The Musket Wars

It seems such a pity that this time period is almost ignored or downplayed in many of our older history’s. As you will have found reading through the Handout it was a period of real drama, tragedy, ruthlessness and heroism. The timeline doesn’t really do this event justice – I blamed the lack of space but also a full chronology would have been unnecessarily complex and confusing for our purposes.

First lets look at traditional Maori warfare. It usually meant fighting between closely related Hapu. These Hapu sometimes joined together to fight as an Iwi against their wider relations that bordered their lands. Rarely did they venture beyond this, although they might in order to support their (related) neighbours against other (unrelated) Iwi. Apart form anything else they could not carry enough food to sustain a long campaign.(it makes better sense on the whiteboard). The musket and the potato changed this, allowing taua like te Amiowhenua in 1819 and 1822 to be away for almost 18 months.

The wars have also been called the ‘Potato’ wars based on the idea that it was the growing of the humble spud which allowed Maori to supply large enough quantities to trade for the Musket.

It could be called the UTU wars. Hongi sought revenge for “The Feast of Seagulls’ at Moremonui (1808) and the capture and sale of his kinswomen by the Venus in 1806. It seems that his fostering of relations with the Missionaries and trip to England was fuelled by the desire to acquire some of the “thousand, thousand muskets’ kept in the Tower (of London).

It also meant that when the gifts he received fell short of what he needed he was happy to sell Baron de Theirry 40,000 acres of land at the Hokianga. (Hongi of course came from the Bay of Islands). Accounts of what he did with the suit of armour vary from one story to the next, but he did keep part of it which helped him in at least one encounter but did not stop a musket ball from eventually killing him after fighting with his kin in 1828.

Together with Te Morenga, in 1818 he fell upon the Whanau-a-Apanui and Ngati Porou for the killing and eating of their kin. He claimed to have laid waste to 500 kainga and pa in the time he was away. Hongi waited 17 years to seek final vengeance against the Ngati Whatua driving the remnants into the Waikato. This was to allay the deaths of his brothers and sister – especially in the way she died. (the yucky uterus story!)

(New 2008) Its interesting to note that Hika waited so long to exact revenge. Utu was incredibly important and the loss of brothers and the awful death of his sister left a lasting desire for revenge in Hika. This did not stop him from allowing Ngati Whatua to accompany the Ngapuhi on te Amiowhenua. This seems to be because in 1818 the two Taua had only 50 muskets, luckily the Iwi they faced had none. It seems that Belich's THREE stages is important here. Hika was in the first stage in 1818, having some guns. He needed to find more guns in order to reach stage 2 thus his trip to London to find those 'thousand thousand guns'. Reaching stage 2 before anyone else really sparked the arms race that would typify the 1820's and 1830's.

Even the Waikato waited 30 years to inflict utu on the Ngati Toa when they forced them to flee from Kawhia. Later Ngapuhi rampages were possibly to keep the Iwi he had decimated from regrouping and attacking him in turn. It also allowed Hongi to capture more slaves for his gardens and ovens. It didn’t do any harm to his reputation or mana either. Defeats in the mid-1820’s seem to prove that once armed with muskets other Iwi could adequately defend themselves against the Ngapuhi.
Te Rauparaha’s rampage against the Nagi Tahu appears to have been as much a grab for the riches of Pounamu, but it was also in revenge for the death of a Ngati Toa chief at Kaiapoi . His capture of a Ngai Tahu chief who was subsequently tortured and killed (including the drinking of blood and eating of eyes). The use of the Elizabeth would of course add to British worries about New Zealand.

It also becomes complex when you try to figure out who fought who for what reasons. Complexity can be seen in the fact that despite harbouring a need for utu Hongi allowed Ngati Whatua to join the Amiowhenua expedition only to turn on them later when it suited him (Revenge a dish best served cold?).

We need to consider to the effects of the musket, most Historians seem to agree that the Musket did not increase the Maori propensity for war, it just made the effects worse. (Ballara) The potato allowed Maori to trade for guns, as well as giving them a more reliable and transportable food supply – carried on the backs of slaves who themselves were a source of food.

Tribes that lacked guns suffered horrendous losses. The massacre of Arawa at Mokoia island is just one example. Thousands of slaves were taken and used in the production of even more potatoes (and moko mokai) for trade. Tribes were reduced in number, eradicated or displaced. Large areas of the country were depopulated or left wastelands.

Iwi like the Ngati Whatua were forced to live with their Waikato kin while they waited ‘for the coast to clear.’ Others like the Ngati Toa abandoned their lands altogether to move to Kapiti, attacking many Iwi along the way.

As each tribe suffered attacks and loss they then began to seek Europeans, either Missionaries or Traders who could supply guns. They changed their lifestyle and economy to acquire the one thing that could protect them. The ripple effect moved from north to south, mainly from Ngapuhi down. Ngai Tahu in the deep south had whalers/sealers who supplied them with guns, which severely weakened northern Ngai Tahu and left them vulnerable to the Ngati Toa.

Other tribes went offshore to use their muskets. Ngati Mutunga attacks on the Chathams and the enslavement and destruction of their culture is hard to fathom or explain, especially from today’s perspective. Perhaps warriors who fought so readily simply despised a people who would not resist them. Utu would not explain this event.

Matthew Wright " Potato Wars"

The fighting that swept New Zealand during the early nineteenth century is usually, if inaccurately, called the 'Musket Wars' - a period moniker that stands in defiance of the military point that muskets were not key weapons until the last third of the period. The more crucial European product was the potato, which, as has been argued, effectively fuelled the conflict.` This helped translate the wars to a stunning scale, dwarfing the New Zealand Wars that followed. There were over 500 engagements. Taua thundered from one end of New Zealand to the other. Up to 40,000 Maori were dislocated, either through enslavement or migration," nearly half the estimated total population of the late eighteenth century. To this can be added casualties of perhaps 20,000 - spread over the period, but still about 19 or 20 percent of the estimated population.

Potatoes were introduced to Nga Puhi in 1794, becoming a key staple with better food value for weight than kumara, easier to cultivate and store, and - unlike kumara - tillable by slaves and women. The result was a logistical revolution; potatoes effectively fuelled the long range taua that made the 'Musket Wars' so different from any fighting that had gone before. Slaves brought back from these massive raids were put to work tending potato patches, freeing up labour to create even larger taua.By the 1830s, European blankets, foodstuffs and consumer goods were well distributed through Maori society. By this time most toa had a flintlock musket ngutu parera` - sometimes Tower flintlocks, more often the cheap Birmingham built 'trade muskets' sold by unscrupulous merchants in spite of missionary protests.` Others had the more lethal tupara, the double-barrelled shotgun.

Matthew Wright 'Two Peoples, One Land'

Angela Ballara

As far as the 'musket wars' are known to historians and others, these beliefs about increased warfare and blood-lust after the introduction of muskets represent the only generalisations about the period they are prepared to accept or have adopted. The 'musket wars' have in fact suffered from an attitude in historical and popular opinion (increased perhaps by some of the spate of late twentieth-century and early twenty-first-century reports to the Waitangi Tribunal on pre- 1840 events) that can be characterised as the 'Te Rauparahaisation' or 'Hongi Hika-isation' of the 'musket war' period.'

That is, in the opinion of many scholars, every event in the 1820s or 1830s is an action of, or a consequence Of' the Napoleon, like ambitions and personal talents - the personal agendas - of these two supremely successful chiefs or a few of their 'generals'. Perhaps because of the small size of this country and the limited number of documented Maori campaigns as compared with, say, tribal warfare in Africa in the eighteenth and nineteeth centuries, it is believed that these two individuals and their activities reigned supreme over Maori events before 1840.

Rather than regarding their activities in the period as typical of a phenomenon common to and symptomatic of developments in the whole of Maori society, the actions of these two chiefs have been treated as unique, and as formative of the whole period. If any individuals are chosen by historians to typify the period, it is these two.

Angela Ballara "Taua'.

Aplogies to Bella - more yucky bits

Last week I said I'd found some stuff that was a bit too yuck to read in class. So if you continue don't say you weren't warned!

In Michael King's "New Zealanders at War"...

• A small canoe with the dead bodies first approached the shore: the war canoe and those taken in fight, about 40 in all, lay at a short distance. Shortly after, a party of Young Men landed to perform the war-dance and song usual on their return from fighting: they yelled and jumped and brandished their weapons, and threw up human heads in the air in a shocking manner; but this was but a prelude ...
  
  An awful pause and silence ensued. At length the canoes moved slowly and came into contact with the shore; when the widow of Tettee and other women rushed down upon the beach in a frenzy of rage, and beat in pieces the carved work at the head of the canoes with a pole: they then got into a canoe and pulled out several prisoners-of war into the water and beat them to death: except one boy who swam away and got into another canoe. The frantic widow then proceeded to another canoe and dragged out a woman prisoner into the water and beat out her brains with a club with which they pound fern root. We retired from this distressing scene.

And

• ... the party who took the pa stayed in it, keeping all the women they could, and killed all the men. The children under 3 years they cut their heads and arms off and cooked the trunk, taking the inside out and then beating it up to a pulp which, he said, was the best food to eat with roi [fern root]. The women they ran sharp sticks through their feet to prevent their escape. A man moe'd [had intercourse with] any one of them and ara kau ano i te aii [the moment he finished the act] killed her and stuck her up and komo tia ana te anganga [thrust the head] of any tangata mata kite tapa [dead person against her vagina] or the hand of any dead man ... They ate the women when the men were eaten, and that after they had them to wife.

Ron Crosby - an Excerpt

Most New Zealanders know something of Hongi Hika, the great Ngapuhi leader, and of Te Rauparaha of Ngati Toa. They stand out as the respective scourges of the North and South Islands. But they were just two of a host of equally strong, equally capable leaders who quite properly deserved the appellation of General. Names like:

• Te Wherowhero and Tukorehu of Waikato;
• Pomare, Te Wera and Te Morenga of Ngapuhi (Northland);
• Te Rohu and Tuterangianini of Ngati Maru (Thames);
• Te Heuheu of Ngati Tuwharetoa (Taupo);
• Te Waharoa of Ngati Haua (Matamata);
• Murupaenga and Apihai Te Kawau of Ngati Whatua (Kaipara),

and many others, were dreaded or respected throughout wide areas of both islands. Others, such as Hikairo of Te Arawa (Rotorua); Te Pareihe of Ngati Kahungunu (Hawke's Bay); Te Matakatea (Taranaki), and Tuhawaiki and Taiaroa of Ngai Tahu in the South Island, appeared time and again as extraordinarily courageous and resourceful defenders of their respective rohe, or territory. In turn, as they acquired more muskets they were to prove their versatility in attack.

...by and large warfare in Maoridom before the musket was much more limited to inter-hapu clashes of a localised nature. All iwi and hapu were equally armed with the same rakau Maori, or Maori weapons of war: it was usually too dangerous to contemplate longdistance raiding, as such taua were likely to be outnumbered and destroyed.

In contrast, the campaigns of the Musket Wars, because of the superiority the musket provided, were prodigious in numerous respects:

• Their duration, sometimes lasting twelve to eighteen months
• Their physical length and difficulty, always involving huge distances by foot or waka (war canoe) in hostile and physically demanding country.
• Their brutality and ruthlessness, often resulting in the depopulation of large swathes of the country through which they passed, with the remnant survivors living in slavery or fear.
• Their frequency, each summer often seeing up to ten major campaigns in various parts of the country with sometimes two, three or four campaigns occurring at once.

While there was one major factor which gradually brought the Musket Wars to an end, there were a range of others that, particularly in the closing stages of the wars, combined fortuitously to hasten that end.

The first and primary factor was the spread of muskets throughout the country. Whereas in 1818 Ngapuhi could campaign with impunity with relatively small numbers, creating havoc throughout the North Island, by 1826 they were facing foes who were equally well-armed. From then on their victories were few and hard earned. Defeats were often encountered, and in human terms the cost of campaigning became too great.

A more direct factor in bringing the wars to an end was the sudden arrival of large numbers of European settlers at the end of the 1830s. Europeans began to buy significant areas of land, particularly in places that had been temporarily abandoned by iwi during the Musket Wars, and they immediately started to settle in large numbers. Once that occurred Maori rangatira knew they had to deal with a major new political force, and that the musket alone would be unlikely to prevail against the firepower to which the Europeans had recourse.

Another important factor in the cessation of hostilities was the gradual conversion of many Maori to Christianity and its message of peace, later in the 1830s. The influence of Christianity on the rangatira involved in the early years of the Musket Wars was very small, certainly during the major raids of the 1820s. The missionaries' influence in reducing the impact of the musket at that time could only be described as minimal or nil, and indeed some of the early missionaries such as Thomas Kendall were actively involved in trading muskets with Ngapuhi.

An additional factor which had a localised effect on the ability of some iwi to pursue their war aims was the onset of disease in the form of measles, influenza and other illnesses such as tuberculosis. In some areas European diseases caused great mortality, with more severe effects even than the musket. There is little doubt that in 1835, for example, a major clash between Ngai Tahu and Ngati Toa was prevented in large part by a measles epidemic suffered by Ngai Tahu.

But the final factor in bringing the Musket Wars to an end was the Treaty of Waitangi. Whatever arguments existed then and now as to what Maori thought it meant, the treaty was regarded in a general sense by both Maori and European settlers as imposing a system of order that would protect against raiding.

The winds of change

The Missionaries helped to open up New Zealand. Their presence tended to make it easier for other Europeans to interact with Maori. In general we are of course referring to the CMS under Samuel Marsden's direction. It is his drive and determination that see the first Mission opened at Rangihoua and further stations opened at Kerikeri and Paihia. His first choice of Kendall as leader is an initial weakness, although he could not have forseen the death of Ruatara and the subsequent patronage of Hongi Hika. Sending Henry Williams to replace Kendall is inspired and perhaps a reflection that Marsden recognised his earlier mistake.The Missionaries learn and translate Maori into a written language. They introduce literacy to a large number of the Maori. Literacy allows the teaching of religion.

Hika's belief that Christianity was 'a religion worthy only of slaves', meant that many slaves were educated and when the opportunity was offered converted. It was this that allowed many freed slaves to return to their Iwi as missionaries in their own right. Many returned to area's that European Missionaries would not arrive in until years later. Not only do the CMS introduce education and religion they helped to expand agriculture. The first plough was used by the CMS.CMS activities under Kendall are insipid and achieve little except to confirm the weakness of their religion to Hika. Under Williams it is revitalised and becomes more dynamic.

Building the 'Herald' increases their reach and takes them out from beneath Hikas control, although it seems that Hikas power and influence was on the wane by the latter part of the 1820's.(New 2008) The sudden increase in conversions from 1829 can be seen as a reaction to war weariness, 20,000 dead and perhaps another 30,000 displaced/replaced was a massive blow to Maori self belief as was the persistent losses to disease.

Maori synthesis of their old Atua and newer Christian versions also eased the move to Christianity. Hika's death in 1828 certainly removed a major obstacle and made the transition easier. The CMS will try to take credit for the end of the Musket wars although most Historians will discount this claim. It is of course the trip that Kendall takes with Waikato and Hika that will jump start the Musket wars in 1821. Their ability to stop warring Maori from fighting is rarely tested, despite several images that suggest otherwise.

When Maori do take up Christianity it is not always as intended. While the CMS are Christian it is often the Old Testament that attracts them. Christianity was all about Christ the God of forgiveness etc., while the Old Testament God was Jehovah the God of retribution and revenge. When synthesised with their old Atua this God made more sense. We will look at this in more detail when we cover the various Prophets that emerged.The Missionaries reports of the activities at Kororareka will lead to the expansion of the British Government into New Zealand with the arrival of Busby. We will also discover the influence they will have over the Treaty negotiations at Waitangi.

The Missionary position

Wherever Europeans settled, whether by conquest or otherwise. they took their culture with them. A mainstay of their culture or identity was religion. The Spaniards, Portuguese and French took Catholicism. The British took Protestantism more specifically Anglicanism. By the early 19th century the British were ascendant and were certain that God was on their side. In fact everything pointed to them being the most advanced civilisation that had ever developed.

They wanted to bring the wonders of the civilisation to the backward and needy natives. This would also wanted to expand the Empire, making Britain even greater… richer, more powerful… (No wonder everyone else seemed to dislike them, They probably thought Hubris was an English word).

The Missionaries who followed the explorers wanted to save the souls of the heathen. It was in their destiny to expand the empire, it was also their destiny to spread the word of God.

Samuel Marsden led the (Anglican) Church Missionary Society (CMS) in Sydney. He had a tough reputation and was known as the ‘Flogging Parson”. He lived in Parramatta and had become wealthy on the landholdings he had acquired. He developed a strong bond with many of the Maori who visited Port Jackson, especially Ruatara who spent some time recuperating in his care.Ruatara was an important chief amongst the Nga Puhi of the Bay of Islands. He hoped to encourage Marsden into bringing Missionaries to his people. However it was not just the word of God that the hoped for.

Marsden seemed to greatly admire the Maori as a people suited to accepting Christianity.Preliminary ideas of setting up a mission were put on hold by the burning of the Boyd in Whangaroa harbour. By 1814 Marsden felt more comfortable with the proposal.It was his hoped that the Missionaries could civilise the Maori. They would first show them the advantages that a civilised culture could offer them. Once this was accepted then they would readily accept the religion that was central to that culture. This explained the inclusion of King and Hall, a rope maker and carpenter. They were accompanied by their families, a sign that they wanted to establish a permanent presence. It was hoped that the families would also keep the missionaries away from the excesses and temptations of Kororareka. I guess 2 out of 3 isn’t to bad.
Civilise then convert.

It seemed simple. The first Mission station was set up on the northern side of the Bay of Islands in an area under the control of Ruatara and his hapu. The site was Rangihoua.Ruatara died soon afterwards. His place as protector was taken by Hongi Hika. Soon the Mission moved to Kerikeri and Paihia, close enough to see Kororareka, not so close it could be contaminated by the Whalers antics.

Hika wanted the Missionaries for what they could give him. He never converted to Christianity. Although Marsden came to New Zealand he never stayed. Leadership of the Mission fell to Thomas Kendall who never really fired as a leader. He lacked the ability to inspire and was unable to shake the shadow cast by Hika. Belich describes Kendall as Hika’s vassal.

Maori were disappointed by the Missionaries. They wanted traders who could provide a steady stream of material especially muskets. When Kendall followed Marsden’s direction not to trade in Muskets their mana really diminished.

From a letter to Kendall from Marsden, 1819

"I found that you had fallen into that accursed traffic with muskets and powder again, notwithstanding all the resolutions that had been passed against it when I was with you in August last. When I considered that the missionaries were furnishing the instruments of death to these poor savages by supplying them with muskets and powder, I could not but feel the greatest indignation at such a thought. The argument generally urged has been that neither timber nor pork could be bought from the natives without muskets and powder. This I do not credit."

It was not uncommon for their settlements to be ransacked by passing by Maori from other Nga Puhi hapu. Physical threats were made but rarely carried out, the Missionaries were never equals in their eyes.

Belich on early contact

I thought this was a useful piece of reading - Full of emBelichments



The largest group of European agents of contact, ocean whalemen, is also the most elusive. They did not settle, they scarcely even sojourned, but merely visited New Zealand for a few weeks. Ocean whaling 'was the eighteenth-century equivalent of today's petroleum industry" - Moby Dallas. Initially, the only New Zealand content of the whaling industry was the vast, intelligent, gentle animals themselves: fixed to a boat by harpoons, pursued to exhaustion, lanced to death, then left to rot in rough weather, and tried or fried into oil in calm.

But whaleships, years from home, regularly needed water, to soak salt meat into edible form, as well as to drink; fresh food to keep the crew from rotting with scurvy; firewood and charcoal to cook and start the fires under the trypots until scrap whale blubber could take over; and time ashore to maintain and repair the ships. The crews also believed they desperately needed sex with women. Self-restraint, self-abuse and the Yate solution in the crowded stinking holds of whaling ships were not seen as adequate alternatives. There was also social pressure.'If they see you reading or writing,' wrote an unusually scholarly whaler, 'or know that you have not got a girl aboard, you must then be a missionary man ... a most opprobrious name.”

From 1800, ocean whaleships began to call at New Zealand harbours to obtain all these things. From the first, the various harbours of the Bay of Islands in Northland were the favoured ports of call. We shall see in the next chapter that Maori combined with nature, Governor King and the whalers to make this choice. About 50 ships visited the Bay between 1806 and 18 10.` The Anglo-American War of 1812-15, lower prices for oil, and two Maori attacks on ships stemmed the flow somewhat, but between 1815 and 1822 some 92 ships called at the Bay, mostly whalers. At one point in 1827, a dozen lay at anchor there at the same time. These numbers were dwarfed in the 1830s, when several hundred whaleships visited, each with a crew of about 30 men." Visits were seasonal, mostly between November and April. Ocean whaleships stayed only two to five weeks. But the Bay was often their first well-serviced port of call after many months at sea. Each visit was an intensive burst of contact with Maori, many months of purchasing and recreation crammed in to one.

Portuguese, Dutch, Canadian, German and Danish ocean whaleships visited New Zealand, but the main players were the British, French and Americans. Helped by a government subsidy, duties on competitors' products and the expertise of American captains who were more interested in whaling than independence, Britain held the early lead. But in the 1830s it was overtaken by the Americans, and possibly by the French as well. France featured large from 1836 to 1845. Virtually the whole French whaling fleet of about 60 ships called at New Zealand in the late 1830s, preferring Banks Peninsula to the Bay of Islands. About a hundred of their crews deserted during the 1840s, some intermarrying with Maori and forming little Franco-Maori communities at Banks Peninsula and the Bay of Plenty." The first American whaler to visit New Zealand waters came in 1797, and no fewer than 271 New England whaleships called at the Bay of Islands alone between 1833 and 1839, as against 126 British Visits.

The decline of the British industry has been attributed to its over-regulation and to an American competitive edge similar to that of Japanese over American industry today. Whatever its causes, the decline of British and the rise of French and, especially, American whaling in the 1830s has intriguing implications. ' It seems that the most numerous national category of European visitors to New Zealand before 1840 may have been American whalers, and that whalers were particularly prone to engage in sexual relations with Maori women. Maori descended from early European-Maori liaisons are quite likely to have the Stars and Stripes in their whakapapa. Certainly, the intensity and sheer numbers of ocean whaler visits compensated for their brevity; and their role in bringing Europe to Maori remains to be fully explored. The importance of French and American whalers as agents of contact has been underestimated, partly because they were ships passing in the night, but also because of the tendency to Anglicise New Zealand history.

Another shadowy but possibly important set of agents of contact were nonEuropeans. They were important less for their numbers than for what they suggested to Maori about the diversity of the world and about Europe's usual relations with it. In some cases, they were also better able than Europeans to communicate with Maori. We have seen that, from the Maori perspective, 'Cook's expedition' was more like 'Tupaia's expedition' Tupaia was succeeded by other Pacific Islanders who sojourned and even settled among Maori, as a few Maori sailors did in their home islands, reopening pan-Polynesian links that had been closed for centuries . De Surville's and Marion's expeditions contained African and Asian slaves and sailors, as did many subsequent ships, and like their white crewmates some deserted in New Zealand. Maori sometimes spared black sailors in attacks on European parties, intriguing indications of their perceptions of graduated difference.` There were Australian Aboriginal men - and at least one woman - among the sealers." A brilliant Tahitian known as Jem, after a sojourn in Sydney during which he worked for Macarthur and learned how to read and write in English, set himself up as a chief at North Cape. Jem, a classic 'transculturite', was managing European-Maori contact in the region in 1814. Like his predecessor Tupaia, he believed the Maori people were 'inferior to his own' * ` Europe has no monopoly of ethnocentrism. A Bengali 'lascar' settled in Northland about 1810, and remained there for at least ten years - the first known Indian settler. He advised Europeans in 1820 'not to appear alarmed' at anything Maori did. Like the missionaries, he believed that 'the firm and undaunted demeanour of, a white man will keep many natives at bay"' Whether he defined Bengalis as white is not dear.

Whalers, sealers, escaped convicts a -rid deserting seamen, as distinct from the small but growing minority of 'respectable' settlers such as missionaries, were consistently portrayed as agents of vice and fatal impact. They themselves mixed pragmatic acceptance of the Maori terms of economic and cultural trade with spasmodic racial contempt. Some expected recognition of superiority; to be Lord Jim among the savages. They were generally disappointed, but looked for opportunities to make their personal myths of empire true. They were not wholly pragmatic. The capitalist push behind empire pursued dreams of profit as much as profit itself. For a hundred years after 1783, Europeans dreamed of spinning New Zealand flax into gold, and risked their money and even lives on various projects for doing so. 'The subject of New Zealand flax could generate great excitement ... Hard-headed men like Simeon Lord found themselves plunging into schemes surrounded by dangers and pitfalls and spending money wildly; the language of their documents, their business agreements, and their memorials becoming more exotic as they became less realistic. There was a certain romanticism, dreams of an oily EI Dorado, about investment in whaling too - most shore-whaling stations failed to turn long-term profits. 'People,' wrote George Weller in 1837, 'are Black Whaling mad. Even sealing was viewed as a potential 'mine of wealth. George Bass, the Australian explorer, proposed in 1803 to make his fortune from a 2 1 -year monopoly of the export of South Island fish to Australia .87 Such hopes helped generate large-scale contact, which in turn generated expectations of fatal impact and empire. The pre- 1840 settlers and sojourners were significant in actual history too, bringing the things, thoughts and genes of Europe to Maori in considerable bulk. Non-Europeans, missionaries, Tasmen, Australian governors and entrepreneurs, British, American and French ocean whalemen - all were important agents of contact. But none was the most important.


Making Peoples
James Belich
Pp 137-39

The Soujourners - Pakeha Maori

Names to remember include James Caddell, Dicky Barrett Tapsell Jacky Love and Jacky and Betty Guard.

There is a wonderful term for people who pass through a place as a temporary resident. It is Sojourner. I wish I'd known this when I lived in London, it sounds so much better than...actually I don't know what we called ourselves, we were just Kiwis on our OE. Sojourner sounds so much cooler.

This is an interesting group mainly because so little evidence was left behind by them. Known as Pakeha-Maori or Intermediaries or Go-Betweens or the Third New Zealander. they bridged the gap between Maori and visiting Europeans. Few were literate and so most of the records about them are written by others. Most of these records are written by Missionaries and often reflect the bias these writers held about such men (and women). Their writing is filled with references to uncouth behaviour, undesirables filled with vice and their thoroughly bad influence on Maori. There were no compliments, only complaints.

Recognising that their writing contains bias is an important historical skill. Being able to describe and explain the biased references is useful for the end of year exam. Knowing why they held these views is also important.Missionaries wanted to be the sole filters of European (British) culture and civilisation. Having someone else interpret the culture for Maori in ways that might inhibit their own activities was not something they liked.

Few of the 'Intermediaries' were religious or church goers, in fact most would have had a pretty poor view of Missionaries and religion. Many of the Pakeha Maori were former convicts and possibly a number would have been Irish and Catholic. Their view of the Anglican Church would have been even lower and the (CMS) Missionary would have represented everything their disliked about the establishment.

Many would have had experience of the CMS from Sydney and few would have viewed Marsden with any great favour. They apparently often counselled Maori against the Missionaries.Possibly another reason was simply their horror at the thought of White Men 'going native' and abandoning the (superior?) european civilisation for the degenerate and permissive life amongst the natives.The Pakeha Maori themselves were a disparate group. the first of them fled their ship in 1799 and there were many different types of Pakeha Maori who followed in the next 70-80 years. The last Pakeha Maori of the traditional type was possibly Kimble Bent who fought with Titokowaru.

Some were escaped convicts, some were unhappy seamen, others were traders or adventurers. Your hand out notes (see pages 22-27) describe the many types of Pakeha Maori, and need little explanation here.What is important is to recognise that Maori only accepted Pakeha into their society on their own terms and the Pakeha had to be worth something to them, whether as a 'pet' or as a respected tohunga. If the Pakeha wasn't worth anything then they would be rejected or eaten. Several seamen who fled their ships were hunted down and returned because local Maori could not risk the loss of trading opportunities.

On the other hand a Pakeha suitably absorbed into the Hapu could be especially useful in translating with other Pakeha. Dicky Barretts help in the sale of Wellington being a poor example, as he spoke a pidgin Maori that failed to adequately explain their loss of land. There were also Pakeha Maori who lived on the periphery of their local Iwi like Tapsel or Guard.It seems in many respects that the Intermediaries impact has been downplayed. The Missionaries can be blamed for that. F EManing is one of the few Pakeha Maori who did leave a written record. But his later antipathy toward Maori may colour his vews.

Read TREVOR BENTLEYS "PAKEHA MAORI" available in the school library.