Dutch colonial historiography has underrated the political force of family affect

Evidence

Historians of the Indies have alluded to the “disturbance” but the machinations that surrounded it and the political threat envisioned at the time garner little space in Dutch colonial historiography. The prominent Dutch historian Cees Fasseur makes passing mention of the newspaper coverage of the maddened mother and ruined father as evidence that “pathos was not eschewed” and running high. But government authorities at the time took more seriously the political force of affect and undoubtedly would have deferred from his dismissive claim. — Ann Laura Stoler, Along the Archival Grain_ Epistemic…, 565

Categorization

• XREF: Speaks to the current historiographic debate over reading affect and pathos as political evidence in colonial archives — echoes Stoler’s work on colonial governance of feeling.
• QUESTION: What archival traces exist of how lower-level Dutch colonial administrators themselves theorized the loyalty-instilling function of family and schooling?