The 1845 landmail route reduced communication time between Java and the Netherlands

Evidence

For the period with which this book is concerned, roughly the 1830s to 1930s, the principal collection of matters dealing with the Netherlands Indies are found in the repository of the Ministry of Colonies (MK) set up by royal decree in 1814 and that continued through 1959. Communications between Java and the Netherlands before 1845 made their long journey around the Cape of Good Hope and took months to arrive. It was not until 1845 that a shorter so called “landmail” (sometimes called “landpost”) through Egypt made consultation between the ministers of colonies and the governors-general—and more direct control over the latter by the former—more feasible. — Ann Laura Stoler, Along the Archival Grain_ Epistemic…, 83

Categorization

• SEED: Angle: how mail infrastructure speed reshaped colonial governance — the telegraph effect of the landmail parallels how Suez later restructured administrative correspondence.