The Bremen Chamber of Commerce, seated in the Schütting on Bremen's market square opposite the town hall, has represented the interests of Bremen's economy since 1849. As early as 1537/38 the Schütting was the seat of Bremen's merchant community, the predecessor of today's Chamber of Commerce. The colonial engagement of Bremen actors and institutions was at times enabled by the structures of the Chamber of Commerce. Actors in the enslavement trade in the 17th century were members of the Bremen Chamber of Commerce — for example, key figures such as the "merchant" Johannes Christoph Achelis, who also headed the Bremen branch of the German Colonial Society. Even after the end of official colonisation, the Bremen Chamber of Commerce campaigned for the continuation of the so-called "trade relations" with the former colony of Togo. Togo was divided between France and Britain in the course of the Treaty of Versailles. The Bremen Chamber of Commerce expressed its displeasure at the end of the colonial era by organising pro-colonial rallies in March 1919.