Maritime Translations in the Whaling Industry

Between 1790 and 1850, the Bay of Islands in Aotearoa New Zealand emerged as one of the most frequented whaling ports in the Pacific Ocean. It was also a maritime contact zone between two communities: Quaker whalers from Nantucket and the Maori Ngati Manu hapu. This study argues that Quaker families such as Starbuck and Swain arrived in the Bay of Islands with colonial structures already shaped at home. They sought to translate their understanding into a transoceanic context. By reconstructing their interactions with Maori rangatira, especially Pomare II, through the lenses of gender, labour, and land, this book traces the attempted translation of Atlantic colonial systems into the Pacific. However, Pomare II and Ngati Manu shaped these encounters on their own terms. They dictated trade; Maori men joined crews in pursuit of mana rather than wages; and the rivalries between hapu, as expressed in the 'Girls' War' of 1830, drew whalers into Maori politics. This is a new account of how whalers carried settler colonialism overseas.