Alexander Salmon was an English merchant who was the first Jew to reside in Tahiti. He became secretary to Queen Pōmare IV and married her adopted half-sister. Through his daughter's marriage to John Brander his family formed part of the influential Salmon/Brander Clan of Tahiti.
Birth and early life
Salmon was born Alexander Solomon in 1820 in Hastings, England. While often described as "the scion of a British Jewish banking family", his background was quite different. His father, John Solomon, was a fruiterer or greengrocer selling from a store in Piccadilly. He improved his background when he arrived in Tahiti at age 19 in 1841. This is not surprising when it is considered how he was treated by British and European visitors to Tahiti. An example of this was Captain Henry Byam Martin, commander of HMS Grampus, who in 1847 described Salmon as, "... a low swindling bankrupt Jew from London." On his mother Rebecca's side, Alexander was a grandson of a renowned Jewish miniaturist artist, Solomon Polack. His maternal uncle was Joel Samuel Polack.
Marriage and children
In January 1842, Salmon married Princess Oehau, Ari'i Ari'ioehau Ari'ita'ima'i Hinari'i, later given the titleari'i. She was the adoptive daughter of King Pōmare II's widow, the mother ofPōmare III and Pōmare IV. Considered one of the highest ranking chiefesses in the land, she was head of the Teva clan, the traditional rivals of the Pōmare family, and descended from Chief Amo and QueenPurea who received the first European explorer to Tahiti Samuel Wallis in 1767. In 1846, she was considered a rival candidate to the Tahitian throne by the French governor Armand Joseph Bruat in the event that Queen Pōmare IV did not to return from her self-imposed exile to Raiatea and comply with a French protectorate over Tahiti. The union of Salmon and Ali'i|ari'i produced the following children:
Tetuanui Reiaitera'iatea Titaua Salmon, married in 1856 John Brander; and in 1878 George Darsie with whom she moved to Anstruther in Scotland, where she died and is buried
Queen Johanna Marau Ta'aroa a Tepau Salmon, married King Pōmare V
Lois Beretania "Pri" Salmon
Alexandria Manihinihi "Cheeky" Salmon, married her nephew Norman Brander
Salmon/Brander Clan
For four decades from the 1840s, the Alexander Salmon and John Brander families, who were of English, Scottish and Tahitian ethnicity, were important socially, commercially and politically in Tahiti. They married into the Tahitian royal families, and were aligned through marriage and commerce with each other. A daughter of the second generation married the last King of Tahiti and was for many years known as 'the last Queen of Tahiti'. This royal connection was a major part of the prestige of what became a 'clan'. As each of family had nine children, the clan was numerically strong but on the founders' deaths many were still very young. Commercial nativity, familial distrust, poor staff management and infighting over inheritances led to the disappearance of the clan within a generation.
Life in Tahiti
The author Herman Melville described him thus: “The lady he wedded being a near kinswoman of the queen, he became a permanent member of her majesty's household. This adventurer rose late, dressed theatrically in calico and trinkets, assumed a dictatorial tone in conversation, and was evidently on excellent terms with himself. We found him reclining on a mat, smoking a reed-pipe of tobacco, in the midst of an admiring circle of chiefs and ladies. He must have noticed our approach; but instead of rising and offering civilities, he went on talking and smoking, without even condescending to look at us."
