Colonial partisans agreed mixed-race workers failed, disagreeing only on which race caused it

Evidence

Partisans on both sides shared the belief that indolence and insolence could produce one another and had to be checked. For some the Inlandsche kinderen were inadequate workers because they were native in temperament and body. For others they were inadequate workers because they were at heart Europeans. — Ann Laura Stoler, Along the Archival Grain_ Epistemic…, 692

Categorization

Category: Contrarian or Surprising Claims

• XREF: This shows the racial taxonomy’s instability — both ‘native’ and ‘European’ readings are deployed against the same group — resonating with the chapter’s theme of taxonomic tensions.

Related

• Mixed-race workers were deemed lazy whether judged native or European in temperament. (similarity 0.91)
• Mixed-race colonials were feared as white-haters yet fantasized as future loyal vanguard (similarity 0.78)
• Colonial modernization stalled over fear of educated mixed-blood labor (similarity 0.78)