Peasant uprisings in Java under colonial rule are usually seen as precursors of the nationalist struggle for freedom. This view needs a radical revision in light of numerous small incidents of rural protest that did not have any political agenda as such. Instead, conflicts of interests among villagers over agricultural resources appear to have led to mutual recrimination and to denunciation of some individuals as rebels against colonial state. The colonial bureaucracy caught up in such incidents found it difficult to disentangle the truth from fabricated information and sought an easy way out by depicting villagers as rebels.