New Zealand in the 1870s

Press, 10 February 1983, Page 14

New Zealand in the 1870s

By 1870, the British colonisation of New Zealand had brought almost 30 years of sporadic warfare; but the well-armed, though often badly-led, professional army had been lucky — it had never had to fight the Maoris as a single, unified force. Ancient tribal differences, chiefs who welcomed the Europeans and an attitude which tended to believe in fighting only when the tribal lands were directly threatened, had allowed the soldiers to subdue New Zealand a region at a time.

For all this, however, the Maoris had inflicted a number of significant defeats on the pakeha. By 1870, however, there was little left of either honour or Maori resistance. Despite an outcry from the settlers, the British Government in London decided to pull out its professional army and leave the internal policing of the colony to the colonists. And, as the British started to leave, there were several violent outbursts of last-ditch resistance by the Maori. “Utu” deals with Te Wheke,

a fictional Maori rebel based on fact, of this period. In many ways the peace that followed was very nearly more disastrous for the Maoris than the wars had been.

The victorious pakeha confiscated more than 5 million hectares of Maori land and then set up land courts to carry on the dispossession.

Maori chiefs were bribed and cajoled to sell off their land, and once the land had .gone, the tribal spirit invariably broke. Pakeha disease, liquor and general hopelessness made it seem inevitable that the Maori of New Zealand was a dying race.