The Rangitikei-Manawatu Block Purchase, with Introductory Notes on the Maori Race

Abstract

In reading the history of New Zealand, one is immediately struck by the great importance of the Native question. For about twenty years after the arrival of the first immigrants in 1840 the Aborigines outnumbered the Europeans, especially in the North Island, where the great majority of the former lived. The charm of Maori history seizes upon the imagination; and the later decades of the Colony's progress, replete though they be with examples of striking incidents, bold legislation, and vigorous personalities, are neglected, while we eagerly follow the traditional records of "Old unhappy far-off things, and battles long ago". Had Fenimore Cooper taken the New Zealand cannibal Instead of the Red-skin for his model of a high minded and chivalrous savage, his portrait would have been true to life, and would have merited the approval of all who have studied the Maori (1) otherwise than through the jaundiced eyes of the trader or the land speculator.