Bush frontier: North Taranaki, 1841-1860: a study in economic development

Abstract

If it needs a justification, this account is an attempt to fill in what I consider to be a gap in the story of New Zealand's economic development. A considerable amount of research has been done on the economic development of the pastoral and gold-mining districts of New Zealand; but the story of settlement in the bush areas, particularly in the period before 1860, has been relatively neglected. The Otago and Canterbury centenaries of 1948 and 1950 provoked a spate of writing on the early development of those provinces which still continues. On the other hand the Taranaki centenary of 1941, possibly because it occurred during war-time, went by almost unmarked by any commemorative publishing. Further, although events of the first two decades of European settlement in Taranaki have been often described in New Zealand history books, any treatment of economic development has usually been scanty and usually directed towards explaining the origins of the war between the Maoris and the European settlers that broke out in 1860. The main emphasis in the ensuing description has been given to the economy of the European community. This is simply because the quantity and quality of the material available allows the European economy to be described in more detailed fashion than the Maori economy.