Colonial commissions reactivated dormant archival documents across decades.

Evidence

In the Indies, the pauperism commissions did something more. They activated the colonial archive; called upon documents long left to rest; brought back into circulation promises not kept, resolutions shelved, earlier commissions found lacking, initiatives that had faltered or failed. Such sources merited long quotations and frequent reference. Thus the 1831 declaration of Minister of Colonies van den Bosch that the Indies government would care for its abandoned mixed blood youth was a requisite citation over the next eighty years—whether state aid to the Inlandsche kinderen was supported or not. — Ann Laura Stoler, Along the Archival Grain_ Epistemic…, 826

Categorization

• QUESTION: Why did the 1831 van den Bosch declaration persist as a requisite citation for 80 years regardless of policy direction? Suggests a ritualized archival practice worth investigating.