Georg Eduard Adolph Capelle

Georg Eduard Adolph Capelle (* 1838 in Meinholz near Gifhorn , † 1905 on Likiep , Marshall Islands ) was a German businessman . He was the first German trader and entrepreneur in the Marshall Islands.

Life

Gravestone Capelles

Capelle worked and lived since 1859 on the atoll Ebon , which he came to with the ship Pfeil . In 1864 he founded the company A. Capelle & Co. together with the businessman José de Brum . In 1869 he became a representative of the Hamburg company JC Godeffroy & Son on Jaluit , which developed into the economic capital of the Marshall Islands. In 1874 he founded a branch on the island of Lenger off Pohnpei on the eastern Karolinen, which he operated until 1886. In 1877, together with his partner de Brum from Iroojḷapḷap (chief) Jortoka von Maloelap, he bought the Likiep atoll, for which the two paid for goods worth $ 1,250. De Brum had previously married a daughter of the chief. Capelle and de Brum built a copra production and a local shipbuilding industry on Likiep . In 1876, Captain Eduard Hernsheim, a partner in the Hernsheim & Co company , founded a branch on Jaluit and developed into a dangerous competitor for Capelle. Its company went bankrupt in 1883, its rights and goods were transferred to the Deutsche Handels- und Plantagengesellschaft (DHPG), which was founded in 1878 to take over the South Seas business from JC Godeffroy & Sohn. Only the Likiep atoll remained in the possession of Capelles. A third partner, Charles Ingalls, overcame the crisis at Capelle & Co , after whose death his shares were transferred to the Jaluit company . After the annexation of the Marshall Islands by the German Reich in 1887, the DHPG and the trading house Hernsheim & Co formed the Jaluit Society , which in 1888 received an exclusive contract for concessions on the Marshall Islands from the German Reich. Due to repeated protests by the British-Australian company Burns, Philps & Co. - the spheres of influence in this part of the Pacific had been established in an agreement between Germany and Great Britain in 1886 - the monopoly agreement with the Jaluit company was terminated and the Marshall Islands were given the governor of 1906 Subordinate to German New Guinea . The shares in the Jaluit company were returned to the Capelle and de Brum families in 1914.

family

Capelle married Limenwa or Sophie von Ebon , a Marshallese, and won over the locals, which was useful in his business. Local women more often served Europeans as mistresses at the time, but formal marriages were not common. His son William took over the business after his death. For Erwin Steinbach , a German medical officer who was stationed there from 1891 to 1894 and who researched the Marshallese language , Capelle was an important source because he made numerous contacts with the chiefs there. The Likiep Atoll is still owned by the descendants of Capelle and his Marshallese wife.

literature

Hermann Mückler : The Marshall Islands and Nauru in German colonial times. South Sea islanders, traders and colonial officials in old photographs . Frank & Timme, Berlin 2016, ISBN 978-3-7329-0285-9 , pp. 43-48.

Individual evidence

↑ The name Johann Caesar Godeffroy Gesellschaft used in the cited publication did not exist as a name (source: Kurt Schmack: JC Godeffroy & Sohn Kaufarbeiter zu Hamburg . Achievement and fate of a world trading house . Broschek & Co, Hamburg 1938. )

↑ Jakob Anderhandt: Eduard Hernsheim, the South Seas and a lot of money: biography . MV-Wissenschaft, Münster 2012, Volume 1, pp. 157–166.

^ Kurt Schmack: JC Godeffroy & son merchants in Hamburg. Performance and fate of a world trading house. Broschek & Co, Hamburg 1938, p. 243 .

↑ Wording of both agreements in German and English. In: Fabricius, Wilhelm: Nauru 1888–1900 . Shown on the basis of files from the colonial department of the Foreign Office from the holdings of the German Central Archives in Potsdam. Translated and edited by Dymphna Clark and Stewart Firth, published by: Division of Pacific and Asian History, Research School of Pacific Studies, Australian National University, Canberra 1992. ISBN 0-7315-1367-3 , pp. 130 ff.

personal data
SURNAME	Capelle, Georg Eduard Adolph
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	German businessman
DATE OF BIRTH	1838
PLACE OF BIRTH	Meinholz
DATE OF DEATH	1905
Place of death	Likiep

[1] The name Johann Caesar Godeffroy Gesellschaft used in the cited publication did not exist as a name (source: Kurt Schmack: JC Godeffroy & Sohn Kaufarbeiter zu Hamburg . Achievement and fate of a world trading house . Broschek & Co, Hamburg 1938. )

[2] Jakob Anderhandt: Eduard Hernsheim, the South Seas and a lot of money: biography . MV-Wissenschaft, Münster 2012, Volume 1, pp. 157–166.

[3] Kurt Schmack: JC Godeffroy & son merchants in Hamburg. Performance and fate of a world trading house. Broschek & Co, Hamburg 1938, p. 243 .

[4] Wording of both agreements in German and English. In: Fabricius, Wilhelm: Nauru 1888–1900 . Shown on the basis of files from the colonial department of the Foreign Office from the holdings of the German Central Archives in Potsdam. Translated and edited by Dymphna Clark and Stewart Firth, published by: Division of Pacific and Asian History, Research School of Pacific Studies, Australian National University, Canberra 1992. ISBN 0-7315-1367-3 , pp. 130 ff.