Colonial planters brutalized Chinese, Javanese, and Hindu coolies to death in Deli.

Evidence

You must then know, my friend, that I have always served the government with a devotion to which I have sacrificed more than many. I have usually served with pleasure until I was sent to Deli, a region for which I had little desire to go but where I had to fulfill a noble mission which was to protect those unfortunates who were treated in the most barbarous way. These were the Chinese, the Javanese, the Hindu coolies on whom the European planters, those one called the “civilizers,” inflicted the whip and brutalized to the point of death. Don’t think that I exaggerate, that I speak more than the truth. When I arrived in Deli, according to all reports it was a hell. Within eight months and by the time I left there was not a single European who would any longer dare to perform such atrocious acts as those that before had taken place everyday. You can imagine what enemies I made, enemies who were influential enough in the capital to ruin my reputation. But never was there a word that I was dishonest, this you must never forget… . The Governor-General chose me among more than 110 of my colleagues for Deli because he knew, as he told me, that I would act with complete impartiality, which is what I did. He told me that it was a distinction for me to be sent to Deli and promised to rescue and protect me. None of this was done. He abandoned me and left me to be reviled and insulted. No promise was kept, not even the chance to defend myself against the attacks made in a report of one of my superiors, a report with not an ounce of truth. And there is nothing more sacred than the right of one accused to self defense. — Ann Laura Stoler, Along the Archival Grain_ Epistemic…, 1487

Categorization

• DEFINE: A first-person colonial official confirming the ‘civilizers’ label as ironic cover for systemic brutality in Deli tobacco plantations.
• XREF: Connects to colonial studies literature on coolie labor exploitation in the East Indies and to broader settler/colonial archives scholarship.
• ADDENDUM: Relevant to the reader’s colonial archival focus: a primary-source self-justification that reveals plantation violence while also performing epistemic self-defense.