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 Māori Ngāti Manu hapū. 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 Māori rangatira, especially Pōmare II, through the lenses of gender, labour, and land, this book traces the attempted translation of Atlantic colonial systems into the Pacific. However, Pōmare II and Ngāti Manu shaped these encounters on their own terms. They dictated trade; Māori men joined crews in pursuit of mana rather than wages; and the rivalries between hapū, as expressed in the 'Girls' War' of 1830, drew whalers into Māori politics. This is a new account of how whalers carried settler colonialism overseas.