Gayo-led encampments formed multi-ethnic worker communities, not pure Aceh exile bands.

Evidence

Anthony Reid has suggested that the aid Gayos and other inland tribes provided for Aceh’s resistance to Dutch control “had nothing to do with the beginnings of an ‘Indonesian consciousness,’ but was simply an expression of their distrust of the foreign invaders.” He is undoubtedly right about some of these groups, but there was something distinctive about Gayo activities. Their assaults on the estates expressed more than “distrust.” They were directed at planters and their property, and at specific persons. Nor were the Gayo encampments confined to Aceh exiles. They were peopled with Malays, Javanese, and Chinese ex-coolies, as well. While some workers might have been taken by force, as claimed by Locker de Bruijne, many more might have lived in these encampments by choice and for relatively long periods of time. During those stays they seem to have raided the estates for food when they could not get enough in the surrounding villages or could not gather enough in the forest. — Ann Laura Stoler, Along the Archival Grain_ Epistemic…, 1228

Categorization

Category: Factual Claims

• XREF: Challenges both Reid’s framing and Locker de Bruijne’s; multi-ethnic ex-coolie encampments echo runaway-slave maroon communities.
• QUESTION: How did ex-coolies from different ethnic groups coordinate and sustain these encampments over long periods?

Related

• Gayo encampments were multi-ethnic refuges of coerced estate coolies, not pure raiding gangs. (similarity 0.93)
• Gayo encampments held ex-coolies of several ethnicities by choice (similarity 0.90)