大象传媒

British Gentlemen mingle with crowds surrounding a dying Maori chief
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Abel Tasman sighted South Island, New Zealand in 1642 (the year the English Civil War started) and being Dutch he called it New Zeeland. James Cook circumnavigated the islands in 1769 and reported beautiful coasts and hostile Maoris.

The Maoris origins are 8th century Polynesian. They had a life expectancy of not much more than 30 and tended towards cannibalism. On one occasion at the start of the 19th century, most of the crew of the English ship, the Boyd, were eaten.

Christian teaching had little effect on the natives who were more interested in guns than texts. Samuel Marsden who oversaw the Church Missionary Society in New Zealand discovered the Maoris were getting muskets from the mission station run by Thomas Kendall. They wanted them not so much for attacking or defending against settlers as each other.

The musket was such an advance on axes and spears that it did not need more than maybe ten guns to put one Maori community over another. In 1820 Chief Hongi was taken to England to see the king. On his way back he bought three hundred muskets in Australia and for the next ten years his tribesmen are said to have butchered and eaten their enemies.

It was this mass slaughter that prompted other Maoris to ask William IV for protection. The British preferred to leave New Zealand as an extension of New South Wales. However there was a realistic fear that the French were planning to colonise the islands, through Le Compagnie Nanto-Bordelaise. A meeting of chiefs and officials in 1835 led to a Royal Navy captain, William Hobson, being sent to formally annexe New Zealand.

Thus, in 1840 Hobson became the colony's first lieutenant-governor. The majority of Maori chiefs agreed to hand sovereignty of New Zealand to Queen Victoria. In return the British garrison and legal system were supposed to protect them from expanding British settlements and, from each other. After the name of the meeting place, the 1840 Treaty of Waitangi was signed.

Samuel Marsden 1764-1838

Samuel Marsden was a Yorkshire farmer who became a clergyman and joined the Church Missionary Society in New South Wales. From there, he administered the mission to New Zealand and tried to stop the sales of muskets to Maoris. He was also a magistrate and in New South Wales his harsh views of prisoners earned him the name The Flogging Parson. Between selling wool to England and dealing with Irish convicts, Marsden regularly visited New Zealand and was said to be the first to conduct a formal Christian service in the islands.

The Treaty of Waitangi promised to protect the Maoris from each other and European settlers but the colonists ignored the treaty when it suited. Instead, they encroached on Maori land and this usurpation of the treaty brought about the Maori Wars. The Maoris were left with land in the west of North Island. Only recently has a New Zealand government apologized to the Maoris for their treatment.

Events of this episode took place in Australasia region. We're interested to hear your comments on the influence of Empire on this region:

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Samuel Marsden censures Thomas Kendall for suppling muskets to Maoris

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."

A letter from 13 Maori chiefs asking King William for protection

"To King William, the gracious Chief of England. King William, we, the chiefs of New Zealand assembled at this place, called the Kerikeri, write to thee, for we hear that thou art the great chief of the other side of the water, since the many ships which come to our land are from thee. We are a people without possessions. We have nothing but timber, flax, pork and potatoes. We sell these things however to your people; then we see property of the Europeans. It is only thy land which is liberal towards us. From thee also come the missionaries who teach us to believe on Jehovah God and on Jesus Christ His Son. We have heard that the tribe of Marian [the French] is at hand, coming to take away our land. Therefore we pray thee to become our friend and the guardian of these islands, lest the teasing of other tribes should come near us, and lest strangers should come and take away our land. And if any of thy people should be troublesome and vicious towards us we pray thee to be angry with them that they may be obedient, lest the anger of the people of this land fall upon them. This letter is from us, the chiefs of the natives of New Zealand."