Ethnic disorder in VOC Asia. A plea for eccentric reading

Abstract

The archives of the Dutch East India Company reflect the concerns and interests of colonial administrators. One intrinsic element of colonial rule, as manifested in its sources, is the tendency to reify ethnic labels. This contribution to the forum tries to encourage alternative readings of colonial archives. Judicial papers can help to challenge the replication of colonial social categories. The method is illustrated by looking at the testimonies of the so-called Chinese rebellion in Batavia in 1740, when ethnic labels could be a matter of life or death. The resulting approach is to foreground dynamics of creolisation rather than to repeat colonial templates of segregation and an essentialist ethnic division.