The Nicobar and its Pirates

                         In August 1866, a two-masted square rigged Arab ship technically called a brig named Futteh Islam sailed for Rangoon (Burma) from Penang (Malaysia). The turbulent weather forced the captain to call at Nancowry harbour in central Nicobar. With a crew of 24, the brig anchored about a quarter of a mile from shore. Soon, the indigenes of Nicobar, the Nicobarese, loaded their canoes with coconuts, vegetables and poultry and approached the vessel to strike an exchange deal for tobacco, alcohol, cloth and knives. The inhabitants of these isolated islands had established an early barter relation with the outside world through visiting ships. They were known to reach out to any vessel anchored off the islands.

A Nicobarese carrying Coconuts.

               Equations were fairly cordial between the Nicobarese and the Futteh Islam crew until the fourth day, when a group of 30 Nicobarese approached the ship. Their chief went on board to talk to the captain, while the rest waited in their canoes alongside. After some time, the Nicobarese chief asked his men to bring him fire for his pipe, which they brought in a thick bamboo. The chief lit his pipe, and then, to the bewilderment of the captain, knocked him down with the bamboo. Within moments, all the men in the canoes boarded the ship with clubs and spears, and began an indiscriminate massacre. Assured that the entire crew was slaughtered, the Nicobarese cleared the corpses, ransacked the vessel, and left for home to return later. That evening, three sailors, who had been hiding behind mats and logs of wood, emerged. They took control of the ship and after an arduous eight-day voyage, returned to Penang. The authorities in Penang were aghast to learn about the unprovoked massacre of 21 crew members, and in June 1867, the British ship HMS Wasp sailed to Nicobar to make inquiries. At Nancowry, the captain of Wasp, Norman B. Bedingfield, saw two vessels anchored at harbour, engaged in trade with the tribal people. The master of one of these vessels told Bedingfield that many white women were enslaved on the islands, abducted by the Nicobarese from various ships.

Nicobarese in their trading Canoe

        The attack on Futteh Islam was not the first such incident in Nicobar. Several vessels in the past had met with a similar fate, some even worse. H. Bush’s Journal of a Cruise Amongst the Nicobar Islands, which was kept on board the schooner, L’Espiegle, in 1845, briefly recorded the footprints of piracy in the Nicobar.On December 23, 1839, the whaler, Pilot, of London, had been attacked at Nancowry harbour. Both sides fought fiercely. Several indigenes were severely wounded, and of a crew of more than 40 on the whaler, only five escaped. Six days later, a ship reached Nancowry to rescue Pilot and avenge the crew. Twelve villages were destroyed and the inhabitants fled into the jungle. In 1843, the Nicobarese had cut off a small craft at Nancowry and decimated its crew of 25. The following year, the schooner Mary was plundered at Teressa Island. The entire crew was killed and the vessel set on fire. The same year, another vessel was attacked at Nancowry harbour. The captain was killed but the Nicobarese fled after one or two were shot.

Nicobarese in their traditional war canoes

        Bedingfield returned to Penang. On July 22, 1867, two British ships, Wasp and Satellite, commanded by Bedingfield and Capt. Edye, respectively, reached Nancowry for a punitive expedition. The vessels anchored near Trinket Island and landed a large number of seamen and marines. It terrified the inhabitants, who fled into the jungle. The party inspected the abandoned huts and found plenty of material looted from ships — chests, sofas, cushions, gear and fittings, toolboxes, nautical instruments and arms. It confirmed the prevalence of piracy in Nicobar. Trinket beach also had a large number of war canoes. The party incinerated the village and the canoes and proceeded to Nancowry harbour. One unit of the Madras Native Infantry, which Satellite had brought, went on to occupy one of the largest villages. Here too, the inhabitants had already fled, and their huts were found stuffed with material, some of which had hardly any use for them. In one hut, the crew found a copy of Albert Richard Smith’s The Struggles and Adventures of Christopher Tadpole, the flyleaf of which had an inscription written in a woman’s hand: ‘When shall we meet again? Perhaps never!’

The party captured some Nicobarese men, who revealed that all foreign captives, except for a little girl, had already been murdered. The girl and her mother were abducted from a French ship. The mother was abused and killed, but the girl was with Acheeup, the chief of Nancowry island.

Traditional settlements of Indigenous Nicobarese

           Bedingfield and Edye resolved to rescue the girl. Two Nicobarese men were dispatched to Acheeup’s camp to warn him that the villages would be exterminated if the girl was not returned by noon the next day. Acheeup, however, did not budge, so the party torched the war canoes on the shores, some of them 76 feet long and particularly spectacular. All the villages in Nancowry, barring three, were also burnt down. Acheeup’s village was deliberately spared. On July 26, two people were again sent to his camp. The chief eventually gave in and handed over the girl. The captains wanted to collect more information about piracy in Nicobar. They coaxed Acheeup to come on board the Wasp by promising him safe passage to and from the ship. He complied, but yielded nothing substantial. But there was ample evidence to conclude that piracy in Nicobar was a systematic and decades-long practice. The modus operandi was this: attack the ship, murder the entire crew, take women as captives, rob, and finally, scuttle the ship. Before leaving Nicobar, the British party burnt down many villages on Trinket and Kamorta to teach the Nicobarese a lesson and to prevent future attacks. The captured indigenes were also punished in varying degrees. But the Nicobarese were not solely responsible for murder, robbery and scuttling of ships. In many instances, it was found that the sailors had provoked them. The attack on Pilot was the result of one such provocation. The Nicobarese attacked because the crew attempted to molest their women. Such incidents turned the Nicobarese hostile towards all strangers. Also, the Malays, who lived in Nicobar during the dry season, were mainly responsible for planning and executing most attacks. They involved the Nicobarese by exploiting their hostility towards the outsiders.

Indigenous Nicobarese men wearing English top hat from a pirate raid

          Between 1837 and 1869, the Nicobarese attacked some 26 ships, the majority of which were under the British flag. But it was the Futteh Islam attack that particularly outraged the British and they resolved to colonise Nicobar. The Andaman islands had been colonised by them in 1789 but they had abandoned it in 1796 due to the inhospitable climate. Nicobar was under the control of Denmark, which had occupied it in 1756. In 1868, the Danes transferred their rights over the island to Britain. The next year, Nicobar became an adjunct of the Andamans for administration and the establishment of a penal settlement. Three islands in central Nicobar — Nancowry, Kamorta and Trinket, infamous for piracy — were occupied and the British protectorate extended to other islands. With the establishment of a penal settlement in Nicobar, trade resumed and the British established ties with the menluanas (witch doctors) and village leaders. The Nicobarese soon became friendly with the British and other outsiders. Between 1869 and 1888, not a single case of piracy was recorded. But the penal settlement was a financial liability for the British, and the government shut it down in 1888. Nicobar remained a British colony until Japan seized it during WWII. After Independence, it became a part of India and was declared a tribal reserve in 1956.

     The Futteh Islam incident had indeed a ripple effect on Nicobar. It precipitated the colonisation of the islands, which checked piracy, but also altered the indigenous communities forever. Once the Nicobarese received protection from the British against Malays and foreign sailors, they left piracy and established harmonious trade relations with outsiders. The Nicobarese soon earned the reputation of being among the most honest, compassionate and peaceful people. And it is for these virtues that these pirates of the past are known today.

- S.J.Jeberson

The Andaman Betrayal

         In the spring of April 1858, Sepoy Aga, a convict from the Indian Rebellion of 1857, prisoned at the Ross Island penal settlement in the Andaman Islands hatched an escape plan with his fellow prisoners, all of whom, were incarcerated on the isolated island by the British after the 1857 sepoy rebellion. The convict, with his poor sketchy geographical knowledge, reasoned that once they reached the shore opposite to Ross Islands, which happens to be the coast of Burma, it would at most be a ten-day march to Rangoon, the capital of Burma (present day Myanmar), where the convicts could seek refuge. The plan seemed flawless and the co-prisoners quickly accepted it.

Headquarters of the Penal Establishment at the North End of Ross Island, Andaman and Nicobar Islands. Picture Courtesy: Illustrated London News. Date: 24.02.1872

           On the 23rd of April 1858, 90 convicts boarded rafts made from felled trees bound with strong tent ropes and escaped Ross Island. After a two-day journey to the South Andaman, 40 convicts from the prison stations at Chatham Island and Phoenix Bay also joined them. In total, a contingent of 130 convicts sailed on the rafts reaching the forested shores of another distant island of Andaman, mistaking it as Burma, and marched into the unfamiliar jungles under Aga’s command. Everything seemed in order until Aga’s minimal geographical knowledge was soon exposed. The convicts walked through thick jungles continuously for 13 days with no sense of direction. On most times, Aga led them back to the same place they had passed by a few days before. The directionless adventure under the leadership of Aga started taking its toll on the group. Soon, the men ran out of food and water. Those who had some strength ended up climbing the tall and branchless trees and plucked fruits resembling to the Indian plum. Water, equally scarce like food, was only found in the form of small springs oozing from the forested hills. Due to dehydration and lack of food, twelve convicts succumbed to starvation and were helplessly left behind to perish. The group of 130 where reduced to 118 convicts.

Andamanese with bows and arrows at Port Blair, Andaman islands. Date: 1899

              On the 14th day, around noon, when the group had penetrated about four miles into the thick jungle, they suddenly found themselves encircled by 100 armed indigenes Andamanese tribesmen. The convicts did not have equipment’s to offer any sort of resistance, but only implored mercy through signs that the indigenes tribesmen completely didn’t understand and had disregarded. In no time, Aga the leader of the group and his entire men were brutally massacred. Only three convicts could escape, and fled into the surrounding dense jungle. From official records we know that the three men were – Shoo Dull, Dudhnath Tiwari and a third nameless man who is officially identified by his Kurmi caste.

         Among the escapees, Dudhnath Tewari, a sepoy based out of the 14th Regiment of the Native Infantry, had been convicted of mutiny and deserting the Infantry. The Commission at Jhelum sentenced him to transportation for life and labour in irons. As a result he was exiled to Ross Island, one among the archipelagos of Andaman Islands. On April 6, 1858, Tewari was received at the British Penal Colony at Port Blair when he arrived by ship from Karachi (formerly British India territory, now Pakistan). He was labelled Convict No. 276. Here he met another convict Aga, who planned the escape 20 days after Tiwari’s arrival on Ross Island convicts colony.

Andamanese with their arrows in a Canoe at Interview Island, North Andaman. Date: 1899

         During the deadly encounter with the indigenes tribesmen, Tewari was hit by three arrows, one each on the eyebrows, elbow and shoulder. He, along with the two other surviving convicts, managed to escape and reach a tidal creek, where they spent the night; distressingly hoping to look for help on any passer-by ship or boat. The next morning, a band of 60 indigenes, embarking upon their small canoes from the shore, spotted the three survivors. The indigenes chased them again into the jungle and shot at them. Two surviving convicts died on the spot, but Tewari lay down pretending to be dead. The indigenes pulled him by the leg from his hiding place. He begged loudly for mercy but the tribal archer shot at him, wounding his hip and wrist. Tewari feigned death a second time, but the relentless archer pulled the arrow out from his hip and aimed another shot. Tewari cried out and pleaded again, but this time, was miraculously granted mercy. The indigenes put Tewari into their small canoe, smeared medicinal mud all over his body, and took him to the nearby Tarmoogli Island.

           While Tewari’s survival was itself a miracle, his inclusion in the tribal community was most unimaginable. The indigenes who had accepted him belonged to the Termugu-da sect of the Aka-Bea tribe (the tribe went extinct in 1931) – one of the ten Greater Andamanese Tribal groups.

A 24 year old women named "Biala" of the Aka Bea Tribe, one among the Great Andamanese Tribes. The tribe went extinct in 1931. Date: 1890.

           Before the British colonised the Andaman Islands in the 16th century, four fiercely hostile tribal communities—the Andamanese (now called the Great Andamanese tribes), the Jarawa, the Onge and the Sentinelese—had exclusively inhabited these remote islands.

In 1789, the British established a penal settlement on Chatham Island in the southeast Bay of Great Andaman. It was moved to the north eastern part of the island in 1792 and eventually abandoned in 1796 due to the inhospitable climate and the frequent breakout of Malaria.

         After the 1857 Sepoy Rebellion scare, the British set up a penal colony on Ross Island the next year to incarcerate Indian political prisoners. The advent of the British led to large-scale deforestation and destruction of indigenous tribe settlements and resources.

The officer in charge of Andamanese, Maurice Vidal wrote in his book A History of Our Relations with the Andamanese (published in 1899), that: 

“The Andamanese were naturally alarmed and enraged at the manner in which their country was being cleared and appropriated on all sides, and conflicts with the convicts and with the Naval Guard, in which the latter were the aggressors, only increased that alarm.” 

            The Andamanese resisted the colonisation of their islands and retaliated by undertaking numerous raids in 1858 and 1859.

A sub-adult indigenous Andamanese in his costume.

       Tewari, whom the Andamanese had admitted into their community by then, enjoyed their warmth. Within a couple of months, his wounds had healed completely and he was in the best of health. Initially, the community had looked at Tewari with great suspicion, never trusting him with weapons or permitting him to pick up a bow and arrow, even in sport. Soon, however, Tewari became an insider. He discarded clothes, shaved off his head, got used to Andamanese food habits and language, and actively participated in various indigenous ceremonies and rituals. After completing four months of his stay in the community, an elderly Andamanese named Pooteah married off his 20-year-old daughter Lipa to Tewari. The Andamanese did not demand any work or role from Tewari. For a year and 24 days, he wandered with them from one island to another, coming in contact with some 15,000 indigenes tribesmen, some from different tribes, who lived near the sea shores and on the banks of salt water creeks in the interior jungles.

        Meanwhile, the British were aggressively expanding their base in the Andamans, which led to frequent confrontations with indigenous tribes. The Andamanese, unless resisted, refrained from attacking the convicts, who bore marks such as iron ankle rings. They primarily targeted the authorities – the British officers, or the section, sub-division and division gangsmen who donned red turbans, badges and coloured belts.

An official 1860s British correspondence about organising a puntative expedition against the Andamanese Aborigines

                 The Andamanese undertook three major raids in 1859. On April 6, 200 armed indigenes raided 248 convicts who were clearing the jungle at Haddo, on the mainland opposite Chatham Island; on April 14, about 1,500 Andamanese attacked the convicts at Andaman; and on May 17, a large number of indigenes attempted a well-organised raid on the Aberdeen convict station, on the south of Port Blair, with the aim to exterminate the British.

          The last raid at Aberdeen proved devastating for the Andamanese. Tewari, who had now spent a little more than a year with the community, had enough information about the attack being planned by the indigenes. He travelled with the attacking party along the coast and forewarned the superintendent of the penal settlement, Dr James Pattison Walker. When the Andamanese tribe warriors faced the pre-warned British soldiers, it was an unequal battle. The former fought with knives, axes, bows and arrows against a larger and well-armed enemy. While the British suffered no losses, a large number of the Andamanese were massacred in a single day.

      “The Battle of Aberdeen was the most serious collision with the Andamanese… None of the convicts were wounded, but several of the savages are supposed to have been… Had not Dr. Walker received notice regarding it from Life Convict Dudhnath Tewari, Convict No. 276… who had become cognizant of the arrangements for the fight which had been arranged in detail for some time previously, very serious damage might have been caused,” wrote Portman.

Andamanese Aborigines hunting Sea Turtles.

                The battle was to prove decisive. It quelled organised resistance from the Andamanese forever, and established the colonial Empire firmly in these remote islands. The British obtained a first-hand and rare account of Andamanese society from Tewari, which helped them to contain a hostile community and further expand their penal colony. The British set up the ‘Andamanese Homes’, where the Andamanese were kept and provided medicines and force fed on free rations such as sugar, rice, tea and tobacco. The islanders were also deployed to capture runaway convicts and protect the settlement against other hostile indigenes.
      Soon, the Andamanese were overtaken by alien diseases, with outbreaks of syphilis and measles in 1870 and 1877. Measles alone wiped out more than three-fourth of them, their population diminishing sharply to 2,000 in 1888 and 625 in 1901. Their numbers kept dwindling – 455 (1911), 209 (1921) and 90 (1931).

      After independence in 1947, a large number of partition refugees and migrants were also sent to the Andaman Islands for resettlement, which pushed the native community to the brink of extinction. In 1949, the entire community was relocated to the tiny Bluff Island, after which their population declined to 23 in 1951 and reached an all-time low of 19 in 1961. In 1969, they were again relocated, this time to the slightly bigger Strait Island, where they now live on government doles. The Andamanese are today listed as a Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Group (PVTG). In 2013, their population was recorded at 39, a large portion of which, however, is mixed race. Within less than two centuries of their contact with outsiders, the once strong and assertive Andamanese had been fully subdued and pushed to the verge of extinction. While the Battle of Aberdeen is yet to receive due mention in history of indigenous resistance, there is a memorial in Port Blair that commemorates it. “This monument is built in the memory of those Andamanese aborigines who bravely fought the Battle of Aberdeen in May 1859 against the oppressive and retaliatory policy of the British regime.” reads the inscription.
              For his ‘good service’ to the British Empire, Mr. Tewari, Convict No. 276 was granted pardon on October 5, 1860, and sent home. In December 1866, Tewari was sailing from Calcutta to Rangoon with Major Wraughton, and the ship halted at Port Blair. The officer in charge of the Andamanese, one Mr. Homfray, took Tewari to the Andamanese Home were the tribes were put in, with great excitement. The indigenes immediately recognised the familiar face of Convict No. 276, Tewari.The tribeswomen abused him for deserting Lipa, his wife, who had been in her final stages of pregnancy and later had a miscarriage. The Andamanese men didn’t want to approach Lipa. Her name was changed by the tribe to ‘Modo Lipa”, meaning, in the now extinct Andamanese language, a deserted bride or a women who has lost her husband while still alive. When the women's ceaselessly cried with agony for having ditched the tribe, Tewari remained unmoved and stubborn. He made no move to meet and thank them for nursing him back to health.

Andamanese Aborigines being forced to perform as Human Tourists. 

        During one of my visits to the island, I witnessed private tour operators taking tourists for a ride to the aborigines protected habitations, for a premium. The once clanish tribe has been reduced to a "human tourist". The discriminatory practice needs to be stopped and the unregulated tourism needs to be checked.

Conclusion: The Andamanese are the oldest Asian pre-historic tribes, dating back to between 32,000 - 26,000 BC years; who resisted against expansionist encroaching outsiders with simple bows and arrows. Today, however, of the once strong 10 great Andamanese Tribes, just 2 tribes survive – sharing a population of just 39 individuals among themselves, and waiting to go extinct. Of the 8 tribes that went extinct, the last to go extinct was in 1994.

By S.J.Jeberson