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| ISBN-13: | 9781775581345 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Auckland University Press |
| Publication date: | 10/01/2013 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 312 |
| File size: | 1 MB |
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The Origins of the Maori Wars
By Keith Sinclair
Auckland University Press
Copyright © 1961 Keith SinclairAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-86940-557-1
CHAPTER 1
THE SETTLERS' VIEW
The British Government reluctantly decided in 1839 to add New Zealand to its vaast dominions, not in order t found a colony, but because these islands were already being settled by British subjects from Australia. It had become necessary to insist on law and order and, more important in the eyes of the Government, to take positive steps to safeguard the Maoris from oppression now that the New Zealand Company was endeavouring to start large-scale settlement.
This solicitude for the welfare of the Maoris was not shared by many of the colonists, whose aim in sailing so far from home was to benefit themselves. This was clearly foreshadowed in the philosophy, in so far as there was one for a movement so essentially spontaneous, which lay behind British emigration to New Zealand. The ideas of Edward Gibbon Wakefield inspired the companies which founded six of the early New Zealand settlements, stimulated many small 'capitalists' to migrate, and suggested a system whereby working men could be transported in large numbers to the antipodes. Wakefield was chiefly concerned with improving the condition of Englishmen. By means of a systematic emigration policy, he hoped to make emigration more attractive to the wealthy and to extend the overseas market for British exports of capital and manufactures. Above all, he hoped to ameliorate the terrible social effects of industrialism, by shifting some of the redundant population from a country where in 1841 there were 4,000 unemployed out of 8,000 people capable of working in Stockport; none fully employed and 1,650 'half-employed' out of 6,000 workers in Bradford.
Of the Maoris, Wakefield had little to say, though an earnest clergyman, an early member of the Aborigines Protection Society, induced him to add to his programme for the future of New Zealand the idea of returning to the Maoris a tenth of the lands they sold. These reserves, because of their increased value — in European eyes — were to be the real payment for the nine-tenths with which the Maoris parted.
Wakefield's chief concern, as far as the colonial end of his system was concerned, was with the welfare of the British settlers, or rather with that of a minority among them. The revenue from the sale of land was to be used largely to pay the fare of labouring immigrants. The price of land was to be 'sufficient' 'to prevent labourers from turning into landowners too soon'. As a New Zealand reviewer of The Art of Colonization complained, a 'most unjust and even tyrannical effect of this "sufficient price" scheme, upon the labourer, would be this, that by keeping wages low, and the price of land high, it is utterly impossible to say in how many years, if ever, he might be able to purchase any for himself'.
Wakefield wanted to reproduce in New Zealand the class relations of old England, so that British capitalist civilization should be preserved and the settlers should not form a poor, scattered, primitive peasantry, 'a new people', as he called what seemed to him an abomination. But, though he helped to found colonies, he was not able to control the frontiers within them. New Zealand society owed some of its character to Wakefield, especially in Canterbury, but it by no means matched his pattern.
The British class structure was partially brought to New Zealand, but profoundly modified in its intensity and effects. At first the trouble was not a shortage of labour, but an excess of it, and unemployment was one of the evils of British society which early found a home in the colony. At that time working men were not much better off than in Britain. One settler in New Plymouth noted in his journal in 1841, 'The men struck for wages on Monday, not being content with 5/-a day. However, they soon found that the best plan was to resume their labours, which they were allowed to do on their working eight hours a day instead of seven'. But in that town some of the workers were soon able to acquire land or to find other scope for initiative. One of them, who secured an agency for boot polish, wrote, 'The labouring class is as well off here as the nobs at home ... A person has a little chance to do something in this part of the world, and that is more than you can do at home'.
Governor Gore Browne considered that society was 'chiefly remarkable for the absence of any order which is an object of respect: — a fact racily expressed in a vulgar saying that "every man is not only as good as his neighbour, but a great deal better"'. When Henry Sewell, soon to be Premier, arrived in 1853, he complained of the colonists, 'They are mightily republican. The fashion of servants is to speak of their fellow-servants and labourers as "Mr." and "Mrs." but of gentlefolks by their surnames only'. A French visitor thought that insolence was à la mode in New Zealand as familiarity was in America. New and cruder qualities were of value in the new environment, where there were many 'Admirable Crichtons', and a new people was slowly created in this colonial crucible. Character as well as manners was modified, so that observers, noticing the absence of the old order rather than the birth of a new one, considered that 'character is of no use in the Colonies, and that a man may do equally well, with or without one'.
An equalitarian society was not to be created overnight. Despite the opportunities of advancement, the settlers continued to be ruled by a minority, the poor to be taxed more than the rich because of duties being placed on necessaries rather than on luxuries. But the only substantial division between classes was wealth, and almost everyone, no matter what his birth, was preoccupied with his own advancement, in a way which had not always been possible in Europe. The settlers came to New Zealand to improve their position in life, to raise their standard of living; and the way to do it was to make money. In their calculations the Maoris were rarely taken into account.
It was obvious that the chief way of making money in New Zealand was going to be by farming, though many years passed before it became clear what types of farming were possible and profitable in different areas. In fact, speculation in land proved the quickest road to wealth in the early years. However, the acquisition of land was the aim of most new arrivals, and to the settlers as a body it was the symbol of the progress of their colony. Nothing else aroused such passionate interest. As one settler said for the rest, they had the Biblical mandate, '"Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it". This blessing, first pronounced on man, would seem indeed to have been peculiarly inherited by the British people'.
But the Maoris were not as enthusiastic about parting with their land as the newcomers desired. As J. E. FitzGerald, one of the leading humanitarians in the country, said in the Assembly in 1862, 'at that point where his [the Maori's] possession of the land interferes with our industrial and commercial progress, there for the first time we trace antagonism between the two races'. This contest for dominion lay beneath the relations of the two races through most of the nineteenth century, and no compromise seemed possible. If the Maoris farmed for profit, they competed with the settlers. If they retained their old economy, the rivalry was greater. In that case they relied on the great forested areas for birds, berries, and roots, while their basic food came from relatively small cultivations which were shifted every few seasons. Thus a large expanse of land was needed for their subsistence. But the settlers wanted to burn the bush and mine the soil for profits, a danger which the Maoris understood, for they loved the land. The Maori King newspaper, Te Hokioi, in 1863 urged the Maoris not to set fire to the forests 'lest there be no trees for our descendants. Do not either set fire to the scrub on the waste lands lest the manuka and eel-weirs be destroyed and the land spoilt'. To the Maoris the land was the symbol of wellbeing, of success, of life itself. New Zealand, or more particularly their tribal territory, was also, what it was not to the early colonists, their country.
Where the interest of the settlers was deeply involved, rationalization was not far behind, and their opinions, reflected in newspapers and letters, were full of the most ingenuous sophistry. The land was said to be 'the greatest curse the natives have'; to take it from them 'the greatest boon you could confer on them'. One important member of the House of Representatives, J. C. Richmond, who was later Native Minister, argued that Taranaki settlers, having come so far and invested money in cultivating the wastes, had a more equitable claim to certain disputed land at Waitara than the Maori owners. The Taranaki Herald assured its public, 'We are no advocates for giving the Natives a high price for their land, where a low price will suffice — the real benefit they derive from our intercourse is in the introduction among them of our laws, institutions, and example'. Loud were the complaints of the Taranaki settlers when a man 'by an unfettered and injudicious liberality' paid too much for a few acres of land, thus, it was believed, exciting the cupidity of the Maoris and prejudicing the prospects of the settlement. The preponderant interest of the colonists slipped into what seemed the most disinterested and benevolent of intentions. 'The Electors of the District of Mongonui, Gentleman', began an election advertisement, 'I should advocate any measure for the better government of the Maori Race, and a more easy acquisition of their land ...'
In this simple conflict of interests lay the seeds of the New Zealand wars. But it was not only over the tenure of land that differences arose. At innumerable petty points of contact between the two peoples there was continual friction. Trouble arose over native wives of Europeans returning, or not returning, to previous Maori husbands, or over the desertion of half-caste children by their white fathers. In 1843 the prospectus of a 'Victorian Institution for the maintenance and education of children, the off-spring of English fathers by New Zealand Mothers', was published at the Bay of Islands. European cattle wandered in the unfenced Maori cultivations; Maori pigs rooted in the fenced European crops — a garden was described as 'utterly gone, to the dogs, or pigs rather'. In the early days whalers stole Maori potatoes; later, Maoris stole European animals. Maoris charged exorbitant fares for ferrying passengers over rivers. Mobs of European children cursed and stoned proud chiefs when they visited Auckland. It took men of 'great judgment, tact and courage, and of a commanding type of character', to get on well with their Maori neighbours, as another Native Minister, C. W. Richmond, knew; and the reverse was also true. Such persons were not numerous among pakeha or Maori. The war began in the minds of many men of both races long before it occurred in the fields and bush.
To most of the European settlers, who looked on primitive peoples with the sympathetic eye neither of the romantic nor of the anthropologist, the Maoris were simply savages. There was little or nothing to be said in favour of the way in which they lived. Tapu, to the settlers, was merely one of the 'idle objections to the sale of land'. The Maoris were dirty. A missionary was quoted as having said, 'The greatest cause of decrease [in Maori population], I believe is uncleanness, inwardly and outwardly, in diet, dress, and habitation, in body and mind, in all their thoughts, words, and actions' — though there was one settler who believed that the constant use of soap had improved their complexions. The Maoris were said to be gossiping, slovenly, lazy, like all men in a savage state. As early as 1840 one indignant writer said they were so indolent that very often 'the white people are compelled to coax and flatter them to do a little for them', so selfish and cunning that they would not do a small favour for the settler 'but with a view of getting something in return of much greater value'. In fact, for the first fifteen years of settlement the Maoris supplied the Europeans with much of their food. A cynic might merely conclude that they were learning rapidly the advantages of free enterprise, and find further irony in reflecting that, in a profit-seeking community, a missionary could write in his journal, 'I pointed out to Wiremu Tipuna ... and to all, the error of their ways — their excessive worldliness'.
Some of these accusations, such as filthiness, were justified, from a relative point of view; most of them were simply examples of cultural differences. For instance, the Maoris were not lazy; indeed, they worked very hard when it seemed necessary. They did not, however, regard labour as a virtue in itself. But to the settlers, eyeing the aborigine from the enclosure of their own values and customs, these differences proved his innate inferiority. Not only did most of the Europeans regard the Maoris as unregenerate savages, but they doubted whether they were capable of improvement, of 'elevation'. The Auckland Examiner insinuated that they seemed 'savagely fond of white men', and argued that the 'Maori nature cannot be civilized according to Pakeha ideas of civilization', — 'until in his coffin, no Native can ever be civilized'. Most newspapers took a more moderate line, but it seems likely that this expressed the views of the majority of the settlers.
It was often considered that the Maoris were, in some way, less human than the settlers, for the idea of the equality of men was even less in vogue than it is today. A New Zealand Company agent wrote to his superior that a settler had struck a Maori with the brass butt of his hunting whip. 'Happily, owing to the skill and kind attention of Dr. Wilson, and to the uncommon thickness of the native skull, there is every prospect of his recovery'. In the first history of the colony, The Story of New Zealand, an otherwise useful and interesting book, A. S. Thomson, an army doctor, solemnly recorded that Maori heads were smaller than English heads and that consequently the 'New Zealanders' were inferior to the English in mental capacity. He thought it only natural that 'generations of mental indolence should lessen the size of brains'. An early chapter in that book contains a collection of the most absurd judgments on the Maori people. Thomson speaks of their lack of love of country and their deficiency in courage, opinions which the rest of his story contradicts. They lacked invention — 'nor was the lowest function of imagination extensively diffused among the people, which is seen in the mental act of imagining ourselves in the situation of others'. But it is precisely here, as these opinions make abundantly clear, that the mass of the settlers were also deficient. There were outstanding, but rare, dissenters from such views; the Reverend Richard Taylor's early book, Te Ika a Maui, for instance, contrasts favourably with Thomson's work in this respect; but Thomson was recording the common opinion. Few Europeans, missionaries or farmers, could place themselves imaginatively in the position of the Maoris, and see things, even momentarily, through their eyes. Experience added dislike to an initial incomprehension. Ultimately, perhaps, all wars find their origins in this lack of sympathy, this limitation of human understanding which is revealed positively in national and racial antagonism.
Many times when we read the history of New Zealand in the three decades after 1840 we are reminded that the majority of settlers in the North Island regarded the Maoris at best as an impediment to legitimate progress, at worst with the fear or loathing so often felt by European emigrants among an alien and more numerous population. It is, however, important to bear in mind that there were not a few people to whom such attitudes cannot be attributed. Many of the earliest settlers, thrown into continual personal contact with the Maoris, came to like and in some respects to admire them. In the initial years of settlement, too, when the Europeans relied on Maori labour and supplies of food, their relations were often happy. Furthermore, among the educated class there were many for whom reason or religion overcame emotional reaction. Especially among the leading men in the community, whose policies will be considered later, there was often to be found a genuine regard for Maori welfare (though even among them a future Native Minister, F. D. Bell, could refer to the Maoris as 'niggers' in a letter to C. W. Richmond, the Native Minister in office). Too frequently, however, they were content to believe that roads and bridges, farming and road-work would civilize the Maori. This was a comfortable view, but it ignored many difficult questions, such as the speed with which these changes should occur. There was also a small band of active humanitarians, determined to place Maori welfare in the very forefront of the aims of the colonists. Their opinions and activities, too, will be later discussed in some detail: even they tended to regard the Maoris as children rather than as adults of a different culture.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from The Origins of the Maori Wars by Keith Sinclair. Copyright © 1961 Keith Sinclair. Excerpted by permission of Auckland University Press.
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Table of Contents
Contents
Title Page,Dedication,
Epigraph,
Illustrations,
Preface,
PART ONE A SETTING FOR A WAR,
I The Settlers' View,
II The Maori Situation,
III The Humanitarian Faith,
PART TWO THE FAILURE OF POLICY,
IV The Search for a Native Policy, 1840–53,
V Land Purchase Policy, 1840–58,
VI Maori Nationalism, 1840–63,
VII The Paralysis of Native Policy, 1854–58,
PART THREE THE WAITARA PURCHASE,
VIII Taranaki, 1840–58,
IX The Offer of the Land, 1859,
X The Investigation of Ownership, 1859–60,
XI The Beginning of the Maori Wars, 1860,
XII The Responsibility,
XIII The Failure of Humanitarianism,
PART FOUR THE EXTENSION OF THE WAR,
XIV The First Taranaki War, 1860–61,
XV Emergency Native Policy, 1860–63,
XVI The Revival of War, 1863,
XVII The Invasion of the Waikato, 1863,
Appendix A. The Maps of the Maori Ownership of the Pekapeka Block,
Appendix B. The Official Apologia for the Waitara Purchase,
Appendix C. Comparison of Land and Stock Owned by Settlers in Several Provinces, 1854–55,
Bibliography,
Maps: Taranaki, 1860–63,
Invasion of Waikato, 1863,
Index,
Plates,
Copyright,