# KPM founded to link the archipelago by sea (1888)

URL: https://allhistories.com/indonesia/timeline/1888-kpm-founded-to-link-the-archipelago-by-sea
Location: Batavia and Amsterdam
Themes: Shipping, Colonial economy

The Koninklijke Paketvaart Maatschappij (KPM, Royal Packet Navigation Company) was created under a law of 19 March 1888 as a public company to run regular steamship services between the islands of the Dutch East Indies. The law required government-approved executives, Dutch crews, at least half of its ships built in the Netherlands, and gave the state access to its records, together with a subsidy. Before KPM, a subsidised shipping tender in 1863 had centred inter-island trade on Singapore. The new company redirected it to Batavia, supporting colonial control and the growth of plantation exports. It became the dominant inter-island line in the last half-century of colonial rule, so its role was as much political as commercial. KPM's ships also carried passengers and cargo across the archipelago. During the Second World War it lost nearly 100 ships, mostly in 1942. After nationalisation pressure in the 1950s it moved its headquarters to Singapore in 1958 and merged in 1967. Its network shaped the pattern of Indonesian inter-island shipping. At this point in the timeline (1888), the Dutch East Indies were governed from Batavia by Governor-General Cornelis Pijnacker Hordijk (1888 – 1893). Other contemporary rulers included Hamengkubuwono VII, sultan of Yogyakarta (1877 – 1921), Muhammad Daud Syah II, sultan of Aceh (1874 – 1903) and Pakubuwono IX, susuhunan of Surakarta (30 December 1861 – 16 March 1893).

## Why it matters
KPM knit the scattered islands into one commercial system under Batavia, a precondition for a unified colonial economy and later a national one.

Ruler at the Time: [Cornelis Pijnacker Hordijk](https://allhistories.com/indonesia/rulers/cornelis-pijnacker-hordijk)

## Sources
- [Wikipedia — Koninklijke Paketvaart Maatschappij](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koninklijke_Paketvaart_Maatschappij)
- [Wikipedia — Dutch East Indies](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_East_Indies)