‘Hardy rascals of doubtful fame’ Historical perspectives upon sealers in southern New Zealand

In paying tribute to the late Ian Smith this lecture takes up a theme arising from his interests in the exploitation of marine mammals and the early historical archaeology of southern New Zealand. The commercial sealing industry, about 1792-1830, is known from shipping and other historical records and to some extent from historical archaeology but the activities and experiences of sealers, as individuals and in their gangs, remain little known. At the same time, sealers as a class appear widely in the general historical literature where they are associated characteristically with primitive, barbaric or immoral behaviours both in New Zealand and elsewhere on the Tasman frontier. The questions at issue are whether observations of the sealers support the general description and how the latter arose. It is argued that inter-gang behaviour, skirmishing with Māori, sealer housing and diet and relationships with Māori women, do not fit the general description nor do sealers stand out in these respects from whalers or other European sojourners. It is suggested that the characterisation of New Zealand sealers owes much to the flow of opinion about sealers across the Tasman world and an historiography of social evolution.