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Unsettling the Colony

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Unsettling the Colony Unsettling the Colony Gender, fear and settler colonialism during the evacuations of ‘refugee’ settler women from Land Wars conflicts at Taranaki (1860-1861) and Poverty Bay (1865, 1868) Jamie Hawkins Elder A thesis submitted to Victoria University of Wellington in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in History Victoria University of Wellington 2018 i Table of Contents Abstract ........................................................................................................................ ii List of abbreviations ................................................................................................... iii List of figures............................................................................................................... iv Introduction ................................................................................................................. 1 Chapter 1: 'New Plymouth is at present no place for helpless females' ................. 15 Leaving ................................................................................................................ 15 Conditions at the Destination ............................................................................. 20 Separation ........................................................................................................... 24 Home ................................................................................................................... 40 Chapter 2: The rootless ‘refugees + wanderers’ of Poverty Bay ............................ 50 Leaving ................................................................................................................ 50 Separation ........................................................................................................... 55 Home ................................................................................................................... 63 Chapter 3: 'Their case may be ours any day': assisting 'our fellow settlers at Taranaki' .................................................................................................................... 74 Emotive Responses ............................................................................................. 74 Practical Responses ............................................................................................. 83 Chapter 4: Standing in solidarity with the Poverty Bay ‘refugees’ ....................... 101 Emotive Responses ........................................................................................... 101 Practical Responses ........................................................................................... 118 Conclusion ................................................................................................................ 132 Bibliography ............................................................................................................. 141 ii Abstract Anxiety and fear were central to the condition of settler colonialism in 1860s New Zealand. The Land Wars of the 1860s in New Zealand provoked potent anxiety about the enemy, about loved ones’ lives and about survival. The anxiety could transform into full-blown fear and panic with the onset of violence, or even the prospect or threat of violence. This thesis examines and compares evacuations of ‘refugee’ settler women and children from the sites of Land Wars conflicts in Taranaki (1860-61), and at Waerenga-a-hika (1865) and Matawhero (1868) in Poverty Bay. It explores the character and response to danger of what might be described as ‘settler anxiety’. Settlers of the 1860s used the specific term ‘refugee’ to describe the displaced settler women and children. Māori also faced displacement during the wars, though their situation is not within the scope of this thesis. The story of the Land Wars thus far has focused mainly on the narrative of the military conflict and examines events primarily as a male-centric, racial conflict. However, the time has come to examine experiences off the battlefield – of non-combatants. Women and children in particular are far more central to the history of the wars than is currently acknowledged. The first part of the thesis explores how the Land Wars ‘refugees’ coped with separation from homes and family. The second part examines how settler society, both on a formal governmental basis and on a more informal community level, reacted to the presence of ‘refugees’ emotively and with practical assistance. The research examines the language settlers used and the points they emphasised in their writing or speeches to reveal the frameworks of settler colonialism. Personal diaries, letters and memoirs are used to understand the settlers’ situations. To understand the broader reaction of settler society the thesis draws on newspapers, provincial council correspondence and records, and general government debate and legislation. This thesis argues that the existence of women and children settler ‘refugees’ during the Land Wars represented the settler colonial system in turmoil, providing evidence that the wars involved a conflict off the battlefield as well as on it. Colonists dreamed of creating a safe and secure colony where settlers could acquire land and make a livelihood to support a family. Consequently, attacks on family went to the heart of settler colonialism. The ‘refugees’ symbolised the ‘unsettling’ of settler colonialism, both literally by their locational displacement and figuratively by igniting fear about the stability of the settler colony. In response to the ‘refugee’ crisis settlers vehemently asserted their attachment to ‘home’, to prove their right to live in the colony, and promoted their solidarity with the ‘refugees’ and against enemy Māori, who they saw as threatening the settler dream. The evacuation of Land Wars ‘refugees’ is also considered for its similarities and differences to other ‘refugee’ situations internationally during the colonial era. iii List of Abbreviations ATL Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington ANZ Archives New Zealand, Wellington CMS Church Missionary Society NZPD New Zealand Parliamentary Debates PA Puke Ariki, New Plymouth iv List of Figures Figure 1: New Plymouth women arguing with Colonel Carey, cartoon by Thomas Bent (Puke Ariki, ARC2002-702) ................................................................................. 26 Figure 2: The new transportation to the ships, cartoon by Thomas Bent (Puke Ariki, ARC2002-702) ............................................................................................................ 26 Figure 3: Why People Go To Nelson, faking injury to leave New Plymouth, (Taranaki Punch, 27 February 1861) .......................................................................................... 31 Figure 4: social media promotion by Hurricanes Ltd for the 'Taranaki Land War' match against the Chiefs (Huricanes Ltd 10 April 2018) .......................................... 139 1 Introduction ‘Some foolish person has stated that there is an intention to murder secretly all the white people in Taranaki; and so easily are the fears of some people worked upon, that many believe in the rumour. I saw one man yesterday who had provided himself with a new bolt for his door. I asked him why he had bought it just at this time. He replied, with the utmost seriousness, 'It's the dreadful massacre, I'm thinking about,' and, turning towards his only child, added, with a look of sorrow, 'I don't care so much about myself, but for that little one to fall into their hands would be horrible!'…I might as well have talked to the wind as have attempted to allay his fears.'1 The words of Sergeant Marjouram of the Royal Artillery, based in Taranaki, New Zealand during the 1860s, demonstrate the potency of settler anxieties. Central to the condition of settler colonialism, settler anxiety could generate an enemy to scapegoat and project worries onto, motivate a struggle for survival, necessitate the protection of threatened loved ones and possessions, or degenerate into full- blown fear and panic. Joanna Bourke has written about the distinction between anxiety and fear. She describes anxiety as an ‘anticipated, subjective threat’ which comes from ‘within’ the individual.2 In cases of anxiety the object of threat is not obvious or observable and the individuals’ beliefs may be irrational or have no real or truthful basis.3 However, with fear the individual can identify an external ‘immediate, objective threat’ which is specific and easily observable.4 Evacuations of ‘refugees’ during the Land Wars in nineteenth-century New Zealand reveal the expression of anxiety in the particular case of settler colonialism. Land Wars conflicts broke out across the North Island during the 1860s between Māori, and British and colonial forces supported by certain iwi. Prior conflicts had occurred in Northland, Nelson, Whanganui and the lower North Island in the 1840s 1 William Marjouram, Sergeant, Sinner, Saint, and Spy: The Taranaki War Diary of Sergeant William Marjouram, R.A., ed. Laurie Barber, Garry Clayton, and John Tonkin-Covell (Auckland: Random Century, 1990), p.37. 2 Joanna Bourke, Fear: A Cultural History (London: Virago Press, 2005), p.187. 3 Ibid. 4 Ibid. 2 and the fighting that broke out again in the 1860s also extended beyond that decade. Historians have variously put the end date of the wars at 1872 when the settler government stopped pursuing Te Kooti, 1881 with the invasion of Parihaka village or 1916 upon the
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