Patronage, Taxes, and Lawlessness: Peasant Resistance to the Dutch Colonial Government’s Rice Tax Policy in Polombangkeng, South Sulawesi

Abstract The ten per cent rice tax was a tax instrument for the Dutch colonial government in South Sulawesi. This tax policy caused opposition from peasants, especially in Polombangkeng. The peasants’ opposition developed into acts of theft and robbery, receiving support from nobles or landowners. In fact, nobles often led actions against these taxes. The ten per cent rice tax levy created a new pattern of patronage. Previously, patronage ties operated in the agricultural sector and shifted to tax resistance. In the early decades of the twentieth century, the Dutch government arrested and exiled high-ranking nobles who were anti-Dutch. Consequently, peasants lost their leaders, protectors or patrons, so they created in their imagination the presence of “imaginative figures” who would expel the colonial government and free them from taxes. These imaginative figures were followed by the sale of magical amulets so they could be free from tax. This phenomenon demonstrates that peasant tax resistance evolved when patronage ties were obstructed and the colonial state became more dominant. Thus, new forms of tax resistance emerged, manifesting in creating imaginative figures that could liberate them from the tax burden.