The commission treated mixed-race traits as fixed across centuries of history

Evidence

The causal narrative was already evident in the historical account the commission chose to convey, one in which racial characteristics were durable and impervious to historical change. It was a story that began with the VOC in 1715 forbidding the “mixiste inboorlingen” [sic] (mixed Indies-born Europeans) from company positions; with British Governor Daendals in 1808 urging an end “to the neglect … of bastard children”; with the observation that even then, the “well-known characteristics” of the descendants of mixed bloods were present “to this day,” their “lack of mental willpower … and their inability to uplift themselves.” These were accepted as “facts of the matter” from the start. — Ann Laura Stoler, Along the Archival Grain_ Epistemic…, 903

Categorization

• DEEPTHINKING: The passage shows how a historical account can be constructed to make racial essences appear timeless and ‘factual’ — a dense demonstration of how archival narrative devices manufacture epistemic certainty about race.