Jeppe Prætorius (4 July 1745 – 6 April 1823) was a Danish merchant, slave trader and shipowner.

Biography

Prætorius was born in Skærbæk near

Tønder Tønder (; german: Tondern ) is a town in the Region of Southern Denmark. With a population of 7,505 (as of 1 January 2022), it is the main town and the administrative seat of the Tønder Municipality. History The first mention of Tønder might ...

in Jutland. He moved to

Copenhagen Copenhagen ( or .; da, København ) is the capital and most populous city of Denmark, with a proper population of around 815.000 in the last quarter of 2022; and some 1.370,000 in the urban area; and the wider Copenhagen metropolitan ar ...

where he became bookkeeper for the Danish West India Company in 1796 before establishing his own trading house. He mainly traded on the Danish colonies and was involved in the liquidisation of in 1787. His fleet had a total ship tonnage of more than 200 (just over 500 t) in 1797. The war with England in 1807 hit his business hard but he managed to keep it afloat. On 31 August 1807 HMS ''Niobe'' and captured his ship (''King of Ashanti''). Between 1797 and 1 January 1803, when the abolition of Danish participation in the trans-Atlantic slave trade took effect, she had made three voyages carrying slaves from West Africa to the Danish West Indies. In 1802 Prætorius was elected to a leading post in

Grosserer-Societetet The ('Wholesalers' Society') was a society for wholesale merchants in Copenhagen founded by law in 1742. Since 1714, it was possible to acquire citizenship as a wholesaler in the city. was reorganized in 1817. In 1987 the association was replace ...

, a wholesaler organization.

Property

He purchased the property at Overgaden Neden Vandet 39 in 1792.

Aftermath

Præstotius' two sons, Henrik Frederik Prætorius (30 March 1783 – 24 February 1862) Jacob Christian Prætorius (12 December 1784 – 23 March 1859), took over the company after his death. Henrik Frederik Prætorius was later elected to the board of representatives of Bank of Denmark and served as its bank manager under L. N. Hvidt. He was also a member of the meetings of the

estates of the realm The estates of the realm, or three estates, were the broad orders of social hierarchy used in Christendom (Christian Europe) from the Middle Ages to early modern Europe. Different systems for dividing society members into estates developed an ...

Roskilde Roskilde ( , ) is a city west of Copenhagen on the Danish island of Zealand. With a population of 51,916 (), the city is a business and educational centre for the region and the 10th largest city in Denmark. It is governed by the administrative ...

in 1838, 1842 and 1844.

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Praetorius, Jeppe 18th-century Danish businesspeople 19th-century Danish businesspeople Danish merchants Danish slave traders 1745 births 1823 deaths People from Tønder Municipality Danish mass murderers