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Introduction

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Imperial Andamans

Part of the book series: Cambridge Imperial and Post-Colonial Studies Series ((CIPCSS))

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Abstract

In India, the Andaman Islands — a group of islands in the Bay of Bengal — have held a particular historical fascination. The Andamans, as Kalapani, or Black Waters,1 enjoy a certain degree of notoriety for serving as a receptacle for convicts and political prisoners during the years of the British Raj. In 1858, the British set up a penal settlement on the Islands, which was the abode of mutineers, rebels, murderers, dacoits, burglars, arsonists, rapists, rioters and plunderers. In 1906, an infamous panopticon Cellular Jail was built on the Islands that housed political prisoners and ordinary convicts sentenced to transportation by the colonial rulers. The convicts were believed to lead utterly miserable and horrible lives on the Islands. Testimony to the unsavoury reputation that the Islands enjoyed as Kalapani is their representation in Arthur Conan Doyle’s murder mystery The Sign of Four (1890), where Sherlock Holmes trails an intrepid murderer, Jonathan Small, who is an escaped convict from the Andamans. Conan Doyle’s story was replete with imageries and fantasies which were part of colonial folklore regarding the Andaman Islands — the disease and morbidity on the Islands, the horrible lives led by the convicts, and the presence of cannibalistic natives armed with poison darts and blowpipes.

’space itself was a text that had to be written before it could be interpreted’

— Paul Carter

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Notes

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  1. Georgetown University, USA

    Aparna Vaidik (Assistant Professor of History)

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© 2010 Aparna Vaidik

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Vaidik, A. (2010). Introduction. In: Imperial Andamans. Cambridge Imperial and Post-Colonial Studies Series. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230274884_1

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