Familiar colonial stories about racial hierarchy, prescribed comportments
and control were captured and preserved in these photographic tableaux vivants
(figure 7). Some images offer testimony to the ease of a colonial life made possible
by servants who labor off central stage. Scores of photos show servants
blurred in the background watching a scene of domesticity unfold-as in Dutch
literature, crucial to the colonial "backdrop" (figure But other images
place servants firmly within the intimacy of family bonds, displaying a domestic
order that was comforting and shared (figures 9-12). Most striking is
how frequently servants, even those whose jobs were not defined as childcare,
are shown next to Dutch childre