A colonial official privately voiced shame at European cowardice during a Javanese revolt

Evidence

In August 1873 he had been abruptly called back from Bali to deal with the eruption of what he calls a revolution in Eastern Java. He writes to her that the “rebels gave me so little to do that I have gained weight in the most incredible manner. I absolutely look like a bulldog,” an endearing self-portrait that conceals in its brushstrokes what has stressed his temperament and caused such strain. “The Resident of Banjuwangi totally lost his head… . He just went mad. The scenes that passed during the revolt were grotesque. The Europeans showed themselves to be as cowardly and irresponsible as it is possible to be. I am still so ashamed.” — Ann Laura Stoler, Along the Archival Grain_ Epistemic…, 1325

Categorization

• QUESTION: The account matches broader work on colonial agents’ private critiques of their own class.
• SHARE: Specific enough that a historian of Dutch East Indies colonialism would value the Valck relief-suppression self-portrait as texture.