A Dissenter in the Ranks: Barzillai Quaife’s Mission to New Zealand

The arrival of the Congregationalist minister Barzillai Quaife in New Zealand in 1840 casts a new light on the established historiography on the role of missionaries in the colony at this time, revealing substantial (imported) divisions between Anglicans and Dissenting sects, resulting in a level of antipathy that (ironically) exceeded that which existed between Protestants and Catholics in the country at this time. Quaife's presence also illuminates the overlapping roles of the Anglican mission as a branch of state polity as well as a distinct religious entity in the colony, how this othered Quaife's Congregationalist mission, and the potential for misconstruing individual personality traits with strongly-held theological opinions.