Colonial planners debated whether manual labor could be honorable for whites.

Evidence

At the heart of these proposals, too, were a set of different answers to similar questions: could and should this mixed underclass be shaped into an enlightened working class or a middle class of modest means (middenstand)? Could the latter be formed on the basis of skilled manual labor? Could manual labor (handenarbeid) ever be “honorable” for those who saw them themselves as white? Could one remain Dutch and poor in the colonies or was this a dangerous oxymoron? — Ann Laura Stoler, Along the Archival Grain_ Epistemic…, 657

Categorization

• XREF: The question of whether whites could remain poor in the colonies resonates with caste/race markers of degradation attached to manual labor — connects to the reader’s comparative colonial-studies interests.