Black Hole of Calcutta
The Black Hole of Calcutta was a small dungeon in Fort William in Calcutta, India where troops of Siraj ud-Daulah, the Nawab of Bengal, held British prisoners of war after the Bengali army captured the fort on 20 June 1756.
John Zephaniah Holwell, one of the British prisoners and an employee of the East India Company, said that, after the fall of Fort William, the surviving British soldiers, Anglo-Indian soldiers, and Indian civilians were imprisoned overnight in conditions so cramped that many people died from suffocation and heat exhaustion, and that 123 of 146 prisoners of war died.
Coordinates: 22°34′24″N 88°20′53″E / 22.573357°N 88.347979°E
Fort William was established to protect the East India Company's trade in the city of Calcutta, the principal city of the Bengal Presidency. In 1756 India, there existed the possibility of imperial confrontation with military forces of the Kingdom of France, so the British reinforced the fort.
Meanwhile, the local ruler, the Nawab of Bengal, Siraj ud-Daulah, was unhappy with the East India Company's political interference in the internal affairs of his province; the British merchants were undermining his political power. As the Nawab, Siraj perceived a threat to Bengali independence and himself. He ordered the immediate cessation of the reinforcement of Fort William, but the East India Company paid no heed to the native ruler.
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