Dutch colonial officials accepted European vagrancy as inevitable and refused repatriation

Evidence

The Raad concurred, noting that in a colony with so many former soldiers and offi- cers, “a number of beggars and vagrants” were “to be expected and posed no threat.” Nor did the Raad deem it prudent to send such a destitute (and often aged) group back to the Netherlands to burden local charities, as at least one commissioner urged. — Ann Laura Stoler, Along the Archival Grain_ Epistemic…, 882

Categorization

• XREF: The refusal to repatriate destitute Europeans for fear of burdening Dutch charities echoes imperial metropole-colony cost-shifting of social welfare.