Perhaps it was in a Hamburg street like this in 1889, in an antiquarian office up a spiralling wooden staircase, that two young half-Samoan teenagers learned that they had become extremely wealthy.
They were the daughters of Theodor Weber and Leaga Taua, and when they were summoned – most likely to a law office administering their father’s will – they learned that they had just inherited around US$35 million in today’s values.
According to Weber researcher Claus Gossler, the two daughters, Bertha, aged 19, born at Suga, east Apia, and Emma, aged 17, born at Moto’otua, were left a fortune of 600,000 gold marks. The intrinsic gold value of those marks in today’s heady gold market is around $34-$35m.
This surprising legacy appears to have been accrued by Theodor Weber largely through a generous salary, handsome commissions on his work in Samoa, and presumably through wise investments. There is no evidence that Weber traded on his own behalf – “off the books”, as they say – to beef up his income in his years heading up the Godeffroy / DH & PG operation in Samoa. By all accounts, Weber was a scrupulous company servant and no evidence has come to light of any wheeling and dealing on the side.
Weber, “about 5ft 7in tall, rather stout and inclined to put on undue weight, which tendency he combated by dieting and horseback exercising,” according to Harry Moors who knew him, arrived in Apia in 1862 but didn’t take over the company reins until his boss, August Unshelm, disappeared in a storm in Fijian waters on a trading voyage in 1864.
Thereafter, the dynamic prodigy – he was only 20 when he succeeded Unshelm – worked from Apia (apart from a year in Tonga and occasional trips back to head office in Hamburg), right up until 1887 when he returned to Germany to be a DH & PG company director and political lobbyist.
Weber was meticulous about ensuring he was properly and fairly paid by the company, bringing his performative business wiles that had so benefited Godeffroys in Samoa, to the boardroom table. Perhaps he had got wind that Godeffroy had ripped off Unshelm in his early years in Apia, debiting his income package for losses made in Samoa when the initial agreement had been that only profits would be shared.
After ten years in the islands and with two newborns in the house, Weber was entitled to home leave in 1873. He discovered just before departure that the company had failed to pay his salary and commissions; presumably his living costs in Apia were on the company tab and he had no need to monitor his distant bank accounts. Weber, more than capable of bombastic behaviour, refused to hand over the office keys to his high-ranking stand-in, Alfred L. Poppe, until Poppe had issued him a promissory note for 150,000 gold marks.
With note duly obtained, Weber made passage for Germany, making a detour to Nuku’alofa, to hold discussions with King George Tupou I about a friendship treaty with the German Empire (which was concluded three years later). Weber had learned his lesson from his salary mix-up about taking no prisoners, even in internal company negotiations.
More savvy strategising followed five years later. In 1878 when a financial emergency wracked Godeffroy and its Pacific operation was restructured as the DH & PG, Weber resigned his contract in writing when the bombshell news reached Samoa, apparently to improve his negotiation position for future terms of employment, which continued. Three years later, on the tail end of a long interlude in the Hamburg office, Weber negotiated an annual salary of 12,000 gold marks with the supervisory board.
His final period of service in Apia lasted only about three years, as he resigned his Samoan duties at the end of October 1886. He may have wanted to spend more time with his daughters, who had been sent to Hamburg for education when they were small children. His parents were their guardians.
After returning to Hamburg in April 1887, Weber negotiated an increased salary of 15,000 gold marks with the supervisory board and remained there as a director of the DH & PG until his death in July 1889.
We can see how Theodor’s attention to detail, forceful personality and calculated role-playing had benefited his personal finances as well as those of his company. And why not? Weber’s years of hard, driven work in the South Seas, busy with political and financial machinations, had revolutionised Samoa’s agricultural economy and land-use patterns.
His amazing legacy would persist for well over a hundred years and still leave detectable imprints in 21st century Samoa. But it had all come at a cost. His life’s work was sacrificial as well as commercial.
Weber’s bank balance was healthy but his body was not. A quarter century in the South Seas had taken a physical toll, according to Gossler. We don’t know the exact details – there are a thousand ways to get sick in the tropics – but reportedly his health had suffered. Was he malarial? Was it dengue? Was it filariasis? Who knows.
But his too-early death at age 45 was like the fall of a mighty Aoa tree. The banyan was down but there were seedlings in the shadows. What became of Bertha and Emma? What became of their mother, Leaga Taua?
That’s a story for another day.
About the Author
Tony Brunt
Tony Brunt is a writer, historian, and photo archivist based in Auckland, New Zealand. He serves as Photo Archivist & Consultant at the Museum of Samoa. His work brings light to overlooked Pacific histories using personal archives, photography, and field research. Tony has also served in various public and civic roles in New Zealand, including on the Wellington City Council and as a former Executive Councillor at the NZ Academy of Fine Arts.
