In the period between the first European landings and the First World War, New Zealand was transformed from an exclusively Māori world into one in which Pākehā dominated numerically, politically, socially and economically. This broad survey of New Zealand’s ‘long 19th century’ [1] begins with the arrival of James Cook in 1769 and concludes in 1914, when New Zealand answered the call to arms for ‘King and Country’.
First contacts
By the time the first Europeans arrived, Māori had settled the land, every corner of which came within the interest and influence of a tribal (iwi) or sub-tribal (hapū) grouping. Abel Tasman was the first of the European explorers known to have reached New Zealand, in December 1642. His time here was brief. His only encounter with Māori ended badly, with four of his crew killed and Māori fired upon in retaliation. Tasman named the place we now call Golden Bay ‘Moordenaers’ (Murderers’) Bay. After he left in early January 1643, Tasman’s New Zealand became a ragged line on the world map. The Māori response to this visit is less well-known, except for fragments of stories recorded in the 19th century.
It would be 127 years before the next recorded encounter between European and Māori. The British explorer James Cook arrived in Poverty Bay in October 1769. His voyage to the south Pacific was primarily a scientific expedition, but the British were not averse to expanding trade and empire. The French were not far behind. As Cook rounded the top of the North Island in December 1769, the French explorer Jean François Marie de Surville was only 40 km to the south-west. New Zealand’s isolation was at an end.
Over the next 60 years contact grew. The overwhelming majority of encounters between European and Māori passed without incident, but when things did turn violent much was made of the killing of Europeans. The attack on the sailing ship Boyd in December 1809 was one such example. The incident saw some sailors refer to New Zealand as the ‘Cannibal Isles’ and people were warned to steer clear. Little mention was made of the revenge taken by European whalers, with considerable loss of Māori life. The Anglican Church Missionary Society (CMS) delayed its plans to establish the first Christian mission in New Zealand.
Contact with sealers and whalers – who began arriving in hundreds in the closing decades of the 18th century – and with traders looking to develop new markets was largely confined to the Far North and the ‘Deep South’. Māori living in the interior had little or no contact with Europeans before 1840.
Those hapū and iwi who encountered Europeans were often willing and able participants in the trade that quickly developed. Various intermediaries (kaiwhakarite) – people from one culture who lived with the other – were important in helping establish and maintain trade networks as well as bridging the cultural gap. Māori women were often used to keep Pākehā in the community. Māori also worked as crew on ships operating between Port Jackson (Sydney) and the Bay of Islands. Contact was often ‘strained through Sydney first’. Māori were receptive to many of the new ideas that came with contact. Literacy, introduced by the Christian missionaries, became an increasingly important feature of Māori culture from the 1830s.
The Musket Wars
Up to one-fifth of the Māori population was killed during the intertribal Musket Wars of the 1810s, 1820s and 1830s. Despite the label, these conflicts were not caused solely by the introduction of European technology in the form of the musket. These wars were about tikanga (custom) and often involved the settling of old scores. They would have occurred whether contact had been made or not.
Māori used the musket in war according to Māori criteria; firearms contributed to rather than determined Māori history.
Māori society was organised and maintained by a number of core beliefs and practices, including mana (status), tapu (controls on behaviour) and utu (revenge to maintain societal balance). These predetermined how Māori interacted with other people and what they expected from the Europeans they encountered.
British first steps
The hard times faced by many families led to renewed debate about the place of alcohol in New Zealand life. Liquor, it was argued, caused men to forget their responsibilities to their families. The temperance and prohibition movement gathered momentum and contributed to the emergence of a campaign for women’s suffrage. With women and children bearing the brunt of alcohol abuse, the fight to enfranchise women was seen as crucial to any real change. After a hard-fought and at times bitter debate, New Zealand women became the first in the world to gain the right to vote in national elections in 1893.
The first successful shipment of frozen meat to England in 1882 offered hope, and the new technology would eventually cement New Zealand’s place as ‘Britain's farmyard’. The ability to export large quantities of frozen meat, butter and cheese restored confidence in an economy based on agriculture and intensified the transformation of the landscape from forest to farmland.
The Liberals
The 1890 election saw the end of the long-standing practice of ‘plural voting’ whereby men could vote in each electorate in which they owned property. One of the most significant in New Zealand history, it took place against the backdrop of the country’s first big nationwide strikes after workers at ports around the country walked off the job, initially in support of Australian unionists. The maritime strike caused enormous disruption to the colony’s trade and transport networks. Though class consciousness grew among some workers, the strike ended after almost three months in total defeat for the seamen and the unions allied with them.
The outcome of the 1890 election became clear when Parliament met in early 1891. Recognised as New Zealand’s first political party, the victorious Liberals were led initially by John Ballance and following his death in 1893 by the larger–than-life Richard John Seddon. ‘King Dick’ dominated the New Zealand political landscape for 13 years and the Liberals remained in power until 1912. Their economic and social reforms – and their egalitarian rhetoric – continued to shape the political agenda well into the 20th century.
The Liberals won support from urban wage-earners as well as those living in provincial towns and small farmers. As an export-led economic recovery took hold, the Liberals emphasised farming for export rather than as a means of supplementing the incomes of wage-earners living on smallholdings. Liberal land policy aimed to achieve closer settlement by small farmers by ‘bursting up’ (subdividing) the ‘big estates’, most of which were in the South Island. The Liberals’ vision for ‘God's own country' saw more Māori land acquired for settlement. Minister of Lands John McKenzie shared the common Pākehā view that much Māori land was not used for ‘productive’ purposes and was therefore ‘wasted’. When Europeans obtained land, they immediately turned it ‘to good account’. Such attitudes and policies contributed to the fact that Māori now held less than 15% of the land that had been in their possession in 1840.
Other laws designed to improve life for ‘ordinary New Zealanders’ were also introduced. The industrial arbitration system, old-age pensions, and restrictions on working hours for women and young workers led some observers to champion New Zealand as a ‘social laboratory’ and ‘working man’s paradise’.
Emerging identity
From 1886 the majority of non-Māori people living in New Zealand had been born here. The term ‘New Zealander’ had originally referred to Māori but now took on a new meaning. But New Zealand’s identity remained largely contained within an imperial identity. The close economic ties with Britain reinforced the loyalty of New Zealanders to an empire that secured their place in the world. Most Pākehā continued to see themselves as British and referred to Britain as ‘home’. This loyalty could be seen in New Zealand’s enthusiastic support for Britain when the Second Anglo-Boer War broke out in 1899. This was the first time New Zealand troops served overseas. Seddon proudly confirmed that the ‘crimson tie’ of Empire bound New Zealand to the ‘Mother-country’.
When the Commonwealth of Australia was established in 1901, New Zealand declined to become its sixth state. Federation with Australia was rejected for a number of reasons, not least because we too aspired to ‘identity, status and a grander future’. Some feared federation might put New Zealand’s social reforms at risk, while others believed we represented a better ‘type of Britisher’. Federation ultimately consolidated national identity on both sides of the Tasman and strengthened the view that New Zealand should not give up its growing independence. Symbols of nationhood emerged, including a new flag (1902) and a Coat of Arms (1911)
In 1907 New Zealand became a dominion within the British Empire. Some trumpeted what they saw as a ‘move up’ in the ‘school of British nations’, but in reality little changed. New Zealand was no more and no less independent from Britain than it had been been as a colony.
The Reform era
Premier Richard Seddon’s five consecutive election victories have never been matched. Though he tipped the scales at 130 kg, his death while returning from Australia in 1906 came as a shock to New Zealanders.
Seddon was a hard act to follow. Joseph Ward, his deputy since 1899, led the Liberals to an easy victory in the 1908 election but lacked Seddon’s appeal to workers. He was criticised for being verbose and for being too interested in his own appearance and profile. In the election of December 1911 it was clear that voters had finally grown tired of the Liberals; William Massey’s Reform Party won four more seats. The Liberals clung to power with the support of independent MPs. Ward stepped aside as leader in March 1912, but his successor Thomas Mackenzie was unable to stem the tide. On 6 July 1912 several defections in the House gave Massey the numbers to form a government.
‘Farmer Bill’ Massey
The Reform Party was supported by the many farmers who had become frustrated with the Liberals’ policy of leasing rather than selling Crown land. They were encouraged by Reform’s promise to make it possible for them to own the land they had developed. But despite his nickname, ‘Farmer Bill’ Massey also gained the support of many workers in the rapidly growing North Island towns and cities. These people wanted to ‘get ahead’ through home-ownership, white-collar employment and secondary/technical education. While Massey was a farmer, several of his Cabinet were urban businessmen or professionals. The Liberals were criticised for having manipulated the public service by dispensing patronage. To end ‘political cronyism’ and ‘jobs for the boys’, the Reform government established an independent Public Service Commissioner responsible for appointing and promoting public servants.
Perhaps what cemented the perception of the Reform Party as a ‘farmer’s party’ was its response to two of the major industrial disputes in New Zealand's history: the 1912 Waihī miners' strike and the 1913 waterfront and general strikes. With the country split into two irreconcilable camps, the government sided firmly with the employers in opposing industrial militancy. At the climax of a bitter six-month strike in the goldmining company town of Waihī, one of the striking workers, Fred Evans was mortally injured in a clash with police and strike-breakers. Violent clashes between unionised workers and non-union labour erupted once more during 1913 waterfront strike, after industrial action on the wharves disrupted the ability of farmers to get their products to overseas markets.
The Massey administration, in which Attorney-General Alexander Herdman played a key role directing Police Commissioner John Cullen, enlisted thousands of ‘special’ police, many of them farmers on horseback, to break the strike and crush militant labour. The two-month struggle involved up to 16,000 unionists across New Zealand and saw violent clashes between strikers and mounted special constables known as ‘Massey’s Cossacks’. The strike ended in December with the defeat of the United Federation of Labour.
Such actions earned Massey the ‘undying hatred of many urban workers, an enmity passed on to their children’. Conservative voters – farmers, in particular – saw Massey’s stand as firm and decisive; he had met the fiery rhetoric and ‘intimidatory tactics’ of the ‘Red Feds’ head-on and won.
New Zealand goes to war
In 1909, Prime Minister Sir Joseph Ward announced that New Zealand would fund the construction of a battlecruiser for the Royal Navy. This gesture was a response to a perceived German threat to Britain and reflected awareness that a strong British Empire was critical to New Zealand’s security. HMS New Zealand cost New Zealand taxpayers £1.7 million (equivalent to $270 million in today's money) When the ship visited the dominion in 1913 for ten weeks as part of a world tour, an estimated 500,000 New Zealanders – half the population - inspected their gift to Mother England.
The Defence Act 1909 introduced compulsory military training, with all boys aged between 12 and 14 required to complete 52 hours of physical training each year as Junior Cadets. Developing fit and healthy citizens was seen as vital to the strength of the country and the empire. The Boy Scout movement had arrived in New Zealand in 1908 with similar aims of producing patriots capable of defending the empire. Boys were taught moral values, patriotism, discipline and outdoor skills through games and activities. In the classroom the ‘three Rs’ were backed up by instruction in moral virtues and imperialistic ideals.
On 5 August 1914 word reached Wellington that the British Empire was at war. As they had done when the South African War began, New Zealand men reacted enthusiastically to the empire’s call to arms. Germany’s invasion of Belgium, another small country, struck a chord with many. Thousands signed up for service, desperate not to miss out on an event many expected to be over by Christmas. The First World War would ultimately claim the lives of 18,500 New Zealanders and wound another 41,000. To what extent it forged a sense of national identity has provoked much debate. What is certain is that previously little-known places thousands of miles from home with exotic-sounding names such as Gallipoli, Passchendaele and the Somme were forever etched in the national memory.
The First World War would have a seismic impact on New Zealand, reshaping the country’s perception of itself and its place in the world. The war took 100,000 New Zealanders overseas, most for the first time. Some anticipated a great adventure but found the reality very different. Being so far from home made these New Zealanders very aware of who they were and where they were from. They were also able to compare themselves with men from other nations, in battle and behind the lines. Out of these experiences came a sense of a separate identity.
[1] In 1962 the English historian Eric Hobsbawm outlined the case for what he described as ‘the long 19th century’. As a Marxist, Hobsbawm’s analysis was book-ended by the French Revolution of 1789 and the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917. The American historian Peter Stearns adopted a similar approach but started in 1750 and concluded with the outbreak of the First World War in 1914. These approaches recognise that historical forces and processes cannot be shoehorned into conventional periods of time such as decades and centuries. In this survey we have taken a similar approach in examining the powerful historical processes which transformed New Zealand from an exclusively Māori world into one dominated by Pākehā.
Further information
This web feature was written by Steve Watters and produced by the NZHistory.net.nz team.
Links
- Brief history of New Zealand (Te Ara)
- NZHistory topics on: Pre-1840 history; Treaty of Waitangi; New Zealand's internal wars; The Vogel era; South African War
Books
- James Belich, Making peoples, Penguin, Auckland, 1996
- James Belich, Paradise reforged, Penguin, Auckland, 2001
- Bronwyn Dalley and Gavin McLean (eds), Frontier of dreams, Hodder Moa Beckett, Auckland, 2005
- Anne Salmond, Between worlds: early exchanges between Maori and Europeans 1773–1815, Viking, Auckland, 1997
- Michael King, Penguin History of New Zealand, Penguin, 2003
