ABSTRACT
In August 1858, just months into the second settlement, a series of clashes between colonial troops and the Andamanese provoked the ire of the Government of India. The Home Department felt that J. P. Walker, a veteran jailor and the first full-fledged superintendent of the penal colony,1
had been unnecessarily aggressive in his approach to the aborigines. Walker was told:
The President in Council fully appreciates the difficulties of your position. But the aborigines of the Andamans are apparently unable to conceive the possibility of the two races co-existing on the islands, except on terms of internecine hostility. This idea is assuredly strengthened by every attack we make upon them, and can only be driven out of their minds by a course of persistent conciliation and forbearance on our part. Every effort must be made to teach them that we desire to cultivate friendly relations, and have no intention of attacking them or doing them any injury, unless they compel us to act in self-defence.2
