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{{Short description|British colonial administrator}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=November 2021}}
{{Infobox person
| name = William Henry Sleeman
| image = William-Henry-Sleeman.jpg
| caption =
| birth_date = 8 August 1788
| birth_place = [[Stratton, Cornwall]], [[Great Britain]]
| death_date = 10 February 1856 (aged 67)
| death_place = At sea near [[Ceylon]]
| other_names =
| known_for = [[Thuggee|Thuggee suppression]]
| occupation = [[Army officer]], [[civil servant]]
| relatives =
| spouse =
| website =
| footnotes =
}}
[[Major-general (United Kingdom)|Major-general]] '''Sir William Henry Sleeman''' [[Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath|KCB]] (8 August 1788 – 10 February 1856) was a British soldier and administrator in [[British India]]. He is best known for his work from the 1830s in suppressing the organized criminal gangs known as [[Thuggee]]. He also discovered the holotype specimen of the [[sauropod]] [[dinosaur]] ''[[Titanosaurus indicus]]'' in [[Jabalpur]] in 1828.<ref>[[Richard Lydekker|R. Lydekker]]. 1877. Notices of new and other Vertebrata from Indian Tertiary and Secondary rocks. ''Records of the Geological Survey of India'' 10(1):30-43</ref>

==Early life and career==
Sleeman was born in [[Stratton, Cornwall]], the fifth of eight children of Philip Sleeman, a yeoman and supervisor of [[excise]] of [[St Tudy]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://geneagraphie.com/pedigree.php?personID=I45919&tree=1 |title=Pedigree Chart for Major General William Henry Sleeman: Geneagraphie – Families all over the world |publisher=Geneagraphie |date=10 March 2010 |accessdate=4 March 2014}}</ref>

In 1809 Sleeman joined the [[Bengal Army]] and later served in the [[Nepal War]] between 1814 and 1816. He contracted [[malaria]] in 1813, symptoms of which occasionally reappeared for the remainder of his life (with sometimes debilitating intensity).<ref>Dash, p. 113</ref>

In 1820 he was selected for civil employ, and became junior assistant to the [[Francis Rawdon-Hastings, 1st Marquess of Hastings|Governor-General]]'s agent in the [[Saugor]] and [[Nerbudda]] territories. In 1822 he was placed in charge of [[Narsinghpur District]], and would later describe his two years in the role as by far the most laborious of his life.<ref name="gutenberg1">{{Cite web|url=https://www.gutenberg.org/files/15483/15483-h/15483-h.htm#Mem|title = W. H. Sleeman – Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official}}</ref> He was gazetted to the rank of captain in 1825, and in 1828 assumed charge of [[Jabalpur district|Jubbulpore District]]. In 1831 he transferred to Sagar district to cover for a colleague on leave. Upon his colleague's return, Sleeman continued with magisterial duties in Sagar until 1835. He displayed a facility for languages, becoming fluent in [[Hindustani language|Hindi-Urdu]] and developing a working knowledge of many other languages of the subcontinent. Later in his life, Sleeman was described as "probably the only British officer to address the King of [[Oudh]] in correct Urdu and [[Persian language|Persian]]."<ref>Dash, p. 114-115</ref> His 800-page report on Oudh is still highly regarded as among the most accurate and comprehensive studies of the kingdom during the 1800s.<ref>Dash, Mike. Thug: the true story of India's murderous cult {{ISBN|1-86207-604-9}}, 2005, p 115</ref>

Sleeman made the first recorded discovery of [[dinosaur]] [[fossil]]s in [[India]] in 1828. While serving as a captain in the [[Narmada River|Narmada]] valley region, he noticed several [[basalt]]ic formations which he identified as having been "raised above the waters." By digging around in the Bara Simla Hills, part of the [[Lameta formation]] near Jabalpur, he unearthed several petrified trees, as well as some fragmentary dinosaur fossil specimens.<ref>{{cite web|author=William Sleeman|title=''Rambles and Recollections of an Indian official''|url=http://www-personal.umich.edu/~wilsonja/Titanosauria/Background_files/Sleeman1844.pdf|page=127|accessdate=4 March 2014}}</ref> Subsequently, he sent these specimens to London<ref>{{cite book
|author = Sahni, Ashok
|title = Dinosaurs of India
|publisher = [[National Book Trust]], New Delhi
|year = 2001
|isbn = 81-237-3109-4
}}</ref> and to the [[Indian Museum]] in [[Calcutta]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www-personal.umich.edu/~wilsonja/Titanosauria/Background.html |title=Background |publisher=Personal.umich.edu |accessdate=4 March 2014}}</ref> In 1877 the genus was named ''[[Titanosaurus]] Indicus'' by [[Richard Lydekker]],<ref>[http://www.dinodata.org/index2.php?option=com_content&do_pdf=1&id=7639] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150204231210/http://www.dinodata.org/index2.php?option=com_content&do_pdf=1&id=7639 |date=4 February 2015 }}</ref> but the taxonomic position is in doubt. Sleeman wrote about wild children who had been raised by wolves with his notes on six cases. This was first published in the first volume of his ''Journey through the kingdom of Oude in 1848-1850'' (1858)<ref>{{cite book|pages=206–222|url=https://archive.org/stream/ajourneythrough00sleegoog#page/n292/mode/2up|title=A journey through the kingdom of Oude in 1849–1850. Volume 1|author=Sleeman, W.H. |year=1858|publisher=Richard Bentley|place=London}}</ref> and reprinted in 1852 as ''An Account of Wolves Nurturing Children in Their Dens, by an Indian Official'' and in ''The Zoologist'' (1888 12(135):87-98).<ref>{{cite journal|title=Feral Man and Extreme Cases of Isolation|author=Zingg, Robert M.| journal=The American Journal of Psychology| volume=53|issue= 4 |year=1940|pages=487–517|doi=10.2307/1417630|jstor=1417630}}</ref> This discovery inspired [[Rudyard Kipling]]'s [[Mowgli]] character in ''[[The Jungle Book]]''.<ref>{{cite journal|author=Hotchkiss, Jane|title=The jungle of Eden: Kipling, wolf boys, and the colonial imagination|journal=Victorian Literature and Culture|year=2001|volume=29|issue=2|pages=435–449|doi=10.1017/s1060150301002108|s2cid=162409338}}</ref>

==Thuggee suppression==
Sleeman is best known for his work suppressing the [[Thuggee]] secret society. Dating back as early as the 1300s, Thugs were a secret criminal group, partly hereditary in membership, who specialized in the murder by strangulation of travelers as a prelude to theft. Thugs had been known to native rulers and occasionally to Europeans, but the scope of their crimes was not appreciated (later estimated at least in the tens of thousands of victims across India). In 1835, Sleeman captured "Feringhea" (one of the inspirations for the character Syeed Amir Ali in ''[[Confessions of a Thug (novel)|Confessions of a Thug]]'' is based) and got him to turn [[King's evidence]]. He took Sleeman to a grave with a hundred bodies, told the circumstances of the killings, and named the Thugs who had done it.<ref name=Twain>{{cite book
|url=https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/2895
|title= Following the Equator
|accessdate=27 February 2011
|last= Twain
|first= Mark
|author-link= Samuel Clemens
|author2=Produced by David Widger
|date= 18 August 2006
|format= ASCII
|work=EBook
|publisher=Project Gutenberg
|page= Chapter xlvi
|quote=This file should be named 2895.txt or 2895.zip
}}</ref> After initial investigations confirmed what Feringhea had said, Sleeman started an extensive campaign, being appointed General Superintendent of the operations for the Suppression of Thuggee and in February 1839, he assumed charge of the office of ''[[Thuggee and Dacoity Department|Commissioner for the Suppression of Thuggee and Dacoity]]''. During these operations, more than 1400 [[Thuggee|Thugs]] were hanged or [[transported for life]]. One of them, [[Thug Behram|Bahram]], confessed to having strangled 125-931 persons with his turban. Detection was only possible by means of informers, for whose protection from the vengeance of their associates a special prison was established at [[Jabalpur]] (at the time ''Jubbulpore''). Sleeman had a Government Report made in 1839.<ref name=Twain />
Sleeman wrote three books about the Thugs: ''Ramaseeana'', or a ''Vocabulary of the peculiar language used by Thugs''; ''Report on the Depredations Committed by the Thug Gangs of Upper and Central India''; and ''The Thugs or Phansigars of India''.<ref>Masters, John. 1952. ''The Deceivers''. The Viking Press, 237 pages</ref>

==British Resident and later life==

Sleeman served as [[Gwalior Residency|Resident]] at [[Gwalior]] from 1843 to 1849, and at [[Lucknow]] from 1849 to 1856. Whilst Resident at Lucknow he survived three assassination attempts. He was also opposed to the annexation of [[Awadh|Oudh]] by [[James Broun-Ramsay, 1st Marquess of Dalhousie|Lord Dalhousie]], but his advice was disregarded. Sleeman believed that British authorities should annex only regions of India that were plagued by violence, unjust leadership or poor infrastructure and thus maintained that native leadership should be left in place when their rule was even-handed.<ref name="Dash, p. 115">Dash, p. 115</ref>

Sleeman also took an interest in [[phrenology]] and believed that the measurements of the skulls could help him identify criminal ethnic groups.<ref>{{cite book |title=The Concept of Race in South Asia |publisher=Oxford University Press |location=Delhi |year=1995 |editor-first=Peter |editor-last=Robb |first=Crispin |last=Bates |chapter=Race, Caste and Tribe in Central India: the early origins of Indian anthropometry |isbn=978-0-19-563767-0 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=PwNkQgAACAAJ |page=230 |accessdate=2 December 2011}}</ref>

He died and was buried at sea near [[Ceylon]] on a recovery trip to Britain in 1856, just six days after being awarded the [[Order of the Bath]].

The village [[Sleemanabad]] in [[Madhya Pradesh]], [[India]] was named in his honour.<ref>[[Mike Dash|Dash, Mike]] ''Thug: the true story of India's murderous cult'' {{ISBN|1-86207-604-9}}, 2005, page ?</ref>

==Family==
Whilst in Jubbulpore, he married Amélie Josephine, the daughter of Count Blondin de Fontenne, a French nobleman. They had seven children.<ref name="gutenberg1"/> His second daughter, Henrietta, was married to William Alexander Ross, an uncle of Sir [[Ronald Ross]].<ref>{{cite book| url=https://archive.org/stream/memoirswithfulla00rossuoft#page/6/mode/1up|page=7 |year=1923| title=Memoirs with a full account of the Great Malaria Problem and its solution| author=Ross, Ronald| publisher=John Murray|place= London}}</ref> A grandson of Sleeman, Colonel Sir [[James Sleeman|James Lewis Sleeman]], who also wrote about thuggee and shikar ([[big game hunting]]), became a pioneer of wildlife photography in India.<ref>{{cite book|page=263 |title=The Strangled Traveler: Colonial Imaginings and the Thugs of India| author1=Martine van Woerkens|author2= Catherine Tihanyi| publisher=University of Chicago Press| year=2002}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|title=From Rifle to Camera. The reformation of a big game hunter| author=Sleeman, Sir James L.| publisher=Jarrolds|place= London|year=1947}}</ref>

==In popular culture==

* Sleeman is featured as a supporting character in the book ''Terror in the Sun'' by [[Barbara Cartland]] (1979), a romantic novel in which Thuggees are the overarching antagonists.

* Sleeman is featured in the novel ''The Strangler Vine'' by [[Miranda Carter]] (2015), ''Firingi Thuggee'' (2015) by Himadri Kishore Dasgupta and ''Ebong Inquisition'' (2020) by Avik Sarkar.

* Sleeman features in the novel '' The Tigress of Mysore'' (2022) by Allan Mallinson.

* Sleeman is the main antagonist in the 2016 video game ''[[Assassin's Creed Chronicles|Assassin's Creed Chronicles: India]]''. In the game, Sleeman is depicted as the leader of a group of [[Knights Templar]] seeking to acquire the [[Koh-i-Noor]] diamond.
* [[Sleemanabad]] is a village named after him in [[Katni district]] in [[Madhya Pradesh|Madhya Prades]].<ref>{{Cite book |last=Mondal |first=Bidyut |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Uh8REAAAQBAJ&dq=Sleemanabad&pg=PT89 |title=Adventure of the Deadly Book |date=2020-12-28 |publisher=Notion Press |isbn=978-1-63745-436-7 |language=en}}</ref>

==References==
{{reflist}}
*''This entry incorporates public domain text originally from the [[1911 Encyclopædia Britannica]].''

==Further reading==
*{{cite journal |last=Brown |first=Mark |title=Ethnology and Colonial Administration in Nineteenth-Century British India: The Question of Native Crime and Criminality |journal=The British Journal for the History of Science |volume=36 |issue=2 |year=2003 |pages=201–219 |jstor=4028233 |doi=10.1017/s0007087403005004|doi-access=free }}

==External links==
* {{Gutenberg author | id=Sleeman,+William | name=William Sleeman}}
* {{Internet Archive author |sname=William Henry Sleeman}}
* Sleeman, H. (1844) ''Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official'' (1844; 2nd edition, 1893) [https://archive.org/details/ramblesrecollect01sleeuoft full text]
* Sleeman, H. (1858) ''A Journey through Oude'' [https://archive.org/details/jeanjacquesrouss02macd full text]

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Sleeman, William Henry}}
[[Category:1788 births]]
[[Category:1856 deaths]]
[[Category:British East India Company Army officers]]
[[Category:Administrators in British India]]
[[Category:Knights Commander of the Order of the British Empire]]
[[Category:Knights Commander of the Order of the Bath]]
[[Category:People from Stratton, Cornwall]]
[[Category:People from St Tudy]]
[[Category:British military personnel of the Anglo-Nepalese War]]

William Henry Sleeman - Revision history

92.14.104.117: robot: Create/update articles. If there is a mistake please report on my talk page.