WHALING

IN THE CONTACT PERIOD

Ocean Whaling

• The first whaling ship from America arrived in 1797.

• Ocean whaling was well established by 1802.

Whale oil was in high demand

in an increasingly

industrialised West.

• Whalers were visitors rather than settlers.

• 1806-1810 50 whaling ships visited the Bay of Islands.

• Maori gained mana from working on whaling ships and travelled to London, Australia and the USA and became part of an international pool of whalers.

• 1805 Chief Ruatara spent four years on a whaler.

• Whalers who stopped off at the Bay of Islands traded blankets, nails and guns for potatoes, pork, firewood, spars, women and Maori labour.

• Maori trading for guns led to the Musket Wars of the 1820s.

• British whalers were most frequent visitors but by the late 1830s it was the Americans and the French who were most common.

• Whalers visited between November and April for 2-5 weeks.

• Ngai Tahu had its own whaling ships.

• Maori women often entered into sexual contracts with the whalers.

• In return for sex they received a gun for their chief and a dress for themselves.

• Ex-ship girls were in demand as wives by Maori men

• By the 1830s Kororareka had become notorious.

• Whalers were often accused of being ‘agents of vice’.

• Up to one thousand Maori may have travelled overseas by 1840

SHORE WHALING

• Shore whaling began in 1827 developing a more permanent population.

• Shore whalers depended on local Maori for food.

• Intermarriage between whalers and Maori women gave protection to the whalers and access to goods and exposure to a new culture for Maori.

• Nearly all the shore whalers came from Australia.

The Graphic “a Maori Woman”.

• There were 80 whaling stations set up between 1827-1850.

• Each station had around 1-2 dozen Europeans who whaled for half the year.

• Johnny Jones of Waikouaiti had eight whaling stations employing 280 men. In 1838 they caught 41 whales yielding 145 tons of oil valued at 4,500 pounds sterling.

• There were no duties to pay on whale oil before 1840.

• Most shore stations had closed by the 1850s because the Right whale had become scarce.

• The last whale was commercially hunted in NZ in 1964

Summary

• Unlike the missionaries and other settlers, the whalers and sealers did not attempt to change Maori.

• Rather, Maori were exposed to a new culture.

• Some Maori joined with the whalers and sealers to exploit the natural resources

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