Valck converted rumors into actionable statements while affirming racialized colonial authority.
Evidence
In connection with what I had already been told at Kloempang, I asked Mr. Luhmann what the reason could have been for the attack on his plantation and for the murders of his family. He answered that there could not have been any reason because he and his subordinates always treated his Chinese, Battaks, Gayo, and Malays with the utmost humanity [de meeste menschlievendheid]. The previous day he had even given money to some of them on the occasion of the end of the Mohammedan fast. Then I said to him that so far all the planters whose plantations had been attacked had given me the same assurance, except Mr. Droop who admitted having insulted a Gayo headman, that there were rumors [geruchten], however, about things that had happened on each of those plantations that in the eyes of uncivilized people would motivate retaliation, that I had to rely on those statements [verklaringen] and had to take measures accordingly; that those measures might have been wrong because of false information, and that the misery that struck them might have been prevented if the other planters would have told the truth; that I also heard something about him, Mr. Luhmann, that could have caused the attack at his estate, because people had told me that he had kicked a Malay or hit him with a slipper, a fact that I had heard from a reliable person, who, in turn could point out the people who had told him. … Rumors here are transformed into “statements,” actionable evidence by a sleight of hand. … He blames them for forcing him to take these rumors as facts because the “facts” they report are clearly lies. And, while directing his accusations at Europeans, he invokes the “uncivilized” instincts motivating native retaliation—affirming the very racialized distinctions on which of Dutch (and his own) authority relied. — Ann Laura Stoler, Along the Archival Grain_ Epistemic…, 1147
Categorization
- DEFINE: Shows how geruchten (rumor) became verklaringen (statements) — a pivotal epistemic transformation in colonial administration.