Her oldest son becomes the genealogist who deposits hers and her father’s letters in the genealogi- cal bureau in The Hague. Her second son becomes an entomologist. Her only daughter marries the French Marquis de Seilhac. No further genera- tions are born in Java. No one returns to the Indies. Investments are transferred to African plantations. Before Indonesia’s independence, the Kemanglen estates are already sold. The watermark of empire is scratched over and etched out of their lives.

Ann Laura Stoler, Along the Archival Grain_ E…, loc. 1522