Kanpur, formerly known as Cawnpore was an important garrison town for the East India Company forces. Kanpur on the Ganges, was an important river-port and grain trading centre in the 19th century, which achieved notoriety in the history of the British empire as ‘Cawnpore’. By June 1857, the Indian rebellion had spread to several areas namely Meerut, Agra, Mathura and Lucknow and Kanpur had become a witness to one of the goriest incidents in history!
Kanpur is a thriving industrial area today but it also has stories of freedom struggles which have pushed it towards an important place in our history pages!
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About the Massacre Ghat!
Also known as the Satti Chaura Ghat, around 300 British men, women and children were slaughtered here and later this place gained a name as the Massacre Ghat.
Kanpur had been under siege by the forces of Nana Sahib after which a truce had been negotiated. The surviving Britishers had boarded boats at the ghats of Kanpur which would lead them to safety at Allahabad but as luck would have it, those who escaped the brutal fate that day were later killed at the ‘Bibighar Massacre’. The rebellion was led by Nana Sahib of Peshwa after which the ghat was renamed as the Nana Rao Ghat.
This place now stands as a dumb witness of the massacres but the tranquility of the ghats, marked by a small white temple is what makes this ironical now.
These incidents actually accumulated and contributed towards mass freedom movement and that’s how Kanpur has been etched in the annals of history.
