exceptionally expensive to ship soldiers across the Atlantic Ocean from Europe (Britain and Germany) to America, probably more than the soldiers made in a year.
The would also be a high mortality rate for such a long voyage and the soldiers would arrive weak and diseased when they try to acclimate to another climate (it didn't only work one way).

Bringing in soldiers from India would cost far, far more as the distance was probably 6-8 times further (I'd have to look at a map). From the sheer logistical standpoint, I don't see wide-scale troop movements of such a distance in the age of sail. It would probably have to wait until steam power came around.

An interesting idea but not viable in this time period in large numbers. The Indian Army would likely (and way) be utilized in local theaters against the French, Spanish and Dutch in India, Indonesia, Philippines, etc.
 
The British scoured the Germanies for troops. They tried to hawk themselves to Catherine. But they never considered sepoys. Doesn't that suggest the idea won't work?

I'm guessing it was because of the logistics issues and the fact that removing the sepoys from India might have easily resulted in the British losing their Indian territories, as others have suggested. And then they still might have lost the 13 colonies too! Also, I wonder just how many Indian troops the East India company would have been able to muster up.
 
Also, I wonder just how many Indian troops the East India company would have been able to muster up.

In 1773, the Company had 45,000 Indian troops and the plurality would have been in the Bengal Army. But as I said above, the vast majority of those would have been high-caste Hindus who were unwilling to lose their caste by serving overseas.
 
How about we have a Maratha civil war take place, with the French and Mysore jockying for influence through intervention. Perhaps a French/Mysore/Maratha three-way free-for-all war takes place? The British East India Company decides to sit the conflict out and slowly extending their influence through convincing various smaller feudal lords to switch from Maratha to Company protection.

The French, preoccupied in India and not wanting to fight a war with the English at the same time, go for a non-aggression pact with England, using the threat of supporting American revolutionaries as a bargaining chip to avoid British intervention in the Maratha civil war or attacks on French holdings in India.

With France preoccupied, Britain's international enemies don't feel secure enough n their position to turn the revolution global. the Spanish and others might give the Americans some weapons at premium prices but keeps everything low key.

Now the British East India Company finds themselves with troops that they don't need as peace in India is secured. When fighting in America gets up in gear the Company gets the idea of offering some troops for the British army in the Americas.

Maybe a few troops are sent, a battalion here and a bunch there. Eventually, the revolutionary war turns into a low-intensity insurgency. Maybe Washington and other leaders decide that they can't win through pitched battles if the English bring their A-game, and go for the slow-and-painful approach. As clumsy, bloody English anti-insurgency tactics turns more and more Americans against the English the English command realize that what they need is a constant supply of fresh bodies to win the war of attrition. For this they look to the German princedoms.

The Germans are willing to rent out tons of mercenaries. Yet these mercenaries are expensive. When the British begin having financial difficulties due to the length of the war the German troops become disgruntled. No one expected a low-intensity war lasting years and years. Promises of land grants fail to entice the mercenaries and their prince-owners, who instead elect for their armies to be sent to more pressing (and lucrative) errands in Europe.

The English are forced to reconsider their options. Who can be used for dangerous work with only promises of land as guarantee of payment? The East India Company accepts the challenge to find troops, and a bunch of Indians are sent to the Americas on a trial period. The Americans hate these foreigners, yet their are competent soldiers and cheap too, perfect for the war of attrition. Eventually 10.000 or so Indians are shipped and settled to the southern colonies, where they are thought to be a good shield against French influence. Eventually the war is won for the English when Washington and company are captured and executed, the revolution losing its leaders and will to carry on.

Thoughts?
 
Top