EH.Net Abstracts in Economic History

                ABSTRACTS IN ECONOMIC HISTORY
                     (c) 2007 EH.Net
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Name: Claus Gossler
Email: claus.gossler at freenet.de
Institution: none

Co-author: none

Title: Société commerciale de l'Océanie 
(1876-1914). Rise and Fall of the Hamburg house 
of Godeffroy

Internet Address of abstracted work: 
etudescoloniales.canalblog.com/archives/2006/12/13/3427434.html 


By mail: see above

Language: German

Abstract:
Die Société Commerciale de l'Océanie (1876-1914). 
Aufstieg und Untergang der Hamburger Godeffroys 
in Ost-Polynesien, Montaurum Bremen 2006, 
ISBN-13: 978-3-937729-20-6

The company researched into was a joint-stock 
company registered in Hamburg. Its center of 
commercial activity was located in Papeete, 
Tahiti, Society Islands. The company was founded 
in January 1876 for the sole purpose of taking 
over the existing trading business of the 
partnership of Wilkens & Co. in Papeete. The 
reason for this reorganization was that the 
managing partner, Carl J. C. Wilkens, wanted to 
retire to California while maintaining his 
ownership in the company. He and the other owner, 
the Hamburg partnership J. C. Godeffroy & Sohn, 
expected further growth and by forming a 
joint-stock company prepared the way for raising 
new capital. At this point, new management 
personnel were appointed. The company exported 
local products, mainly from what had become 
French Oceania, such as copra, mother of pearl 
shells, cotton and vanilla to Europe, the US and 
Latin America while importing manufactured goods 
and food stuffs from these countries for 
distribution on the islands. It operated between 
three and five trading stations on other islands 
at different times for collection and 
distribution, and it owned schooners for 
transporting their goods and for a time also 
plantations. It was the most important trading 
company in the area until the beginning of WW I, 
when it was expropriated by the French. In the 
beginning the company had a rough going. At the 
end of its fourth business year much of its 
capital had been lost, mainly by investing money 
in part-ownership of plantations, sugar 
manufacturing equipment, schooner capacities and 
the ill conceived attempt to transfer its 
headquarters from French dominated Papeete to 
nearby Raiatea, an island that was still 
independent at the time. Responsible for these 
moves were two new managers. One of them was the 
Gustav Godeffroy Jr. (1851-90), the nephew of 
Johan César VI Godeffroy who - because of his 
company's substantial investments on the Samoan 
Islands - was called "King of the South Pacific". 
He had to resign soon thereafter. For many years 
the company benefited from economic and family 
ties to the English-Tahitian Salmon/Brander clan 
whose members did substantial business with the 
company. Gustav Godeffroy Jr. and the later 
member of the supervisory board of the company, 
Heinrich August Schlubach (1836-1914), had 
married daughters of John Brander. After their 
initial difficulties and a long period of very 
slow Recovery, the company paid its first earned 
dividend after 22 years but showed extremely good 
profits from the sale of copra and mother of 
pearl shells in the years before WWI. From the 
correspondence of which a major part was handed 
down and is deposited at the Hamburg State 
Archive, the author was not only able to 
reconstruct turnover figures, balance sheets and 
profit and loss statements for most of the years, 
but also to portray the personalities of their 
managers, their staff, some customers and all 
competitors. Critical analysis of their managers' 
actions and decisions are part of the study as 
well as a detailed picture of the social, 
political and economic circumstances under which 
the company had to operate.

Bibliography: Gossler, Claus. "Die Société 
commerciale de l'Océanie (1876-1914). Aufstieg 
und Untergang der Hamburger Godeffroys in 
Ost-Polynesien." Montaurum Bremen 2006, ISBN-13: 
978-3-937729-20-6.

Subject: B
Geographical Area: 2
Country/Region: French Polynesia
Time Period: 7, 8

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