Unknown senders flooded colonial Java with European press to stoke reform hopes

Evidence

Generalized disquiet among the European population was already evident in early 1848 but gained momentum in May. By 14 May—only eight days before the demonstration—Rochussen recaptured a scene so dissonant with current historiography of colonial Java that it is hard to imagine. He described hundreds of people gathered at dawn in the old city’s customs house to await the Batavia steamship from Singapore charged with their subscriptions to the European press. He too had come down from Buitenzorg to wait in the nearby government hotel. When the bundles were opened, along with the regular post were masses of newspapers, thick bundles of press clippings, and literary extracts addressed to many of the European inhabitants—himself included—who had neither requested them nor had subscriptions. Upon reading that the King had conceded to a new governmental reform that would begin in March, people burst into applause. As Rochussen’s report of 26 May to the Minister of Colonies detailed, throughout the crowd were cries that “the boom has fallen, the day of freedom has arrived for the colonies’ inhabitants also to air their grievances and have their desires heard.” — Ann Laura Stoler, Along the Archival Grain_ Epistemic…, 551

Categorization

• QUESTION: Who sent these unsolicited newspapers and clippings to European inhabitants of Java, and why did they not identify themselves?
• XREF: Connects to the reader’s interest in colonial archival epistemic anxiety — unsolicited print knowledge arrives as a destabilizing channel in the colonies.