[1] By the 1860, lived a small boy from a farmer's family in Parang Koedjang, Lebak Regency in the Dutch East Indies (present day Indonesia) named Saïdjah.

Not long after that, the group of the Demang (chief district) of Parang Koedjang, Raden Wira Koesoema, comes to them by horses.

That sermon is attended by Max Havelaar, an ex-Assistant Resident of Manado and Lebak who resigned from this official charges and becomes unemployed in Amsterdam.

The reason is unclear, probably because Slotering has secret papers about the Regent's crimes and abuses in Lebak.

The Gouverneur-Generaal is recommended by his aide to install Max Havelaar, the Assistant-Resident of Manado, as the successor of Slotering.

Havelaar is inaugurated in Gouverneur-Generaal's palace in Buitenzorg and departs to Lebak in the next day with his controller names Verbrugge.

At first, Havelaar tries to ignore what is happened in the past, yet he keeps to maintain his feudal relationship with the Regent, Raden Adipati, as the highest local ruler in Lebak.

Havelaar visits the Regency to make a speech which essentially states that he wants everything goes fine and no violation under during his term of office.

The Regent requests an advance of remaining tax extra payments from Assistant Residents.

He finds some sawahs abandoned because all men in some villages are forcedly working to pull the grass and clean the Regent's houseyard.

But in the few weeks when he makes a visit to Säidjah's village, he finds the Demang of Parang Koedjang with his group was collecting kerbaus.

He immediately left the village back home to write a report about this situation to the Resident of Bantam.

But Säidjah refuses it because he doubts the court and feels that every colonial high-rank officials are the same as the Regent.

At the aftermath, Säidjah is dead in Lampong killed by KNIL army in a rebellion battle.

Havelaar sees the justice in colonial is corrupted, and he finally resigns from his position as Assistant Resident.

When he arrived there, his brother-in-law, who served as the Gouverneur-Generaal's aide, locks Havelaar in a room and told him to be silent and go home to the Netherlands.