Astrolabe Company

Last updated

The Astrolabe Company (German : Astrolabe-Compagnie) was a German "colonial society" (Kolonialgesellschaft) in Kaiser-Wilhelmsland, which existed from 1891 to 1896. On 27 October 1891 it was founded with a capital of 2.4 million marks. Involved were Hamburg and Bremen notables and the financiers.

The director of the company was the Geheimer Kommerzienrat (councillor) Adolph von Hansemann. He also headed the New Guinea Company, from which the company first took over some tobacco plantations in Stephansort and Erima. The following year, an additional tobacco plantation was founded in Jomba, and another in 1893 in Maraga. In that year, 108,600 pounds of tobacco was exported to Europe. In addition to the tobacco growing and export, Astrolabe also shipped exotic woods and experimented with the cultivation of coconut palms, Liberian coffee and natural rubber. In 1896, the company ran tobacco and coffee plantations in Stephansort and tobacco plantations in Erima, Jomba, and Maraga.

After bad years in 1895 and 1896, the company merged again with the New Guinea Company in 1896.

In the vicinity of the Astrolabe Company stations, the evangelic Rhenish Missionary Society was also active.

Sources

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Colony of Virginia</span> British colony in North America (1606–1776)

The Colony of Virginia was a British colonial settlement in North America between 1606 and 1776.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">German East Africa</span> 1885–1918 German colony including modern Tanzania, Burundi and Rwanda

German East Africa was a German colony in the African Great Lakes region, which included present-day Burundi, Rwanda, the Tanzania mainland, and the Kionga Triangle, a small region later incorporated into Mozambique. GEA's area was 994,996 km2 (384,170 sq mi), which was nearly three times the area of present-day Germany and almost double the area of metropolitan Germany at the time.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">German New Guinea</span> 1884–1914 German colony in northeast New Guinea

German New Guinea consisted of the northeastern part of the island of New Guinea and several nearby island groups and was the first part of the German colonial empire. The mainland part of the territory, called Kaiser-Wilhelmsland, became a German protectorate in 1884. Other island groups were added subsequently. The Bismarck Archipelago, and the North Solomon Islands were declared a German protectorate in 1885. The Caroline Islands, Palau, and the Mariana Islands were bought from Spain in 1899. German New Guinea annexed the formerly separate German Protectorate of Marshall Islands, which also included Nauru, in 1906. German Samoa, though part of the German colonial empire, was not part of German New Guinea.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Madang</span> Capital of Madang Province, Papua New Guinea

Madang is the capital of Madang Province and is a town with a population of 27,420 on the north coast of Papua New Guinea.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Morobe Province</span> Province in Papua New Guinea

Morobe Province is a province on the northern coast of Papua New Guinea. The provincial capital and largest city is Lae. The province covers 33,705 km2, with a population of 674,810, and since the division of Southern Highlands Province in May 2012 it is the most populous province. It includes the Huon Peninsula, the Markham River, and delta, and coastal territories along the Huon Gulf. The province has nine administrative districts. At least 101 languages are spoken, including Kâte and Yabem language. English and Tok Pisin are common languages in the urban areas, and in some areas pidgin forms of German are mixed with the native language.

The tobacco colonies were those that lined the sea-level coastal region of English North America known as Tidewater, extending from a small part of Delaware south through Maryland and Virginia into the Albemarle Sound region of North Carolina. During the seventeenth century, the European demand for tobacco increased more than tenfold. This increased demand called for a greater supply of tobacco, and as a result, tobacco became the staple crop of the Chesapeake Bay Region.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Danish Gold Coast</span> Danish colony in Africa from 1658 to 1850

The Danish Gold Coast comprised the colonies that Denmark–Norway controlled in Africa as a part of the Gold Coast, which is on the Gulf of Guinea. It was colonized by the Dano-Norwegian fleet, first under indirect rule by the Danish West India Company, later as a crown colony of the kingdom of Denmark-Norway. The area under Danish influence was over 10,000 square kilometres.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Agriculture in Angola</span>

Angola is a potentially rich agricultural country, with fertile soils, a favourable climate, and about 57.4 million ha of agricultural land, including more than 5.0 million ha of arable land. Before independence from Portugal in 1975, Angola had a flourishing tradition of family-based farming and was self-sufficient in all major food crops except wheat. The country exported coffee and maize, as well as crops such as sisal, bananas, tobacco and cassava. By the 1990s Angola produced less than 1% the volume of coffee it had produced in the early 1970s, while production of cotton, tobacco and sugar cane had ceased almost entirely. Poor global market prices and lack of investment have severely limited the sector since independence.

During the British colonization of North America, the Thirteen Colonies provided England with an outlet for surplus population as well as a new market. The colonies exported naval stores, fur, lumber and tobacco to Britain, and food for the British sugar plantations in the Caribbean. The culture of the Southern and Chesapeake Colonies was different from that of the Northern and Middle Colonies and from that of their common origin in the Kingdom of Great Britain.

St. Anna was a Roman Catholic mission station during the German colonial period. It contained a plantation of coconut palm and rubber trees for export to Europe. It was located at Berlinhafen, Kaiser-Wilhelmsland.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Great Industrial Exposition of Berlin</span> 1896 exposition in Berlin, Germany

The Great Industrial Exposition of Berlin 1896 was a large exposition that has also been dubbed "the impeded world fair".

Adolph von Hansemann was an Imperial German businessman and banker.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Coffee production in Papua New Guinea</span>

Coffee production in Papua New Guinea is the country's second largest agricultural export, after oil palm, and employs approximately 2.5 million people. It accounts for approximately 1% of world production, according to the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">History of yerba mate</span>

The history of yerba mate stretches back to pre-Columbian Paraguay. It is marked by a rapid expansion in harvest and consumption in the Spanish South American colonies but also by its difficult domestication process that began in the mid 17th century and again later when production was industrialized around 1900.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Albert Hahl</span> German colonial governor

Albert Hahl (1868–1945) was a German colonial administrator. In 1897, he was acting Landeshauptmann of the German New Guinea Company. After this he was appointed Governor of German New Guinea from 10 July 1901 to 13 April 1914. During his time as governor, he founded the town of Rabaul in 1903, by 1910 the offices of the government moved there from Kokopo, making Rabaul the official capital of the colony. Hahl is featured in Christian Kracht's 2012 novel Imperium, which focuses on August Engelhardt.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Planter class</span> Racial and socio-economic caste of Pan-American society

The planter class, also referred to as the planter aristocracy, was a racial and socioeconomic caste which emerged in the Americas during European colonization in the early modern period. Members of the caste, most of whom were settlers of European descent, consisted of individuals who owned or were financially connected to plantations, large-scale farms devoted to the production of cash crops in high demand across Euro-American markets. These plantations were operated by the forced labor of slaves and indentured servants and typically existed in subtropical, tropical, and somewhat more temperate climates, where the soil was fertile enough to handle the intensity of plantation agriculture. Cash crops produced on plantations owned by the planter class included tobacco, sugarcane, cotton, indigo, coffee, tea, cocoa, sisal, oil seeds, oil palms, hemp, rubber trees, and fruits. In North America, the planter class formed part of the American gentry.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Richard Hindorf</span>

Richard Hindorf was a pioneering German colonial agricultural scientist and traveller. He worked predominantly in German East Africa

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bismarckburg, Togo</span> Colonial station in Togo

Bismarckburg was a colonial station in the German colony of Togo. It was named after the founder of the German empire, Otto von Bismarck.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">German Colonial Museum</span> German museum (1899–1915)

The German Colonial Museum was a museum in the Berlin district of Moabit that existed from 1899 to 1915. The museum aimed to inform the German public about the German colonies overseas. Its collection consisted of more than 70,000 artifacts, and it attracted a significant number of visitors, with around 481,259 visitors between 1899 and 1911.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">German Colonial House</span> German company (1896–1914)

The German Colonial House was a German company of the Berlin merchant Bruno Antelmann for products from the German colonies. It had its headquarters at Jerusalemer Strasse 28, but, in 1903, it was moved to Lützowstraße 89-90, Berlin-Tiergarten.