Blowing from a gun is amethod of execution in which the victim is typically tied to the mouth of acannon which is then fired, resulting in death.George Carter Stent described the process as follows:
The prisoner is generally tied to a gun with the upper part of the small of his back resting against the muzzle. When the gun is fired, his head is seen to go straight up into the air some forty or fifty feet; the arms fly off right and left, high up in the air, and fall at, perhaps, a hundred yards distance; the legs drop to the ground beneath the muzzle of the gun; and the body is literallyblown away altogether, not a vestige being seen.[1]
Blowing from a gun was a reported means of execution as long ago as the 16th century and was used until the 20th century. The method was used by thePortuguese in the 16th and 17th centuries, from as early as 1509 across their empire fromCeylon (modern daySri Lanka)[2] toMozambique[3] toBrazil.[4] TheMughals used the method throughout the 17th century and into the 18th, particularly against rebels.[5]
This method of execution is most closely associated with theBritish East India Company rule in India. Following theIndian Rebellion of 1857, "blowing from a gun" was a method the British used to execute rebels[6] as well as for Indiansepoys who were found guilty of desertion.[7] Using the methods previously practised by the Mughals, the British began implementing blowing from guns in the latter half of the 18th century.[8]
Destruction of the body and scattering of remains over a wide area had religious symbolism as a means of execution in theIndian subcontinent, as it prevented the necessary funeral rites forHindus andMuslims.[9] For believers, the punishment was extended beyond death, and this was well understood by foreign occupiers. The practice was thus not generally employed by them in other territories across Africa, Australasia, or the Americas. Most recently, there was an exceptional use of the practice inAfghanistan in 1930, against 11Panjshiri rebels.[10]
A commonly reported method of blowing a person from a gun is to tie them in front of the muzzle of the gun and then have them shot. Loading the cannon with acannonball is on occasion reported, but more often, the use ofblank cartridge orgrapeshot is attested. The following description of the manner of tying up the convicted is from Afghanistan, 7 July 1839, ordered byShuja Shah, during the campaign againstDost Mohammad Khan:[11]
The three men were then tied with ropes to the guns, their backs against the muzzle. The rope, fastened to one of the spokes of the wheel, passed with a knot round the arms, over the muzzle of the gun, round the other arm, and then to the spoke of the opposite wheel, which kept the body fixed.
Although immobilizing a victim in front of a gun before firing the cannon is by far the most reported method, a case fromIstanbul in 1596 alleges that the victim was actually put into the gun and as ammunition.[12] Reports exist of people occasionally fastened torockets and launched into the air. This is said to have been the punishment for aBrahmin in theKingdom of Mysore duringHyder Ali's reign (1761–1782),[13] and in an 1800 treason case in theMaratha Empire.[14]
Things did not always work out according to plan at such executions. At a mass execution atFirozpur in 1857, there was an order that blank cartridges should be used, but some guns were loaded with grapeshot instead. Several of the spectators facing the cannons were hit by the grapeshot and some had to have limbs amputated as a result. In addition, some of the soldiers had not been withdrawn properly and sustained injuries from being hit by pieces of flesh and bone.[15] In another case, a soldier who was to be shot fell down just as the shot went off, with the following result:[16]
One wretched fellow slipped from the rope by which he was tied to the guns just before the explosion, and his arm was nearly set on fire. While hanging in his agony under the gun, a sergeant applied a pistol to his head; and three times the cap snapped, the man each time wincing from the expected shot. At last, a rifle was fired into the back of his head, and the blood poured out of the nose and mouth like water from a briskly handled pump. This was the most horrible sight of all. I have seen death in all its forms, but never anything to equal this man's end.
Others reported how birds of prey circled above the execution place and swooped down to catch pieces of human flesh in the air,[17] while others were nauseated by thedogs loitering about the place of execution and rushing to the scene to devour some of the body pieces spread around as a result of the execution.[18]
Blowing from a gun as a method of execution has a long and varied history in theIndian subcontinent, and many reports from the mid-18th century and onwards testify to its varied use. The execution method was used during rebellions and as punishment for a variety of crimes. Here, a focus is chosen upon the Mughal tradition of blowing from guns as a local tradition preceding, for example, the British tradition in the same subcontinent.
Several historians note that blowing people from the guns as a method of execution was an "oldMughal punishment" in the Indian subcontinent.[19] Just prior to the institution of the reign of the first Mughal emperor,Babur, his sonHumayun is said to have blown from guns 100 Afghan prisoners on 6 March 1526, in one incident of his father's many struggles against theLodi dynasty.[20] During the latter half of the 17th century, members of theJat community in Northern India rebelled and raided against theMughal Empire, and EmperorAurangzeb is said in one account to have ordered one of their leaders blown from a gun.[21] Purbeel Singh, said to have been the last Hindu chief of Umga, close toAurangabad in today'sBihar state, was reportedly taken by an unnamed Mughal emperor to Aurangabad, and blown from a gun.[22] The SikhGeneralBanda Singh Bahadur was finally vanquished in 1716 by the EmperorFarrukhsiyar, and after his execution, Banda's son was ordered to be "blown to bits by a cannon".[23]
While the preceding cases are examples of rebels or military adversaries being blown from guns, the Mughal era also contained a few examples of using this form of execution for other crimes. For example, in a rather anecdotal story from the times ofJahangir (r. 1605 – 1627), the emperor had sixmullahs blown from guns, for having consented to, and given approval of, the forcible abduction and marriage of a Hindu girl to a Muslim officer.[24] In 1714, thieves were a severe annoyance to a marching army; a trap was made, and two thieves caught by the concealed guards were later blown from guns. During a siege in 1719, the problem of deserters was eventually solved for the commander of theMughal Army by blowing four deserters caught in the act from guns, in the presence of his troops.[25]
ThePortuguese used blowing from a gun as a form of capital punishment in many of their colonies. A short review follows:
During the Dutch siege ofColombo in 1656, the city population endured extreme famine. One nursing mother became so starved that her production of milk stopped, and her infant was dying. She chose to kill it, and eat it. Once the Portuguese general became aware of her act of cannibalism, he ordered her blown from a gun, but in this particular instance, the clergy and the principal citizens dissuaded him from carrying out the act.[26]
During explorerFrancisco Barreto's 1569–73 campaign inMonomotapa, he at one time imprisoned some 50 Muslim individuals, and had them "impaled, blown frommortars, torn apart on tree-trunks, axed or shot".[3] In mid-18th-centuryTete, in north-western Portuguese Mozambique, the capital punishment for slaves is said to have been to be blown from guns,[27] and, in the first decade of the 19th century, an inveterate raider chief was caught by the Portuguese and blown from a gun.[28]
In 1618 Brazil, an indigenous leader, Amaro, was taken prisoner and blown from a gun.[29]
The British had a long tradition prior to theIndian Rebellion of executingsepoys found guilty of mutiny or desertion in this manner. According to one historian, the British tradition began in 1760, when theBritish East India Company examined the modes of capital punishment in use. In the district of the24 Perganas, it was found that the common military mode of capital punishment was flogging to death. Regarding blowing from a gun as an old Mughal punishment, the East India Company opted for this technique, as being, relative to death by flogging, more deterrent, more public and more humane. Already in 1761, orders were given inLakhipur "to fire off at the mouth of a cannon the leader of the thieves who was made prisoner, that others may be deterred".[30] Technically, in cases ofcourt-martial, it seems that until 1857 the courts were composed of Indian rather than British officers, but it is added: "although they are presided over, andgenerally led and ruled, by the superintending officer, whose duty, however, is merely to transcribe the evidence, and assist the native officers with advice and counsel".[31]
In March 1764, asubedar (native officer) secretly planned to persuade the men under his command to defect to an enemy force;[32] his plan was discovered, and he was court-martialed and blown from a gun in front of his troops.[33] In September the same year, majorHector Munro executed 24 or 25 "ring leaders" who caused a battalion to desert (the desertion being on account of "lack of rewards", "scarcity of provisions" and problems with climate and disease). Approving of the execution, one commenter said: "no disposition to mutiny was thenceforth manifested". In 1775, Muctoom Sahib, theCommandant of the9th Native Battalion in theMadras Army, refused orders to embark on atransport ship forBombay. Sahib also persuaded the men under his command to refuse to embark; he was subsequently arrested and charged with inciting the men under his command to mutiny. In February 1775, Sahib was court-martialled and found guilty; the court sentenced him to be blown from a gun in the presence of the battalion. Afterwards, the men previously under his command quietly embarked for Bombay while the rank of "Commandant" was abolished in the Madras Army.[34] In 1782, mutinies broke out inBardhaman andBarrackpore. Three mutineers were sentenced to death by the court in Bardhaman, two of them to be blown from a gun, the last to be hanged. In the Barrackpore trials, four of the five on trial were sentenced to be blown from a gun, while the last was to receive a thousand lashes and "to be drummed out of the cantonments with a rope around his neck".[35] During theThird Anglo-Mysore War (1789–1792), six regiments mutinied over arrears of pay and placed their officers under confinement. When order was restored, two of the most active mutineers were blown from guns.[36] Not only mutineers were blown from guns, but also soldiers found guilty of desertion, as is shown from a few cases in 1781 and 1783.[37]
Not onlysepoys were executed by being blown from a gun. In 1798, mutiny broke out among the British soldiers in the1st Battalion of the Madras Foot Artillery. One British soldier was condemned to be blown from a gun.[38] This, however, seems to have been exceptional, and one historian says that the soldier Forster is the only European on record to have been blown from a gun by the British.[39]
In 1804, during a military engagement, the troops under lieutenant Birch's command refused to quit the ground of their encampment. Colonel Burn deemed harsh measures were necessary, convened a court-martial, and two of the officers involved were blown from guns and nine others "severely flogged". With full approval of the action, the writer observes: "a measure which, there is every reason to believe, had the best effect, as the corps behaved during the subsequent siege with the greatest steadiness and propriety".[40]
In the 1806Vellore Mutiny, beginning with a nighttime massacre of British officers and soldiers, manysepoys were killed during the suppression, while six mutineers were sentenced to be blown from the guns.[41] In 1812, a plot was discovered atTravancore to kill theEuropean officers; two ring leaders were blown from the guns, and several others were hanged.[42] In 1819, six deserters who had joined the ousted rajah of the annexedKingdom of Nagpur were apprehended by the British and were blown from the guns on 7 February.[43] In 1832Bangalore, a conspiracy allegedly designed to exterminate all Europeans was discovered. Out of some 100 implicated, four were sentenced to be blown from the guns, two others to be shot.[44]
Sometimes, although a person was condemned to death, he might hope for a pardon or a commuting of the punishment. In 1784, a regiment mutinied over lack of pay. Lieutenant General[45] Laing suppressed the rebels and ordered twelve to be blown from guns. The last of the twelve was very lucky, however: Bound to the cannon's mouth, he had to endure three times that the fuse burnt out. He then asked Lieutenant General Laing whether he was really destined to die in this manner, and Laing chose to pardon him.[46] In 1795Midnapore, fivesepoys were condemned in court-martial to be blown from guns on account of mutiny, three others to be hanged. Their cases were appealed, however, and their sentences were commuted to be dismissed from service instead.[47] InBarrackpore Mutiny of 1824, occasioned by the resentment ofsepoys to being shipped to the front in theFirst Anglo-Burmese War, four days after the bloody suppression of the mutiny, one of the leaders, Bindee Tiwarree of the 47th regiment was found hiding, disguised as afaqir. In the ensuing court-martial, he was condemned to be blown from a gun, but instead he was hung in chains, and after his death his body was placed in agibbet for a few months.[48] In 1836, asepoy was found guilty of having fled before the enemy and abandoned his European officers. Rungish was condemned to be blown from a gun, but the sentence was commuted into "transportation beyond the sea".[49]
This method of execution is strongly associated with its use by the British during the suppression of theIndian Rebellion of 1857. A sense of the scale and frequency of the executions made by the British during the 1857 insurrection is demonstrated in the reports of incidents given in the journalAllen's Indian Mail, for the year 1857:
On 8 June, two sepoys from the 35th light Infantry were blown from guns. 10 June, inLudhiana, Peshawar, some 40 from the 54th regiment were blown from guns. On 13 June, ten[50] sepoys from the 45th Regiment at Firozpur were blown from guns, two hanged. The same day, inAmbala, 10 sepoys from the 54th regiment suffered the same fate. The 26th of the same month, inAurungabad, 1 was blown from a gun, 1 hanged, and 3 were shot. On 8 July, inJhelum, it is assumed that captured rebels would be blown away. On the 19th, Aurungabad, 1 was blown away, 2 shot. On 5 September, Settara, 6 were blown away. On 17 September,Multan, 1 was blown away, 121 were summarily executed. On 23 September, inKarachi, 1 was blown away, 7 were hanged and 20 deported. (The local body count on court-martialed individuals then came to 4 blown away, 14 hanged, 22 deported and 3 beheadings.) At the end of October, inRohilkhand nearAgra, 1 was blown away. On 16 November, Bombay, two sepoys from the 10th regiment were blown away.[51]
Per an 1859 paper to theBritish House of Commons on the rebellion in thePeshawar Valley in thePunjab, for the period May–September 1857, 523 were recorded executed, of them 459 shot by musketry, 20 hanged (13 for desertion) and the last 44 blown from a gun. Of those 44, four were executed on charges of desertion, rather than mutiny.[52] Official July–November statistics for the area about Agra says that of 78 who were given capital sentences, two had their sentence commuted into imprisonment, whereas 4 were blown from guns.[53] Other official statistics, this time fromIndore, state that, of 393 sepoys officially punished, 32 were executed, 21 of them by being blown from guns.[54] Several Britons also maintained that Indian insurgents had blown British civilians from guns during the rebellion.[55] A specific case, mentioned by several sources, concerns that of Mr. and Mrs. Birch, Mrs. Eckford and Mrs. Defontaine,[56] all of whom were said to have been blown from guns atFatehgarh.[57]
The skull of an Indian sepoy, Alum Bheg, who was blown from a gun was found in a British pub and is the subject of the book,The Skull of Alum Bheg: The Life and Death of a Rebel of 1857.[58]
The Rebellion of 1857 was not the last time that British colonial government used blowing from a cannon as an execution method. In 1871, for example, 65 members of theSikh sectNamdhari were executed by the British, by being blown from guns.[59]
When theBambatha Rebellion broke out, a dozen Zulus were tried under martial law and sentenced to be executed on 29 March by being "blown up from the mouth of a cannon".[60] Natal at that time was a self-governing British colony, andLord Elgin,Secretary of State for the Colonies, contacted the Governor of Natal to ask that the sentence be suspended. This was seen as an unconstitutional interference by many in South Africa; the executive councilors of the Natal government gave their resignations in protest. Lord Elgin backed down in the face of public opinion, and the Zulu men were "blown to death" on Monday, 2 April 1906.[60]
WithinAfghanistan, a tradition of using blowing from a gun as capital punishment is attested from the early nineteenth century up to 1930. The practice was considered especially useful in Afghanistan, where "weak governance, rebellion, and rampant banditry all threatened the legitimacy" of the state.[61] Some examples follow.
In 1802, the forces ofMahmud Shah Durrani inflicted a crushing defeat on theGhilzai tribes, and to discourage further aggression, he ordered one leader and his two sons blown from guns, as well as building a minaret out of Ghilzai skulls.[62] In 1803, whenShah Shuja Durrani ousted his half-brother Mahmud from power, he revenged himself on an ally of Mahmud, Ashik, by blowing him from a gun for having captured by means of treachery Shujah's and Mahmud's half-brotherZaman Shah Durrani, who had been king of theDurrani Empire prior to having been ousted by Mahmud in 1800.[63] Following the restoration of Shah Shujah to the throne during theFirst Anglo–Afghan War, further executions by cannon took place. In 1841, an Afghan man was blown from a gun for the murder of a European writer. Later that year, an Anglo–Durrani expedition commanded by General William Knott captured a rebel leader, who was executed on the orders of Shah Shujah's son.[61]
In 1880,Abdur Rahman Khan becameEmir of Afghanistan, and he swiftly gained the nickname "The Iron Emir" for his perceived brutality and strong rule. For example, one source estimates that, during his 20 years on the throne, an average of 5,000 executions a year took place, several by blowing from guns.[64] For example, in December 1889 alone, 24 are recorded as having been blown from guns, and many others executed in other ways.[65]
In January 1929, a new cycle of extreme violence broke out inAfghanistan when theTajikHabibullāh Kalakāni became emir. The British official Humphreys wrote: "None was safe, houses were pillaged indiscriminately, women were ravished and a reign of terror was established unprecedented in the annals of bloody Afghan history". Political opponents were often blown from guns or executed in other ways.[66] Habibullah's regime was toppled in October 1929, and then the Kuhestani Tajiks were persecuted. An article inThe New York Times from 6 April 1930 was headlined with: "Eleven Afghans Blown from Guns at Kabul".[10]
In the last weeks of World War II, German defector and war criminalWilli Herold, impersonating aLuftwaffe captain, ordered the execution of several prisoners of theEmslandlager concentration camp with an anti-aircraft autocannon.
It has been alleged by adefector thatNorth Korea has used blowing fromanti-aircraft guns as a method of public execution.[67]
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