Colonial officials doubted welfare claims, suspecting hidden earnings from illegal activity

Evidence

Statistics were suspect because claims to neediness were doubted across the board. Some district officers were convinced that earnings were under- estimated by those unwilling to divulge illegal activities. — Ann Laura Stoler, Along the Archival Grain_ Epistemic…, 962

Categorization

Category: Factual Claims

Related

• Colonial statistics carried authority precisely because they were precise, despite acknowledged flaws (similarity 0.81)
• Colonial statistics failed to capture the perceived status of poor Europeans (similarity 0.79)

Broader Connections

• Colonial officials blamed reform failures on indigenous vanity rather than state abandonment #expands (0.55) — Ann Laura Stoler, Along the Archival Grain_ Epistemic…, 753