Pagina 88 van fotoboek van de Algemeene Vereeniging van Rubberplanters ter Oostkust van Sumatra (A.V.R.O.S.) c. 1924 - 1925

J.W. Meyster created this photograph as part of a photo book for the General Association of Rubber Planters on the East Coast of Sumatra. It’s a visual document of colonial industry and labor. In the image, a small train transports what appears to be harvested goods, likely rubber, through a landscape dotted with palm trees and simple structures. The photograph embodies the complex interplay of labor, industry, and colonial power. Sumatra, now part of Indonesia, was then under Dutch colonial rule, and its economy was largely shaped by the extraction of resources like rubber. The photograph invites us to reflect on the lives of the Sumatran workers, whose labor fueled this industry, yet whose stories are largely absent from the frame. The workers were bound to the colonial power structures that defined their existence. This image is more than a historical record, it's a stark reminder of the human cost of colonial enterprises. It silently speaks to the dispossession and exploitation that underpinned the rubber industry in Sumatra.