The Meeting Place - A New Zealand History Blog

When dates were being considered for the first Rā Maumahara commemorating the New Zealand Wars one suggestion that was floated was 3 December. It does not mark the anniversary of any particular battle or conflict. Instead, on this day in 1863 Governor George Grey signed into law the New Zealand Settlements Act, an innocuous-sounding piece of legislation that was to have devastating consequences for many Māori communities. The Settlements Act provided the primary legislative mechanism for raupatu – sweeping land confiscations that were supposedly intended to punish acts of ‘rebellion’ while also recouping the costs involving in fighting the wars. It declared that where ‘any Native Tribe or Section of a Tribe or any considerable number thereof’ had committed acts of ‘rebellion against Her Majesty’s authority’ since 1 January 1863 their lands could be declared subject to the Act and seized for the purposes of settlement. It was part of a package of measures passed by the all-Pākeh...

In The Great War for New Zealand, historian Vincent O’Malley tells the story of the Waikato War of the 1860s – how it set back Māori-Pākehā relations by generations and changed the course of New Zealand history for good. Here, in an original essay for The Spinoff, he explains how the war helped create modern Auckland. In 1845 the small township of Auckland (population 3635) faced an existential crisis. War raged in the north and it was rumoured that the assistance of the powerful Tainui tribes had been sought for an attack on the settlement. A nightmare scenario for the town’s residents was the prospect of a simultaneous assault from the north and south, with Ngāpuhi and Tainui combining to virtually assure Auckland’s destruction. Yet when a delegation came south to solicit assistance from paramount Tainui rangatira Te Wherowhero, the response was emphatic. “You must fight me if you come on to Auckland; for these Europeans are under my protection,” he told them. In Mā...

It is well known that Maori were major players in the New Zealand economy in the first two decades after the Treaty of Waitangi was signed in 1840. Many European settlers to the country during this period were reliant upon Maori for their basic supplies, while Maori labour was vital to the construction of new roads and other key infrastructure. But Maori were also contributing greatly to the colony's exports. By the mid-1850s many Maori communities were exporting vast quantities of wheat to Australia, via Auckland, to feed the huge influx of miners attracted by the gold rushes. It was a lucrative trade. But then, early in 1856, the price of wheat fell dramatically. Maori responded by withholding their produce from sale. That prompted the government's Maori-language newspaper, Te Karere Maori , to issue the following advice: Native readers will observe in the market prices current published in this journal every month, that the prices of wheat, potatoes, and other New...