Global Entanglements between Māori and New Bedford Whaling Families (1790-1840)

Dissertation project: Haureh Hussein, MA (Trier University)

Supervisor: PD Dr. Eva Bischoff

Duration: since December 2018

Early after the British colonization of New South Wales, Aotearoa/New Zealand - as a Colonial Contact Zone - came into the focus of various actors. Eber Bunker, a captain with Quaker background, was one of the first whalers to approach the North Island in 1793. In the following decades, Kororareka, in the Bay of Islands on the North Island, emerged to a popular place for whaling ships for provisions and recruitments. The Starbuck and Swain families, being heavily involved in the transatlantic whaling industry in New England and London, turned their attention to the Pacific and became to regularly visitors. On the other side, Māori Rangatira such as Te Pahi and Hongi Hika cooperated actively with whalers and contributed crucially to the expansion of the transoceanic whaling industry. This work aims to reconstruct the socio-economic interaction space – the maritime colonial contact zone – between these Quaker whaling families and the Māori Iwi, which took place between 1790 and 1860. It focuses on families, who had economical and religious ties in the transatlantic region and now established new transoceanic ties through the whaling industry.