Johann Cesar VI. Godeffroy

German trader, blackbirder and Hanseat (1813-1885)

In the history of enterprise, Johann Cesar VI. Godeffroy is one of the names that keeps returning.

The record lists Johann Cesar VI. Godeffroy as German trader, blackbirder and Hanseat (1813-1885).

Johann Cesar VI. Godeffroy was born at Kiel in 1813. His recorded nationality is Germany. He was educated at Katharineum.

Industrialisation changed the scale of everything: factories, railways, joint-stock capital and the first modern corporations.

He worked as politician, slave trader and trader.

His recorded affiliations include J.C. Godeffroy & son.

Business reputations are unusually sensitive to the decade in which they were made.

That the business was built from Germany shaped it: capital, regulation and market size differ by country, and they decide what is even attemptable.

Johann Cesar VI. Godeffroy died in 1885, aged 72. What remains is the enterprise and its consequences, which is the only durable measure of a commercial life.

Achievements

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