Planters invoked Deli’s exceptionalism to justify coercive labor discipline

Evidence

Valck’s predecessor, Hallewijn, had sided with the planters in arguing that Deli was an exceptional situation in the Indies and that the industry’s viability demanded that strict punitive measures for recalcitrant, runaway coolies be enforced. — Ann Laura Stoler, Along the Archival Grain_ Epistemic…, 1084

Categorization

• XREF: The ‘exceptional situation’ argument used to legitimate colonial coercion connects to how colonial administrators framed local conditions across plantations, a recurring move comparable to the exceptionalism discourse in other contexts I study.