Akaroa is a small town on Banks Peninsula in the Canterbury Region of the South Island of New Zealand, situated within a harbour of the same name. The name Akaroa is Kāi Tahu Māori for "Long Harbour", which would be spelled Whangaroa in standard Māori. The area was also named Port Louis-Philippe by French settlers after the reigning French king Louis Philippe I.

The town is 84 kilometres (52 mi) by road from Christchurch and is the terminus of State Highway 75. It is set on a sheltered harbour and is overlooked and surrounded by the remnants of an eruptive centre of the Miocene Banks Peninsula Volcano.

In 1830, the Māori settlement at Takapūneke, east of the current town of Akaroa, was the scene of a notorious incident. The captain of the British brig Elizabeth, John Stewart, helped North Island Ngāti Toa chief, Te Rauparaha, to capture the local Kāi Tahu chief, Tama-i-hara-nui, his wife Te Whe and his young daughter, Roimata. The settlement of Takapūneke was sacked. There were an estimated 400 Kāi Tahu in the pā and most were killed, with only the strongest taken as slaves. Stewart could not be convicted of murder owing to the lack of a suitable legal system in New Zealand at the time. This incident was one of several lawless acts committed by Stewart around this time. The actions of John Stewart were examples of other incidents of lawlessness among Europeans in New Zealand, which contributed to the appointment of an official British Resident, James Busby, to New Zealand in 1832.

The sparse population was further reduced in 1832, when Te Rauparaha, fresh from his successful three-month siege of Kaiapoi Pā, took the pā on Ōnawe Peninsula at the head of Akaroa Harbour.

The earliest European settlers used Akaroa as a whaling base. Akaroa is now one of the few whaling bases in New Zealand that still exists as a town.

In the 1830s, France developed extensive plans for colonial expansion, including into the Pacific where at that time it had no colonies. The plans included the South Island of New Zealand. The tiny settlement established at Akaroa can be viewed in the context of that failed, wider project. In 1838, a whaler, Captain Jean François Langlois, wrote up a questionable deed of purchase for "the greater Banks Peninsula" to which twelve Kāi Tahu chiefs each added their moko or cross. The price was 1,000 francs (£40), with a deposit of 150 francs (£6) paid in goods and the remainder to be paid upon Langlois' return from France with settlers. When the settlers later did arrive, the British authorities – who had in the meantime taken possession of the whole of New Zealand – decided a valid sale had not taken place in 1838, relying for their decision on English law and Māori oral evidence.

While back in France, Langlois had raised capital from wealthy businessmen to fund the planned whaling and colonising venture. The Nanto-Bordelaise Company was set up, with the major shareholder being Adolphe Balguerie. Langlois ceded his supposed Banks Peninsula title to the company, took a minor shareholding and was entrusted with the whaling side of the venture.

The company is comparable to the British "New Zealand Association" (later a company) but unlike the British, who arranged for all land sold by the indigenous Māori to go through its government representative, the French government planned to have Māori land sales arranged through the company. The model treaties for land acquisition sent out from France can be compared with the Treaty of Waitangi, used by the British as their way of acquiring Māori land. The French government became involved and in order to send out the settlers it supplied the warship, Mahé, fitted out as a whaler and renamed Comte de Paris. On 9 March 1840, 63 emigrants left Rochefort. They were accompanied by the Aube, a 28-gun corvette under Commodore Charles-François Lavaud [fr], whose role was also to oversee French whaling interests around New Zealand.