Interracial Marriage

Intermit relations between Maori and Pakeha has been a feature of race relations in Aotearoa New Zealand. Throughout the 19th century and through the first part of the twentieth century the vast majority of these relationships have been between Pakeha men and wahine Maori. From as early as 1820 sailors, sealers and whalers have formed intermit relations with wahine Maori and a number have lived as Pakeha Maori.  The signification of these relationships has changed with the political context and the agenda of the political players.  I wish to explore the role that interracial intimacy played in the coming together of Maori and settlers in the 'post-aukati' world of the King Country. 

 Angela Wanhalla has done important work on interracial marriages in the nineteenth century New Zealand and while her work focused on the South Island her insights and methodology will be useful in analysing interracial marriage within the King Country. Damon Salesa, following Alan Ward, elucidates the way that racial amalgamation was promoted as a tool of colonization. That is, by encouraging interracial marriage the Māori race would be amalgamated into the wider population and in effect be annihilated. For this reason, E. G. Wakefield did not want to see native reserves for Māori, or exclusive areas such as the Rohe Pōtae, as he believed territorial segregation discouraged amalgamation and perpetuated racial tensions. I will be interested to see what can be uncovered about interracial marriage in this period. Alan Ward’s work will be drawn on as it includes a good overview and analysis of official policies towards Māori in the nineteenth century with a focus on amalgamation. 

This project seeks to work from the bottom up, with microhistories, to uncover the lived day to day experience of Māori and settlers rather than attempting over-generalised nationalist history-making. I do not plan to create a new metanarrative of colonization. Instead, it is hoped the research will critique the old paradigms and offer nuance to the telling of the stories. As Olssen wrote: ‘We need now to focus on the detail of establishing new families and communities and their relationships with the tangata whenua’, and ‘to look at relationships in the local contexts in which they took place’.  My project seeks to explore the actions of everyday people especially in and around Te Kuiti as they attempted to build a new world, in their own way, making new boundaries of identity, from the aftermath of the war and the aukati. It is hoped that this exploration of local meaning making activity may provide insights into the motivations and aspirations of these people whose legacy we inherit. 

Picture credit.  The front cover of Angela Wanhalla o(f Kai Tahu and Otago University) book "Matters of the Heart" 

Wanhalla, Angela. Matters of the heart: a history of interracial marriage in New Zealand. Auckland: Auckland University Press, 2013.

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