Whaling tough, dirty and dangerous

While a huge range of individuals have helped form the New Zealand character it is our many industries which have built the nation we know today. In the very early days of European contact with New Zealand those industries exploited finite resources in a

In spite of Te Rauparaha’s reputation as a ruthless and bloodthirsty despot, many Europeans found him to be an astute businessman.

Our first industry was probably whaling and the first known whaling ships in New Zealand waters were the Britannia and the William and Ann which dropped anchor in Doubtless Sound in 1791. Both were privately owned British ships which had been contracted to carry convicts to Sydney. It was usual for convict ships to engage in some other commercial activity on the return to England and, if there were no return passengers or freight, whaling was a good option.

Whaling was a long established industry in northern hemisphere seas but the teeming populations seafarers found in the South Pacific were greater than they had seen in their home waters. These first ships operated offshore and initially only had contact with Ma¯ ori for fresh water and firewood for which they exchanged trinkets.

By the early 1800s there were a few shore-based whaling stations most notably at Korora¯ reka, now known as Russell, which quickly became a supply port for whaling ships in the Pacific.

Whaling was tough, dirty and dangerous work and the men who engaged in it had to be equally tough and a few were also dangerous. Korora¯ reka soon developed a reputation as a wild and untamed den of debauchery with stories of pirates and escaped convicts playing merry hell among the Nga¯ puhi people.

These stories were no doubt exaggerated by puritanical Christian missionaries who were determined to convert the new found heathen natives in New Zealand to their religion. In reality Korora¯ reka was probably no worse than thousands of other sea ports of the time with rugged seafarers drinking, fighting and chasing women when not at sea. For the Nga¯ puhi people the whalers were the source of new technology – steel axes, shovels and muskets.

Over the following 40 years more shore-based whaling stations were established with the consent and active involvement of Ma¯ ori leaders.

Among the most notable of these were in Taranaki, Ka¯ piti Island and later in the Marlborough Sounds and most South Island harbours as far as Stewart Island.

Once pristine beaches were soon littered with the huge corpses of whales which were simply left to seagulls and sharks after the blubber and been stripped off them.

The rendering process was equally dirty with large cast iron cauldrons used as boiling down pots. These were initially fired with driftwood but later with the oily dross skimmed off the top of the pot before the oil was transferred to barrels. Black smoke hung over the beaches and the stink of rotting whales permeated everything.

The oil was a valuable commodity for the growing industries of Europe in the days before mineral oil was pumped from underground. It was used as a lubricant for machinery, including early steam trains, fuel lamps and even in some medications.

The baleen, or whale bone from the mouths of these giant filter feeders was used in the tight corsets worn by European women of the time.

With the decline in northern hemisphere whale populations, the South Pacific whaling industry was very profitable, even if little of that profit was paid to Ma¯ ori leaders in the way of leases or shares.

It was the war leader of Nga¯ ti Toa, Te Rauparaha, however, who recognised the real potential of a mutually beneficial whaling industry. He had successfully invaded Manawatu and Horowhenua in the early 1820s with a musket-armed alliance of related tribes, and established his base on Ka¯ piti Island where he allowed up to five whaling stations to be established. With his political and military dominance he claimed the exclusive right to trade with the visiting whalers who paid for the right to operate in Nga¯ ti Toa territory, usually with muskets, gunpowder and lead bullets. In real terms it was a pittance compared to the profits they were making but Te Rauparaha used that trade to build an even more formidable army of about 1000 musket-armed battle-hardened fighters.

In spite of his reputation as a ruthless and bloodthirsty despot, many Europeans found him to be an astute businessman, tough and uncompromising when required but with a sound understanding of relative values and market forces. While the missionary John Brumby thought the whalers around Cook Strait in 1838 were ‘‘rogues and outlaws unrestrained by any law’’, Edward Wakefield, who later became a member of parliament in Britain, described New Zealand shore whalers as having a dark side to their character but they were ‘‘frank and hospitable’’.

He was particularly impressed with their hospitality to casual visitors and noted they were in stable relationships with Ma¯ ori women with whom they raised large families.

Te Rauparaha maintained his position as master of the Cook Strait region and the shore whaling industry for about 20 years but, by 1844, the whales had become scarce and most of the big shore stations closed down after about 50 years of unregulated hunting with only one or two in the Far North and the Marlborough Sounds. In that time the whalers had established farms and ship building industries and had laid a solid foundation for other industries which followed them.

The many descendants of these very early New Zealand industrialists and their Ma¯ ori wives still live in Taranaki, Marlborough, Nelson and Wellington.