The Most Ravishing Women of All Time: Six – Queen Emma of The South Seas

She sensed now that colonization was about to start so she secured her land and started to plant.

The Rich Years

Simple trading to the first Germans in the area from 1880 onwards was not enough for headstrong Emma. She dreamt of a day when vast coconut plantations would bring her opulence. She secured lands from friendly cannibal-chiefs, who were gradually coming under the spell of civilization, eschewing their flesh-hungry ways. Emma witnessed the success of copra plantations in her native home of Samoa so she decided now the time was ripe to bring copra to New Britain. Her lover, Captain Farrell, was unsure as it takes eight years for a coconut tree to bear fruit. They had been in the area already for three arduous years. If it was not for new blood arriving from Germany, building Rabaul, they might have given up. Simple trading of goods with the new migrants was working but the real wealth was in the rich soils and the promise of copra-bounty. It was Emma’s masterstroke when she planted the first of her copra plantations that was to see her retire to wealthy Mosman, Sydney, and travel to Monte Carlo, Europe, and a millionairess.

Three thousand acres of plantations on the prime land of the Gazelle Peninsula was hers. Rabaul was now the capital of German New Guinea with thousands pouring into the place each day and grand buildings being thrown up. By 1895 Queen Emma had:

• One thousand servants
• The largest Tropical mansion ever built in the South Pacific
• Legendary parties frequented by the King and Lily Langtry who bathed in champagne
• A twenty-eight course dinner served on golden crockery, for the German Navy, with a beautiful island-maid for each man.

“Gunantambu,” Queen Emma’s mansion near present-day Kokopo, New Britain. (Source: Robson, R.W.)

The Final Masterstroke

In the final years from 1895 – 1913 Queen Emma had established herself as, “a monarch,” and rich trader who was now well-advanced in years. As if by some uncanny twist of good luck, sheer acumen and a demonstration of amazing intuition she sold all, in 1913, for several million pounds cash retiring to gorgeous Mosman, Sydney. A single year later Germany was brought into World War I. Australia invaded the Gazelle Peninsula requisitioning the lot. Queen Emma died in 1913, in fabulous Monte Carlo, after an egregious car accident with her then husband Mr. Kolbe.

What can be said about such a magnificent woman and, “Queen?”

1. Queen Emma is the ultimate feminist icon – independent, rich and powerful – a protagonist in this game of life in a time when women were mere chattels
2. She chose men not the other way around
3. She got out of deals at the right time, was a trader and a matchmaker par excellence, with a rich and exciting life.

Queen Emma with Mr. Kolbe – her last husband (Source: Robson, R.W.)

Source

Robson, R.W. (1973) Queen Emma. The Samoan-American girl who founded a commercial empire in 19th century New Guinea. Pacific Publications. Sydney ISBN 085807012X

More Ravishing Women of All Time by this author:

1 – Cleopatra

2 – Helen of Troy

3 – Mata Hari

4 – Nell Gwyn

5 – The Queen of Sheba