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The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Volume 32

Chapter II

page 16

Chapter II.

Intercourse of the Maories with strangers before the treaty of Waitangi—and its effects.

From the first discovery of New Zealand by Tasman, some 200 years after the settlement of the Maori immigrants, down to the later visits of Captain Cook a century after, the amount and nature of the intercourse between the New Zealanders and strangers does not seem to have been such as to cause much modification of their habits; although the first ideas of external commerce must have been suggested to their minds, and the probability of their deriving substantial benefits from the repeated visits and the settling of Pakehas in the country may have occurred to them.

The introduction of fresh varieties of animal and vegetable food, superior to the ordinary provisions to which they had been accustomed, was probably the first great step towards material civilization; and the increasing acquaintance of the Maories with white men, proving that the latter were not only not necessarily hostile to them, but were able and willing to teach them many useful and pleasant arts and to give them command of many previously undreamed of comforts and luxuries, and mechanical and warlike contrivances, induced them at first to tolerate, and then to encourage, the regular intercourse, and, afterwards, the permanent settlement, of whalers and others who visited the coasts.

They seem to have evinced no jealousy or predisposition against an amalgamation of races, on the formation of temporary or permanent connexions between the Pakehas and the women of their own race and tribes, but, on the contrary, to have encouraged such unions. As Europeans began to settle in the country, and naturally desired to acquire land for occupation and cultivation, the Maories discovered that they might now use their land in a way to which they had hitherto been unaccustomed, by exchanging parts of it for the now much coveted blankets, axes, tobacco and, above all, fire-arms and gunpowder of the stranger.

Thus, a new kind of transaction, not formerly recognized by the general customs of the Maori race, sprung up, and alienation of land was introduced de facto.

page 17

About the character of the earliest land sales probably but little trustworthy evidence is attainable. Whether individuals of a tribe practically arrogated to themselves the right of disposing of the portion of land which they occupied with the consent of their tribe, and which if not alienated would have descended to their kindred, I am not aware; but it seems probable that the common men did not do so. Chiefs, or persons calling themselves Chiefs, seem to have engaged in such transactions; but whether they claimed or assumed a right to sell the portions which they individually occupied, or more than they occupied for their own benefit, without the consent of the tribe, or acted in the name or in the interest of the whole tribe, with its express assent, or an implied assent, on which they counted in respect of their personal influence, does not seem very clear. In many cases, it is likely that they assumed to act for the tribe or hapu, and gave up to the persons entitled to occupy the lands portions of the goods received for it. Indeed it is probable that there was very little principle or system in these transactions.

Sometimes the Maori would try to cheat the Pakeha by pretending to sell land to which he had no title; sometimes, and perhaps more often, the European would try to cheat the Maori by giving him comparatively worthless articles for large tracts of land; sometimes there was a common intention of each to take advantage of the other; and often, no doubt, unprincipled Europeans obtained, for ulterior fraudulent purposes, what they knew to be sham titles, with the signatures or rather marks of Chiefs,—sometimes filling in the boundaries of the land supposed to be sold according to their fancy, after the so called execution of the conveyance. It is believed that the principal disposers of land in those days were persons who had no titles, or only defective ones; and persons with only an ostensible but no real title were the most forward to enter into negociations with the Europeans.

The alienation of land to strangers being thing quite new to the Maories, it is probable that many of the tribes or Chiefs who parted with it really believed that they were giving the purchasers only a temporary usufructuary interest,—either a life interest, or some other estate such as lawyers call a particular estate,—leaving the reversion of the fee, as it were, and the mana or ultimate quasi seignorial right over the land, in the tribe.

But whatever right the one party may have intended to grant and the other to acquire, undisturbed possession by the party purchasing gave a sort of title by acquiescence; and if the pur- page 18 chaser alienated to others in his life time, or on his death devised the land to another, and the second purchaser or devisee took possession, and his possession was not at once disturbed, when it came to the knowledge of the Natives formerly interested, that would seem strong evidence that the person in possession had a right to the land recognized by such Natives. The enclosing of land by a purchaser, too, seems to have been always taken as such an assertion of a right to it, that Maori proprietors formerly interested in it were deemed, by acquiescing in it, to have acknowledged that all their title was gone.

The practice of disposing of the possession and enjoyment of land, if not of the whole property and title to it, became thus established, not according to any fixed specific principle, but simply according to the dictates of convenience on the part of the seller, regard being had to the probability of the alienee not being disturbed in the possession.

The more regular sales, however, were probably conducted in such a way as to recognize the communistic principle,—the Chiefs who personally engaged in the transaction acting for themselves and the tribe, or for persons of the tribe who claimed a share of the produce of any given sale.

While these rude beginnings of commerce were taking place, a mightier instrument of civilization was in the course of introduction,—the one best fitted to throw down the strongholds of barbarism and superstition, to establish the intercourse of widely differing races upon a safe basis, to prepare the way for their amalgamation and ultimate fusion, and for securing the highest blessings of modem civilization.

Through the labours of devoted Missionaries belonging to various Christian bodies, the Maories, in an almost incredibly short space of time, learned the folly and wickedness of many of their old superstitions and the habits connected with them, and accepted with avidity the promises made to them by their new spiritual advisers and guides, of better things for the present life as well as for the future. Although it may be true that many of the new professors of Christianity among the Natives were mere professors, and that with others their new religion was only a newly adopted superstition, there were, doubtless, many who became as sincere believers and acted as sincerely on their belief as the majority of professing Christians in civilized countries j and, whatever may have been the amount of sincere faith among the new converts, the doctrines and practices of Christianity had, at all even's, made very large numbers ashamed of some of their former page 19 customs (cannibalism, among the number), had given them new notions of morality and justice, and suggested to them the blessings and advantages of peace. The introduction of Christianity paved the way for the abolition of slavery. The Missionaries often made the manumission of slaves a condition precedent to baptism, and the converts gave conclusive evidence of their sincerity by voluntarily depriving themselves of one of the principal evidences of rank and personal distinction among their people. The old cumbrous and superstitious practices of the tapu, which had been the chief means of holding their rude society together, were necessarily modified, where not entirely superseded, on the introduction of Christianity. The spiritual prestige, and, consequently, a great portion of the influence of the Arikis and Tohungas was necessarily destroyed and, as yet, nothing else in the shape of internal government was substituted for it.

The introduction of fire-arms naturally tended to make the Maories even more quarrelsome than formerly, for a time, and their wars, for a time, more sanguinary than before; but as the spirit of Christianity was developed, and individual movable property was acquired by industry, and by commerce in land and its fruits and in other products of labour, the importance of peace became more manifest. Large quantities of land came into the possession—the undisturbed possession—of Europeans. Many Englishmen, some of them men of character, some of no character at all, were settling on the shores of New Zealand.

Meanwhile the Maories who had much communication with the English settlers began to desire to put themselves under the protection of the British Crown, while unprincipled land purchasers were naturally opposed to such a course, (and some honest ones also) and the Missionaries, probably jealous lest their good work should be interfered with by a concourse of English adventurers, were generally hostile to colonization, and apparently desirous of keeping up a marked distinction between the races.

Ministers of the English Crown, having before them the reports of sad results of the extension of English dominion in other quarters of the world, and fearful lest they might become accessories to the extermination of the Maori race by establishing an English Colony among them, and failing to perceive that English subjects would settle in the country, in numbers, without the leave of the Government, and would merely be likely to do much more mischief to the aboriginal inhabitants than if their settling was recognized and regu- page 20 lated by the Government, not only abandoned the claim to the sovereignty of New Zealand, which bad on several occasions been asserted by the British Crown, bat recognized the independence of certain tribes, by providing them with a common flag,—a proceeding which appears scarcely dignified unless they were prepared to guarantee the independence of such tribes, as an aggregate body or nation, against other powers. Notwithstanding the reclamations of English settlers and the expressed wishes of many of the Natives, the English Government could not, for a long time, be induced to take any steps towards adopting New Zealand as a Colony, or giving their proteçés the benefits of civil institutions, which might counteract the mischiefs attending the uncontrolled intercourse between them and English subjects—many of questionable character,—and might aid in developing and rendering permanent the good work of the Missionaries, and in educing the civil and social advantages for which that work was the best preparative.

The so-called Confederation of a few Northern tribes or Chiefs, apparently arranged by a British Resident, who was the Agent of the British Government in the business of the flag, never acquired any consistency or constitution which could support the suggestion that any delegation of sovereign authority, or of interest of any kind, had been deliberately ceded by the component tribes to the aggregate body, or that the component tribes, by reason thereof, became less independent of each other than they were before; and, whatever may have been the intention of the British functionary, there is no pretence for saying that any national union or confederation was in fact effected by the ceremony of the flag.

The enterprises of private associations of Englishmen—(and whether they were conducted on defensible principles or not, it boots not now to enquire)—and the fear lest they should assume rights and privileges inconsistent with the prerogatives of the British Crown and public law,—and probably the apprehension that New Zealand might be colonized by some other European power if England were to refrain much longer,—at last forced the Ministers of the British Crown,—though with expressed reluctance, and in a persuasive rather than imperative manner,—to establish the Queen's authority, in the Northern Island, upon the principle of cession, in the Middle and Southern Islands, by occupation, and thus to create a British Colony throughout the territory so acquired.