Rebellious coolies attacked the estate rather than its rich convoys

Evidence

Valck concludes with the “well-founded remark” of the Malay man with whom he spoke, that it could not have been the assailants’ intention to rob, because if so, it would have been much easier for them to attack and overpower one of the convoys transporting money for the estates and traveling under small escort than to first do hard labor for sometime and only then attack the estate. Therefore, I still feel that revenge [wraak] was the cause of every one of the committed crimes. — Ann Laura Stoler, Along the Archival Grain_ Epistemic…, 1168