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A time of change

Learn about some pākehā whalers who made deep connections with the iwi Māori of their local area.

A coloured illustration of a light-skinned man with shoulder-length brown hair and a moustache. He is in full Māori dress and holding a spear, with feathers in his hair, a feathercloak, and woven flax skirt. A dog lays on the ground next to him.

In the years before the Treaty of Waitangi was signed, relations between Māori and Pākehā were based on the Māori people’s complete authority over their own tribal areas. The much smaller numbers of non-Māori could only survive by accepting this authority and finding ways to share the country’s resources. Misunderstandings and cruelty occurred on both sides, but these early encounters were more often friendly, respectful and mutually rewarding.

In 1830 there were probably no more than 300 Pākehā living in New Zealand, among up to 100,000 Māori. A number of ‘Pākehā–Māori’ (Europeans living as part of a Māori community) operated as traders, but many Māori communities, especially in inland areas, had little or no contact with Pākehā. The most significant and lasting contacts between Māori and non-Māori in this period came through the whaling industry.

Interactions between early whalers (and those who came with them) and local Māori varied widely, but irrevocably altered Māori society. There was trade in things like food, cloth, weapons, and tools. Land was traded (though many of these deals proved contentious), and as we’ve seen, many Māori joined the whaling ships as valued crewmates. Especially early on, there were instances of extreme violence but also the opposite – strong trading connections and marriage unions that would tie the two groups together into lineages that remain today.

Missionaries

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In the early 19th century government officials in New South Wales and London, and British missionary societies, were concerned that Europeans visiting New Zealand introduced Māori to prostitution, alcohol, muskets and disease. With the aim of protecting Māori from the worst effects of European colonisation, they decided to set up Christian missions in New Zealand. Māori whalers were among their earliest converts.

The Northland chief Ruatara had travelled to London on board a whaling ship and met the missionary Samuel Marsden. As a result, Marsden based his first mission at Ruatara’s community in the Bay of Islands. A later mission was based at Paihia, directly opposite the whaling port of Kororāreka. The contrast between the peaceful and devout mission station and the violent and drunken township led the two communities to be known as Heaven and Hell.

Black and white illustration looking down a grassy bank towards Māori canoes and a sailing ship inthe bay. Crows of Māori in traditional dress gather to listen to a man in European dress speaking at a pulpit. ^{Depiction of the sermon by Samuel Marsden, 1814. Archives Reference: AANS 8128 W5154 Box 74. Material from Archives New Zealand Te Rua Mahara o Te Kāwanatanga. CC BY 2.0}

Trade and production

Māori in the European workforce

During the earliest period of contact with Europeans, the Māori workforce adapted but did not fundamentally change. Māori continued to work communally within their whānau (families), directed by kaumātua (elders), or in their hapū (sub-tribes) directed by rangatira (chiefs).

One of the earliest attempts to integrate Māori into the European workforce was a complete failure. In 1793 Northland chiefs Tuki Tahua and Ngāhuruhuru were kidnapped and taken on board a ship at the request of Lieutenant Governor Philip King of Norfolk Island.

King hoped he would be able to get them to demonstrate the techniques for manufacturing flax. However, the Norfolk Island flax was poor and the men, in any case, knew very little of flax techniques – Tuki Tahua was a tohunga (priest), while Ngāhuruhuru was a warrior.

Changing times

A Department of Conservation report, “Maori, whales and “whaling” an ongoing relationship” by M W Cawthorn observes that,

Through whaling, Maori were able to travel the oceans of the world and absorb a great range of skills which they brought back home. Above all, they learned English, the language of Pacific Whaling. In 1840 the French whaling surgeon Thiercelin said (Mortelier 1995):

There is not a Maori who does not know a few words of the (English) language and some speak and write it fluently.

Some European whalers had learned Maori, and whalers of both races were able to assist when settlement commenced. The advent of whaling in New Zealand altered Maori agricultural practices. They were able to quickly expand their production to provide for the wants of the whaling fleets. In exchange they were able to acquire iron tools – and muskets and gunpowder. But agricultural production for trade had a far greater influence on Maori society and culture than guns.

Trading with Pākehā

As Māori sought European technology, including firearms for warfare, they adapted their economy to supply and trade goods required by Pākehā.

Kauri spars were required by visiting ships for repairs, and large amounts of dressed flax were exported to Australia. Flax collection and working had traditionally been done on a small scale for clothing, baskets and mats, but it now became a feat of mass production. All hands were required to get massive shipments ready on time. A tonne of processed flax might purchase a single musket.

View of a pā with strengthened palisade walls, with musket-holes around the base, with fenced in potato plantations in front and to the right in the middle distance, with several people working in the plantations. A Maori man in the foreground is clad in a European shirt and Maori skirt and is smoking a pipe and there are several other people in the foreground. To the right of a path is a swampy area with fern or bracken and mangroves. Probably Tamati Waka Nene's pa at Okaihou.

^{Fenced potato plantations grow at the top right of this Māori pā, drawn around 1845 by Cyprian Bridge. Potato gardens quickly became a very common sight near Māori villages in the 19th century. This may have been Tāmati Wāka Nene’s pā at Ōkaihau in Northland. Bridge, Cyprian, 1807-1885. [Bridge, Cyprian], 1807-1885 :View of an ordinary New Zealand pa with potato plantations around it. [1845]. Ref: A-079-031. Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand. /records/22741593}

Potatoes were also traded with Pākehā – around 1814 one musket cost 150 baskets of potatoes. During the planting, care, and harvest of kūmara, restrictions due to tapu sometimes limited women’s involvement. But potatoes were generally grown without the same tapu aspects, so the entire process could be done without the participation of men, and in some areas women and slaves took over production.

Cultural go-betweens

Pākehā–Māori

‘Pākehā–Māori’ was the 19th-century term for Europeans who chose to live among Māori as part of the tribe. Some were traders, whalers and sealers looking to make money in New Zealand, and others were runaway seamen and escaped convicts from Australia. In 1833 there were said to be about 70 Pākehā–Māori, mostly runaways, in the Hokianga area alone.

They were usually looked down upon by more respectable Europeans but welcomed by Māori, who were keen to acquire European goods and skills and needed someone to negotiate with Pākehā on their behalf. Before 1840 Pākehā–Māori were the earliest European explorers and settlers in many parts of New Zealand. They sometimes introduced literacy and Christianity to Māori in advance of the missionaries. Many developed the ability to pass easily and effectively between one cultural world and the other.

^{Barnet Burns was an Englishman who lived amongst the Maori from 1829. Burns became a Maori chief and had a full facial moko (tattoo) and moko on his calves. He returned to England in the late 1830s or early 1840s and embarked on a lecture tour about New Zealand and Maori life. Pahe-a-Range, the New Zealand Chief, B. Burns, drawn by J. Sutcliffe from life. National Library of Australia, Reference: pic-an-10345322-v}

Pākehā–Māori warriors

A black and white photograph of Tom Adamson (left), wearing a Maori kakahu with elaborate taniko designs on his lower half like a kilt, and Wiremu Mutu Mutu (right), wearing a fringed tartan blanket in a similar fashion. Both men have feathers in their hair and are holding weapons.

^{Tom Adamson (left), seen here with Wiremu Mutu, was a Pākehā–Māori who fought with Whanganui kūpapa (government-allied) Māori during the New Zealand wars. Adamson was a scout and bushman who pursued Tītokowaru’s fighters in Taranaki in 1869. The historian James Cowan described him as ‘a big, powerful fellow who surpassed the Maoris themselves in bushcraft and endurance’. (James Cowan, The adventures of Kimble Bent. London: Whitcombe & Tombs, 1911, p. 282.). Hocken Collections, University of Otago.}

Some Pākehā–Māori were expected to fight alongside their adopted tribespeople. One of them, James Caddell, was only about 13 and working as a sealer when his shipmates were captured and killed by Ngāi Tahu Māori in Foveaux Strait in 1810. He was probably saved because he was so young and because a chief’s daughter, Tokitoki, offered him her protection. He later married her and was given a full facial moko. Caddell learned to speak Māori fluently and almost forgot how to speak English. In 1823 he travelled to Sydney with his wife to trade goods, and they appeared in the city’s streets in full Māori costume.

Sex and marriage

Sex trade

At the time of first European contact, a trade in sex began. Apart from the case of a puhi (a woman required to remain chaste for a diplomatic marriage), sex before marriage carried no stigma for Māori women. Sometimes sex with European men was seen as part of an extension of traditional hospitality. There were also cases where prostitution was forced upon Māori women by men of their tribe, often with multiple partners, and the women received no material benefit from the encounters.

Shore love

Crews of visiting ships formed liaisons with local women, generally on Māori terms and following Māori customary practices. Sex with sailors was like a temporary marriage where women chose to have sex with a single partner during a ship’s visit, and both they and the tribe received some goods in return.

Sailors usually restricted their relationships to unmarried women on shore under the supervision of the community, sometimes providing them with dresses and other goods. Missionaries later described these relationships as prostitution, though some of them were probably a form of ‘temporary marriage’. The relationships between sailors and Māori women were frequently affectionate and some men chose to desert the ship for their partner.

Marrying into Māori tribes

Black and white photgraph of a European man and a Māori woman. she is seated, with her hand resting on the side of the chair. He stands on the left, his hand resting atop hers, the other in his pocket.

^{Mr James Heberley and his wife, Te Wai Heberley. Original photographic prints and postcards from file print collection, Box 5. Ref: PAColl-5800-12. Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand. /records/23086498}

In the period of early contact, Europeans in New Zealand were greatly outnumbered by Māori and depended on them for support and safety. European traders were important mediators between Pākehā and Māori. They often became integrated into the Māori community and workforce through unions with Māori women. Most trading, timber and whaling stations – and individual traders – soon became linked to Māori through marriages.

During this period, skirmishes between warring iwi (tribes) was common, particularly in the South Island, and whalers and their ships might find themselves targeted. Further, the newcomers would need to negotiate with Māori for use of their tribal lands for their shore-based whaling stations, and to provision. For a Pākehā–Māori, it was essential to be married to a Māori woman. ‘It is not safe to live in the country without a chief’s daughter as protection,’ wrote one English visitor.

For Māori, intermarriage with Europeans – then a very small minority – posed less of a risk than intertribal marriage. Marriage to a whaler or trader meant land and any future children were retained by the community, while the tribe gained a member. Marriage placed duties, expectations and obligations upon a whaler or trader. They were expected to maintain honour, provide hospitality, act in a manner appropriate to a member of a high-ranking or chiefly family, and bring wealth and prestige to the community.

According to Professor Angela Wanhalla’s book Matters of the Heart: A History of Interracial Marriage in New Zealand:

Moving the business of whaling and trading as well as numerous men onto shore on a more permanent footing required careful negotiation, and the acknowledgement that Māori controlled the economic fate of these newcomers as well as their personal safety. Marriage became one of the most important ways in which this transition took place . . . Indeed, all employees of a station, ranging from the manager, through to the clerk, coopers, carpenters and lower ranked sailors, were drawn into communities through marriage.

Whalers and traders needed to marry well, for a good marriage gave them protection, a patron and land. Generally, it seems as if marriage and rank coincided in the whaling and timber trades, as it did customarily with Māori couples. . . Managers of whaling and trading stations tended to marry into the upper ranks of Māori society [including daughters of chiefs] as did storekeepers, clerks or headsmen.

While presenting insights to the Waitangi Tribunal on the subject, Professor Wanhalla also “emphasised how marriages between Māori women and Pākehā shore whalers were based on the authority of Māori women, not of Pākehā men. Indeed, these relationships uplifted the mana of Pākehā shore whalers within Māori communities, thereby allowing them to access resources and knowledge held by wāhine Māori. Her research reveals that ‘pre-1840 Māori women held rights over land and resources with the power and freedom to manage and direct the future of their land interests, including within marriage’.”

Whalers’ descendants

Visiting European whalers had profound impacts on Māori society. Many were highly dependent on Māori for food and repairs. Many Māori can trace descent from marriages between Māori women and Pākehā whalers. Well-known whalers such as Dicky Barrett, George Fyfe, Paddy Gilroy, Thomas Halbert, Happy Jack Greening, William Haberfield, John Hughes, Manuel Lima, Jacky Love, William Morris, James Spencer, Phillip Tapsell, and Edward Weller all fathered children with Māori women.

Black and white photo of a well-dressed couple, a Māori woman in a high-necked, ruffled dress, and a bearded European man. The woman holds an infant dressed in layers of white ruffles. ^{Alexander Cowan with his wife Mere (nee Whakamairu) and son Peter. Iorns, Bennett, 1883-1977 :Photographs relating to Masterton and the Wairarapa. Ref: PA1-q-131-32-1. Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand. /records/23183101}

Manuel José

For Māori, marriage was one way to attract a Pākehā and keep him in the community. Any resulting children stayed within the tribe. As hapū and iwi sought to gain an advantage over their rivals, acquiring a European trader became a matter of both mana and economics. The Spanish whaler, Manuel José lived in the Waiapu district on the East Coast of the North Island from the late 1830s, working as a trader. He married five chiefly Ngāti Porou women, having five children with one of them and one with each of the others. He now has several thousand descendants in the region.

Phillip Tapsell

Black and white photograph of an elderly man in a jacket and pants. He has white hair and a long white beard. His hat rests on his lap. ^{Phillip Tapsell. Ref: 1/2-005486-F. Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand. /records/23124135}

Norwegian Hans Felk, who took on the name Phillip Tapsell (‘topsail’), had served on merchant ships and claimed to have been a prisoner of war in Sweden and a pirate. It was his work on whaling ships in the 1820s that brought him to Aotearoa New Zealand.

His first Māori bride left him on the same day as the marriage. He went on to marry Karuhi, a daughter of the Ngāpuhi chief Wharepoaka. At the invitation of Te Arawa chiefs he settled at Maketū, where he supplied muskets and powder for flax. When Karuhi died, Tapsell settled in Maketū in Bay of Plenty at the invitation of a Te Arawa chief. Tapsell married Hine-i-turama, a high-ranking woman from Ngāti Whakaue and they had six children together.. Like a number of early traders he was under the mana of the tribal groups amongst whom he lived.

In 1837, Phillip Tapsell set up a trading station at Whakatāne which employed several Pākehā-Māori as agents for the sale of flax and muskets. He was known to be a fair trader and evenhanded in his distribution of muskets amongst different hapū and iwi. Over the years, the family came to be highly regarded for the strong economic base they established for several Bay of Plenty iwi.

Phillip Tapsell lived among Māori for 50 years. His lasting legacy now includes more than 3500 descendants.

In the next step we will look at the story of Dicky Barrett, one of the most prominent ‘Pākehā-Māori’ from the early whaling days who, alongside Captain Jacky Love, fought fiercely alongside the iwi he married into.

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This content is taken from Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa online course

The Significance of Whales to Aotearoa New Zealand

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A time of change

Missionaries

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The Significance of Whales to Aotearoa New Zealand