Firsthand accounts of the Harmonie demonstration exist but were never cited in published histories

Evidence

“What happened” at the Harmonie Club that evening has been told through abbreviated narratives in wildly contradictory accounts borne of third-hand knowledge, primarily in synoptic form. But it has also been told in vivid detail in testimonies by those present in a set of transcribed narratives, which have never been referred to in any published accounts that I have read. Eight days after the event, Governor-General Rochussen still did not know what had actually transpired. Nor was there any sign that Resident van Rees knew better. — Ann Laura Stoler, Along the Archival Grain_ Epistemic…, 488

Categorization

• SEED: This is exactly the ‘epistemic anxieties and archival commonsense’ hook the reader named - an event where the principal colonial authorities themselves lacked reliable knowledge, and published accounts ignored extant transcripts. Could scaffold an article on how archival selection reproduces official ignorance.
• QUESTION: Which transcribed narratives does the author mean, and where do they now sit in the archive? The gap between published synoptic accounts and untapped transcripts begs for archival follow-up.