Think As Historian: THINK AS A HISTORIAN: SIGNIfICANCE Of POINT Of vIEW IN SOURCES

Perspective, or point of view, is a powerful filter of experience. Historical accounts from varying perspectives require historians to understand the significance of the point of view and use that understanding to determine how useful a source is, and for what purpose. For example, firsthand indigenous responses to state expansion between 1750 and 1900 provide historians with a perspective of the people whose lands and cultures were being taken over. At the same time, accounts of colonization solely through the lens of the colonizers would also provide a limited perspective. As the final word on what happened, each type of source has limitations. For this reason, historians are able to present a more accurate picture of the past when they examine sources with varying points of views and appreciate the significance of those perspectives.

Reread the excerpt from the proclamation by Firoz Shah on the previous page. Explain the significance of the excerpt’s point of view. Then read the following General Order from the British Lord Canning to the 19th Regiment of Bengal on March 27, 1857. Compare the significance of Canning’s point of view to that of Firoz Shah and explain how each source may have limitations because of its point of view.

“Neither the 19th Regiment nor any regiment in the service of the Government of India nor any Sepoy Hindoo [Hindu] or Mussulman [Muslim] has reason to pretend that the Government has shown directly or indirectly a desire to interfere with the religion of its troops. It has been the unvarying rule of the Government of India to treat the religious feelings of all its servants of every creed with careful respect and to representations or complaints put forward in a dutiful and becoming spirit whether upon this or upon any other subject it has never turned a deaf ear. But the Government of India expects to receive in return for this treatment the confidence of those who serve it. From its soldiers, of every rank and race, it will at all times and in all cases enforce obedience. They have sworn to give it and the Governor General in Council never ceases to exact it. To no men who prefer complaints with arms in their hands will he ever listen.”