Connectivity of Perahu Shipping with Koninklijke Paketvaart Maatschappij (KPM) in Establishing Makassar as a World Maritime Axis

Abstract

By the first decennial of the twentieth century, the Dutch government had successfully integrated the Indonesian archipelago empires, through both politics and the economy. The economic maritime aspect, there were to integrated and called on by Koninklijke Paketvaart Maatschappij (KPM). This article focuses on the relation of people’s sea transport (perahu shipping) with the Dutch Firm KPM, describing their relationship with sea transport and trade policy, establishing Makassar as a transit port and center of trading in East Indonesia and also providing connectivity for the East Indonesian region with the world maritime axis. The connectivity network resulting from the policy established a fleet with the emergence of navigation firms such as the Celebes Line (called Cekumij), Manado Line, Moluccas Line, and Bone Comp. This policy affected the establishment of a world economic area in the great eastern economic region which politically in 1946 became the East Indonesian state. The methodology used in this research is a historical method with the main references being written materials obtained from the special collection of the National Archive of Indonesia; National Library of Indonesia Jakarta; library collections in Makassar, Luwu, and Mandar; and the special collection of the Hasanuddin University Library. Other collections were also viewed such as those in the Koninklijk Instituut voor Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde (KITLV) Leiden and the private collection of Saleh Lahade concerning South Sulawesi’s economic activities in the Negara Indonesia Timur region.