PRESENT-day Indigenous New Zealand activists paint a picture of their forefathers being severely oppressed and disposessed by English colonists. The messaging is that Maori and Aboriginal peoples had no interest in the civilization of the white colonial invaders – and it’s largely a lie.
While there were definitely bloody clashes between these cultures and the colonists over land, that wasn’t the entire story. The example of the New Zealand Maori’s embrace of the colonial shipping industry is a story that is ignored by Indigenous activists and their supporters in the media and education departments.
By the 1850s, Māori weren’t simply growing food for themselves or trading a few goods locally, they were were running a commercial economy and by 1858, of the 51 vessels registered in Auckland Province, 36 were licensed to Māori.
Maori across New Zealand (or Aotearoa as they called it) would have spotted the first European sailing ship offshore when Captain James Cook circumnavigated much of the country in November-December 1769 in HMAS Endeavour.
He was followed by the French explorer Marc Joseph Marion du Fresne, who, like Cook, brought his ships into the Bay of Islands in May 1772 for a five-week stay for repairs. Whaling ships were regularly visiting the Bay of Islands by the late 1700s into the early 1800s.
The Maori, a seafaring people who navigated the vast distances between Pacific Ocean islands, had decades to observe the impressive sailing vessels coming to and fro from Europe and the Americas, and undoubtedly a chief or two felt that obtaining such a vessel would be an enormous boost in mana (status).
The Maori originally migrated from Polynesia on catamaran-style twin-hulled vessels with inverted (crab claw) sails. They covered remarkably long distances, so the transition from the traditional canoes (waka), to commercial sailing vessels was not as big a leap in technology as one might think.
They took on schooners and cutters to move produce around the country and some took on a much wider trading economy, crossing the Tasman to Sydney and some other Pacific locations.
Historian Robert Clarke says the period 1845 to 1865 is regarded as the golden age for Maori sailing ships. “Maori wanted European manufactured goods, such as muskets, tools and implements as well as imported luxuries, such as alcohol, clothing and sugar.
“In the North Island especially, Maori cultivated extra crops to supply visiting ships and then to supply produce to the expanding town of Auckland. They started to acquire European built vessels as they expanded this commerce.”
Clarke writes that from shipping registers, books and newspapers, 341 cutters and schooners have been identified, either owned or captained by Maori.
They were carrying wheat, potatoes, maize, pigs, apples, flax, timber and firewood, coal, flour, sheep, cattle and other produce. Actual 1850s shipping records showed that in June 1858, the 19-ton Maria Jane, under Māori master Enoke, arrived in Auckland from Tauranga carrying 500 bushels of wheat, 30 bushels of maize, 30 pigs and a ton of apples.
Another contemporary report recorded 26 vessels arriving coastwise, carrying2,410 bushels of wheat, 212 bushels of maize, 110 bushels of apples, onions, flour, biscuit, salt pork, bacon, lard, 44 cattle, 2 horses, flax, 76 tons of kauri (tree) gum, tōtara piles, wool, 20 tons of copper ore, sperm oil and 180 tons of firewood.
This represented an interconnected international commercial economy, not just the trading of subsistence goods. Maori cargoes contributed to Auckland’s exports overseas, their main contribution being wheat and other produce. They also produced some whale oil, logs and kauri tree gum dug from clay and swampy ground in the far north.
Not only did these colonial era entrepreneurs invest heavily in shipping, they also invested collectively in agriculture, flour mills, and trading networks. The Waikato region of the North Island saw some 50 Maori-owned flour mills built during the 1840s and 1850s.
“Māori were a strong force in the freight business. On sea, rivers and lakes, Māori owned and operated waka (canoes), whaleboats and, from the 1830s, schooners and cutters,” writes Clarke.
“Generally, Māori preferred European vessels for freight – they were more stable than single-hulled canoes and more manoeuvrable than double-hulled canoes, and needed fewer crew. Waka, though, were the only vessels that could navigate many of New Zealand’s rivers, and they continued to be used to carry freight and passengers until the late 19th century.”
Clarke records a report written in 1850 by the Rev. Vicesimus Lush an English-born Anglican clergyman and prominent colonial settler in New Zealand best known for his detailed historical journals: “On my way to Panmure (Auckland district) this morning, I overtook a well dressed native riding a very good horse. I learnt from him that he was the keeper of the ferry and that he had a large site of excellent land in a high state of cultivation.
“While waiting for the ferry I looked at his fields of potatoes wheat and grass, they appeared superior to any I have yet
seen. He lives in a good house and keeps five or six native servants and one English one. He also owns a small coastal vessel of 100 tons, and costing him 70 pounds, which he runs between Auckland and Tamaki.”
Unfortunately, this remarkable boom in indigenous business, often referred to as “Golden Age” of Māori enterprise, was not sustained and became severely disrupted through the 1860s by a number of regional wars between tribes and the colonial regiments.
Clarke notes that by the 1860s Māori engagement in the freight business had passed its peak. A collapse in the prices paid for produce reduced their income at the time that more expensive iron sailing vessels and steamships were starting to be used.
The European settlers were also increasing in number and building their own shipping businesses. There were seven immigrant ships in 1852 and overseas vessels averaged about one per week.
Sources: Te Ara – The Encyclopedia of New Zealand; National Library of New Zealand; Papers Past; contemporary 1850s shipping records.
With regard to my above comment of the two topics I mention, Covid-19 and Port Arthur Massacre, I have done my bit in recording the actual true information for historic records, in a book “A Social Conscience” donated to the National Library and Western Australia Library. However I would be surprised if this record still exists in ten years time.
Interesting, the different records of history. Much the same everywhere. Imagine the recorded history in the future of the Covid-19 era and events like the Port Arthur Massacre. Of these events, we know the real history, but will it be recorded as such. No!
Commenter Thompson
Don’t underestimate the sailing abilities of the Polynesians, they could go anywhere.
On topic
It would be interesting to know what led to the demise of the gentrified Maories, did someone open a brewery ?
There are a number of errors in the paper but in general an awesome addition to the early shipping records.
If you have a look at a satellite map of North of NZ you will notice a land mass that leads up to the Bismark Sea towards the Philippines and a different branch heads towards Korea so I doubt very much anyone sailed to the land of the long white cloud much like there was a land bridge between PNG down to what is now FNQ .