ABSTRACT
This chapter compares and contrasts two New Zealand narrative assemblages from 1769 to 1773, and from them reconstructs a picture of what happened, who were the social actors and decision-makers, and what ideas and understandings of the world underpinned their decision-making at crucial points in interaction sequences. The same methodologies developed by Brass and Wilson for analysing those sequences that turned violent in modern times were used to identify the sequence markers and actors and, hence, the sequence tipping points for those historical situations. Linkages between the actors, their motivations and personalities, all influenced the choices they made. So, too, did the cultural schemas and environments within which they each operated. The interactions of Captain Jean-Francois-Marie de Surville and the crew of the French ship St Jean Baptiste with Northern Māori at Doubtless Bay became violent, whilst the interactions of Captain James Cook, Johann and George Forster and the crew of HMS Resolution with Southern Māori at Dusky Bay, were peaceful. This chapter reflects upon why this was so.
