Local Malay chiefs concealed rebel activity for months from Dutch officials

Evidence

Valck’s 11 November 1876 report on the discovery of the benting is troubled and perplexed. Forest hideouts do not fit his plot. He doubts their existence and takes a military convoy to Panglima Selan’s encampment to see the benting for himself. He learns that two letters have been discovered there, addressed in German to Luhmann. When he questions the local Malay heads about the hideouts, he finds that they knew for at least six months about Panglima’s activities but continued to report rust (peace) in their districts nonetheless. — Ann Laura Stoler, Along the Archival Grain_ Epistemic…, 1213

Categorization

• XREF: Evidence contradicting the colonial ‘rust en orde’ reporting fiction connects to broader colonial archive literature on indigenous headmen controlling information flow to the state.