The Wendt Family

As per our research to date we believe nearly all Wendt Families in the Pacific today are Descendants of Ernest Jerome Wendt. ( Ernst Johann Wendt ) who is said to have been born around 1838 in Germany and died in 1902 in Wallis. He arrived in the Pacific Islands with his brother or a close cousin of his between the periods of 1860-1870 on a Copra Trading/Immigrant Vessel. I believe his brother or close cousin of his,  was
Captain HW Wendt who was around this part of the Pacific at same time. Oral stories handed down about our forefathers were that there were two Wendt brothers in the Pacific Islands during this period.
We know now that Ernst, our ancestor, was an agent for the J.C.Godefroy & Company, Hamburg Merchants & Shippers. During this period this company concentrated on transporting immigrants  to
Australia and other countries. On the vessels' return voyage to Germany, they would pick up copra (coconut meal) from their agents who were stationed in each of the islands, buying from the local
population and storing ready for the various vessels returning to Germany.

The first recorded documents of Ernst in the Pacific is the year 1876 when Ernst Jerome Wendt  Sr is
said to have married Elizabeth Smith, a daughter of a John Henry Smith and Helena Toifale, a maiden from the island of Wallis (Uvea). John Henry Smith, a German- Jew,
arrived a decade or two earlier via the United Sates of America (Copra/General Traders) had based themselves at Matautu. It was said the surname Smith was originally Schmidt.

Information supplied to us from the island of Wallis is that Ernst Jerome Wendt Sr & Elizabeth  Smith
had 14-15 children namely: 
Maxwell Wendt Sr, Louis Wendt, Sophia Wendt, Ellen Wendt , Emma Wendt, William Wendt Sr Otto Wendt Sr , Helena Wendt , Soane Tukuo (John) Wendt Sr , Emalita Wendt  Metotio Wendt , Alfred Wendt Sr , Metotio Wendt , Ernst Wendt Jr & Arthur Wendt Sr. between the years 1876 to 1898

During the 1880s, Ernst would take regular trips to Apia, Samoa, where the main base for the  J.C.Godefroy & Company, Hamburg was in the Pacific Islands, he would also make regular trips  to
Suva and Levuka, in the Fiji Islands.

It is during his regular travels that it is now known that he fathered two sons from a Samoan  Woman
by the name of Kuea Maualaivao Fili from the village of Malie in the Samoa Islands. The  children’s
names were : - Heinrich Johannes Wendt Sr (Est 1884)and Hans Wendt Sr (Est 1886). Ernst took his two
sons with him back to the Wallis Islands around 1890 and kept them there with the rest of his family for a number of years.Heinrich Johannes Wendt and Hans were returned to their mother in  Samoa
 around 1901 as it is believed to have been Ernst Jerome Wendt's Sr last trip to Samoa before he died in
 the Wallis Islands around the year 1902.
  
 Ernst's sons, Maxwell, Louis, William & Otto carried on his work as agents for the Deutsche Handels
 und Plantagen Gesellschaft fur Sud-See Inseln zu Hamburg, [DHPG - shortened name) the company that
 had taken over from J.C.Godefroy & Company, Hamburg which was forced into bankruptcy in the year  1879
 over investments in Russian Paper and Westphalian iron.

The copra trade continued until the break out of the first world war (1915-1919) when French traders via New Caledonia started arriving in the Wallis & Futuna Islands and as the territory  was
French was given more stakes in the local trade.

It is not clear what happened next, but I believe Ernst's sons pulled out of the copra trade, split
what they had earned over the years and started to look for greener pastures.

My grandfather, Maxwell Wendt Sr, the eldest in the family moved his family to the Fiji Islands around 1926-1927 as Fiji was developing into the "HUB" of the Pacific as business and trade were thriving big time here as it is still today. Descendants are here in Fiji, NZ, Australia, New Caledonia and France. He died in Fiji.

Granduncle Otto Wendt had already settled in Levuka, Fiji, around 1905, some years earlier and
married Lucy 'A' Costa. A number of descendants are still living here in Fiji, NZ and Australia. He died in Fiji.

Granduncle William Wendt married a Wallisian maiden and his family also moved to Fiji for a  short
period of time then relocated to New Caledonia, a few of his children married Wallisians and Futunans and did end up in Wallis & Futuna again.He has a very large family in New Caledonia, France and Wallis & Futuna. He died in New Caledonia.

Granduncle Louis Wendt married a Wallisian maiden and had 4 daughters in the Wallis Islands, whose descendants we have just managed to locate via facebook very recently. Descendants are found in Wallis & Futuna , New Caledonia & France. He died in the Wallis Islands.

Granduncle Alfred Wendt is also said to have moved to Fiji and married Louisa Wedlock. A number of
their descendants are in Canada now. It is said that he lived and died in Fiji.

Granduncle John Wendt (Soane Tukuo) - no information at this point in time - believed to have lived
and died in the Wallis Islands. Granduncle William named one of his sons after him.

Granduncle Metotio Wendt is said to have married a Wallisian maiden by the name of 'Senelosa'  -
have no information on him at this point in time - believed to have lived and died in the  Wallis
Islands.

Granduncle Ernest Wendt Jr - is known to have not married and lived and died in the Wallis  Islands.

Granduncle Arthur Wendt - there has not been any information about his life to date.

Grand aunty Ellen Wendt - is said to have married a 'Charles Peterson' and relocation to the Samoa
Islands - have not been able to make contact with descendants.

Grand aunty Sofia Wendt - is said to have married 'Alfred Joubert' a Frenchman - have yet to make
contact with descendants. Sofia is said to have relocated to the Samoa Islands after her husbands'
death in the early 1900s but is said to have returned and died in the Wallis Islands.

Grand aunty Emma Wendt - is said to have married Jacob Steiner Jr and settled on Nukubati  Island in
the northern Fiji group. Descendants still own the island and live there - a number of descendants
are known to the family.

Grand aunty Emalita Wendt - is said to have married a Futunan 'Ateleno Amole Keletaona' - have yet
to make contact with descendants. I believe she lived and died on the island of Futuna.

Grand aunty Helena Wendt  - there has been no information available about her and her descendants.

Granduncle Heinrich Johannes Wendt Sr - married Mary Trood in the early 1900s - there are a  great
many descendants today in Samoa, NZ, Australia & the US.

Granduncle Hans Wendt - very little information we have of him, but also lived his life in Samoa and descendants are also found there.

We have yet to find descendants or relatives of Ernst Jerome Wendt and the exact location in Germany
he was originally from, except he was born around 1838 and worked for J.C.Godefroy & Company, Hamburg, until 1879 and then Deutsche Handels und Plantagen Gesellschaft fur Sud-See Inseln zu Hamburg, [DHPG) until the late 1800s.
Hopefully in the not too distant future, someone will find a list of employees on either of  the
above Germany companies operating in the Pacific Islands from around 1855 to about 1900 to enable us
to know our ancestors exact name , where in Germany he originated from and whether there are descendants of his family and relatives somewhere.



I think it is very important that all Wendt Families especially those who are in the Pacific area or who originated from this part of the world, come on board and share online our relationships with each other and other related Wendt Families. We are all descendants of a very old Eastern European Family which came into being, many hundreds of years ago.

The main intention for going online with what information I have managed to gather over the last few years was to ensure that future generations of our Wendt’s know exactly who their ancestors were, how they were related to other Wendt’s and also how they were related to other families who intergrated into our Wendt Family through marriage over the last 4 to 5 generations. The benefits or advantages of having the knowledge of all your relatives far outweighs the disadvantage of being isolated from them. As the saying goes “United We Stand Dived We Fall”.

As we continue with our research, discussions, and sharing with other family members, some of the above information will be changed from time to time, to improve our accuracy of our family history records.

J.C.Godefroy & Company, Hamburg
Merchants & Shippers

Operations and trade in the Pacific- a profile.

by Anthony G. Flude. © 2000.

One of the wealthiest merchants and shippers working in the South Pacific in the 1860's was the well-known mercantile house of Messrs, Godefroy and Sons of Hamburg, Germany. During this period, the
company successfully monopolized the trade in the central pacific, using small vessels to transport
the copra from the small islands to the main depots, where it was shipped overseas to Europe. In
1855, on the outward passage from Hamburg, Germany, where she had discharged a large quantity of
copra and shell from the islands, the company's barque Johann Caesar left with 235 German emigrants
aboard who were on their way to settle in Australia. The passengers were landed at Moreton Bay  in
February 1856, the vessel then heading into the Pacific Ocean to collect and load her cargo  hold
from the widely scattered island trading depots and posts.

In later years, 1862, the firms' immigrant ship, Caesar Godefroy, left Hamburg for Cuxhaven on the 1st
of November, sailing via the Cape and rounding Van Diemen's Land before arriving off Moreton Bay  Heads,
Australia, after a 92 day passage. She had on board 208 German immigrants. The Courier  newspaper of
the time, reported that seven deaths had occurred during the voyage, six of whom were infants.  There
were two births, the remaining immigrants landed and were taken on to Brisbane.

The ship's cargo included 200 cases of red Geneva wine, 100 cases of candles, 125 casks of  sugar, 50
barrels of cement, 10 cases of split peas, 10 live rams and 44,000 fire bricks, together with  other
cases of mixed merchandise consigned to G. Unmack.

Godefroy's main sailing fleet of trading barques, operated during these years in the Indian Ocean under the control of an agent who was located at Cochin, where the company had a large coconut  oil
pressing and processing plant operating. Vessels of the fleet also made voyages to Valpariso on  the
Spanish Main, where they traded and shipped cargo's of saltpetre, copper and cochineal.

It was well known among seafarers, that the firm had the reputation of offering low wages to their
employees, who needed to compensate for this from the liberal commissions paid by the company for
results achieved. Masters of ships belonging to them were paid US$25 a month on passages  sometimes
extending from 1 to 3 years. Over and above this, a generous payment was made by the company of  3%
of the net profits from cargo collected during the the voyage, which was paid to the Master on return to the home port.

In 1855, Tahitian traders also sent their cargo's to Valpariso, returning to the Society Islands
with cargo's of flour and other foodstuffs for the French garrison stationed there. This activity
came to the attention of Mr. Anselm, the agent for Messrs. Godeffroy, who went to the Society Islands where he found the agents for Messrs. Hort Brothers and the trader John Brander making  large
profits from the sale of copra, coconut oil and pearl shell.

Anselm lost no time in establishing an agency in the Paumotus for his parent company, moving there
to set up the post for the Pacific region. Shortly after this time, he was unfortunately lost  at
sea. His successor, August Unshelm, in 1857, expanded the company trading into the Navigator Islands, [the Samoa group of Islands] and almost forced the two other agents to relinquish  their
activities in the Society Islands.

After a short illness, Unshelm died and Theodore Weber was sent from Hamburg to take control of the
Samoan Apia Depot. He was a young, astute German businessman, who had only three questions to put to
a man seeking employment to act as an agent on one of the islands.

'Can you speak the language', 'Can you live among the natives without quarreling with them?',  'Can
you keep your mouth shut?', referring to company business when meeting with white men and other traders. If the applicant answers correctly, he would then receive transport to his new place of
employment, together with everything necessary to establish a trading post including the stock  to
fill it.

Weber made two other stipulations of the employee. 'You must get yourself a 'wife' of any color,
race or nationality'. A single man among the natives often spelt trouble from the husbands of pretty
island wives. 'You must obstruct the establishment of any missionaries wishing to land or settle on
the islands and give them no help whatsoever, other than that demanded by humanity'.

The reason for this was simply to protect their own and the traders' interests, since the missionaries were seen by the trading company as undermining their business activities by  trying to
gain power over the natives with their teachings and also demanding from them contributions of  money
or copra, to build a large church for them to worship their new God.

Working on trust, the trader was expected to buy replacement stock from the profits earned as  well
as purchase copra from the natives for the company vessels to collect.

By 1873, the firm had abandoned their agencies in the Poumotus and other small group of islands which were now claimed as French dependencies. Shell and mother-of-pearl prices had also  slumped.
They decided to push their trading posts further into the pacific ocean, both north and south.

Agents, mostly of European extraction, were employed in Samoa, then sent to Tonga, Niue [Savage Island], Niuafou, Fotuna and Wallis Islands and northwards to the Ellis & Gilbert Group,  Kingsmills,
Tokerau, Marshalls and Caroline Islands.

During the year 1872, the company made its offices in Apia, Samoa, the central agency for the Pacific region and hoisted the German colonial flag. The staff then comprised of a  superintendent
[also consul for Germany], a cashier, eleven clerks, a harbour master, two engineers, ten carpenters, four plantation managers who were ex-ship captains, a surgeon and land surveyor,  all
German nationals. They employed some 400 local Samoan laborers to work the coconut plantations, assisted by contract islanders from Nieue and the Gilberts.

The Apia settlement became a long straggling village along the waterfront.

It comprised of about 200 houses occupied by Europeans, mostly German; the large establishment belonging to the firm of Godefroy and company, the German, English and American Consulate  buildings;
a fraternity of French Roman Catholic priests, a school run by the Sisters of Mercy, five or six
large retail shops; six public houses, a billiard saloon, a bakery, two blacksmiths and two buildings that housed steam cotton gins, machine's used for separating the seeds from cotton  plants.

It was a time of unrest and civil strife in Samoa, with tribal fighting on the middle island of Upolu. Land could be bought at ridiculously low prices, where a prime block of land of 320 acres at Salefata with coconut and breadfruit trees and a fresh water stream, was exchanged for a
snider pistol and 100 rounds of ammunition.

The company did not miss this opportunity and held title to extensive property on Upolu Island. From
the Samoan chiefs, eager to engage in the hostilities with other tribes, the firm purchased  large tracts of land which they traded for ammunition and arms. On the land obtained, they built a harbour
and a small shipping yard. Three 400 acre plantations and approximately 25,000 acres was purchased
or traded at the low price of .75c an acre in this manner. It is worth mentioning that the firm of
Godeffroy also owned a large arms manufacturing plant at Leige in Belgian, so this method of exchange enabled them to buy very cheaply.

All of the company land that they had acquired had easy access from the seashore by bridle tracks;
pony's or donkey carts were used to collect the coconuts and transport them to the large  central store shed. 
Seen from the decks of an approaching ship, the dense forest of Upolu island had areas
of extensive clearance and cultivation, long straight rows of coconut trees stood like soldiers,
while, between them, grew hedges of fragrant lime bushes. Cattle and horses grazed on the cleared
ground, coffee and cocoa grew in nearby plantations and on one plantation which grew  pineapples, it
was found that they had produced a huge crop, most of which was shipped to the Sydney markets.

Other natives, brought from Kingsmill and Nieue, worked from 6am to 11 am and from noon to 4pm daily. They were paid 2 dollars per month and given their food during the time of their contract of
three years before being returned to their islands.

The company's operations in the Pacific expanded at an enormous rate during the year 1870. The sailing barques Johann Caesar, Peter Godefffroy, La Rochelle, Wandram, Suzanne, Iserbrook and  the
Victoria, loaded in Apia, Samoa and set sail for Europe with their cargo holds full of timber, coconut oil, copra and shell.

From the Friendly islands [Tonga] they loaded over 700 tons of copra, which in the following  year,
1871, expanded to over 1400 tons; a cargo of Tui-tui or candle-nut was also sent to Europe, the oil
from this, producing a bright clear flame which sold well on the English market. These cargo's were
all paid for by the company in silver dollars which in turn was paid out in wages.

Thus much of this money was recovered from the Samoans and Tongans in payment for European  goods
delivered to them, where the profits, usually 100% markup, were high.

The firm purchased coconut oil if it was offered for sale, but preferred the dried nut, which when
transported to Bremen and Hamburg, was crushed by giant hydraulic presses to obtain the clear quality oil, so different from that produced in the islands by their more primitive methods. In addition, the husks of the nut, after crushing, could be sold as cattle food. Other goods  provided additional cargo. Cotton, fungus, ginger, arrowroot, pearlshell and beche-de-mer.

While establishing company trading posts in the Western and Northern Pacific, the firm  purchased the
island of Nukufetau from the natives as it had excellent fresh water facilities and a deep  water
berth for shipping.

On Yap, a great island near the entrance to the Luzon Sea in the Caroline Group, they purchased some
3000 acres of land to form a settlement and establish a large depot, developed cotton plantations
and also a slip, which they used to repair any damage their vessels might sustain while in the Pacific region through storms. About a dozen or so Europeans lived there on a permanent basis,  while
local labour was employed to work the plantations and depots under their supervision.

Godefroy's agents now covered the Carolines, Tokerau Group, the Ellice Group, Gilbert Group, Marshall group of Mili, Jaluit, Ebon and Namorik and the Kingsmills with the exception of  Apemana,
Kuria and Aranuka, which all belonged to King Tem Baiteke, who would not allow any Europeans to  live
on his islands.

In the year 1872, the third island of Samoa, Tutuila, with its deep water port of Pago Pago,  became
an American possession.

With the widespread interests of the German owned Godefroy shipping company throughout the  Pacific
region, the German government began to take an interest in annexing the islands of Western  Samoa and
bringing them under German rule.

They had never concealed the fact that they would like to take possession of these islands; the native Samoans made it plain that they would not tolerate German rule over them at any cost.

The apparent reasons for the firm purchasing such vast areas in Samoa, most of it elevated and  of
cooler temperatures, was to make the land attractive to subdivide, buy or lease by German  immigrants
wishing to settle there in the event of Samoa becoming a German colony and under German rule.

The firm of Godefroy were to provide the ships from Germany to Samoa to bring the immigrants  who
were to cultivate corn, coffee, tobacco and other produce in the high country and grow coconut palms, sugar-cane and rice on the lowlands stretching to the seashore. The firm also intended  to
import a labour force of Chinese workers.

The whole scheme, proposed by the company and approved in principal by the German Government,  came
to nothing at the outbreak of the Franco-German war.

In 1877, petitions signed by forty-eight of the chiefs had been sent to the British Government, begging them to take Samoa under its protection. This was refused.

The firm of Godefroy continued to operate for a further seven years in the pacific regions,  until
the shipping company was forced into bankruptcy in the year 1879 over investments in Russian  Paper
and Westphalian iron.

The largest asset was found to be the company holdings in Western Samoa and the South Pacific.  The
company's remaining assets passed through the hands of Baring Brothers of London and then to  the
Deutsche Handels und Plantagen Gesellschaft fur Sud-See Inseln zu Hamburg, [shortened by all to  DHPG
or called the 'long handle German firm']. The founder of the shipping line, Johann Caesar  Godeffroy,
died in the year 1885.

A second petition, signed by all the Samoan chiefs, was sent to the British Government in 1884,  which
was again refused. Germany decided to step in at the end of 1888, encouraged by these refusals,  when
it intended to take possession of the remaining two islands. The German warship, Adler, already lying in Apia Harbour, was joined by the Eber, and Olga.

Dispatches swiftly reached the British and American Naval command and the British man-of-war Calliope arrived a few days later and anchored in the outer harbour, joined by the American warships, Nipsic, Vandalia and Trenton.

With the formal signing of the Anglo-American coalition and the show of military force, the  German
Government was prevented from adding Western Samoa to its colonies and island possessions.

Disaster struck the port of Apia on the 13th March, 1889, when six American and German warships foundered in a violent hurricane, causing the loss of 150 lives. During the height of the storm, the British warship, HMS Calliope steamed out to sea in the  teeth of
the gale and so escaped the fate of the other vessels.





A LITTLE HISTORY ON HOW OUR FOREFATHERS FINALLY SETTLED IN GERMANY AND THEN STARTED MIGRATING  IN
THEIR HUNDREDS TO THE UNITED STATES, AUSTRALIA & THE PACIFIC in the 1800'S.

Our Name Was Germanised over the Years to :- Wendt , Wend , Went , Wentz , Wendon , Vent ,  Vendt ,
Ventz , Wellam , Wellman , and so on.

Identity - Who are the Wends?

The Wends or Sorbs are members of the slavic race of people who were originally located in the  area
north of the Black sea near the River Dnieper in Asia. In about 500CE, they moved westward  mainly
along river valleys to northern-central Europe where they settled between the Rivers Elbe and Oder.
This occurred following the collapse of the Roman Empire and the devastation of Europe caused  by the
Huns, Bulgars and Avars in the late 400s. These slavic tribes were early referred to as Venedi,  the
named germanised to "Wends" and they included five main groups, the Sorbs, the Polabs and  Obodrites,
the Veletians, the Ploni and the Lusatians. They spoke a slavic language, which is illustrated  in
surnames such as "Nowak" which means "new man", or in German "Neumann", and "Starick", which  means
"old man", or in German "Altmann".
As the Wends were influenced by the surrounding Germanic or Teutonic tribes from the Middle  Ages
onwards, wendish slavic names were often germanised, as happened with "Nowak" to "Noack".  However,
because the Germanic use of the word "Wends" to describe these slavic settlers in the whole of Central Europe and later in Lusatia became a derogatory term, the residents in Lusatia in the  20th
century called themselves the Sorbs of Lusatia.

By John Noack

Geography - Where did the Wends originate from?

From about 500CE and during the early Middle Ages, the Wends occupied most of the land in north-central Europe east of the River Elbe and the tribes tended to settle along river  valleys. The
Sorbs settled between the Rivers Saale and Mulde in the south-west, while the Polabian and  Obodrite
Wends occupied land in the north-west extending to present Denmark. In fact, King Waldemar IV  of
Denmark who died in 1375 assumed the official title of "King of the Wends" and this title was  used
by Danish monarchs until 1972. The Vilzi or Veletians moved northwards to Pomerania, along the Baltic Sea west of the River Oder. The Ploni moved to the central area between the Rivers Elbe  and
Spree while the Luzici and the Milceni tribes settled along the River Spree in Lusatia, with  the
Luzici giving their name to Lusatia.
During the Middle Ages, wendish tribes could not resist conquest and colonisation by the  Teutonic
tribes who were moving east. However, three Wendish groups have continued to exist in Europe, including the Kashubian Wends in Pomerania, the Wends in Hungary and the Lusatian Wends, geographically located in Lusatia between Berlin, Dresden and the present Polish border in the eastern part of Germany. Lusatia is divided between Upper Lusatia whose main centre is Bautzen  and
Lower Lusatia whose main centre is Cottbus. 
At the time of the steady migration of Wends mainly from Lusatia to Australia in the 1850s, the geographical and political situation was more complex. Lusatia was divided between three  different
German provinces. The northern or lower Lusatia was in Brandenburg, central Lusatia was in  Silesia
and southern or Upper Lusatia was in Saxony. There has naturally been some confusion as  documents
label these Wends as Prussians, Silesians and Saxons. In general, in the upper or southern area  were
the Saxon Wends and in the lower or northern area were the Prussian Wends. Those who read into  the
terms "Upper" and "Lower" more than geographically based concepts, determined by the northward  flow
of the River Spree, are generally being unfair to the lower Wends!