Humanitarian Governance in Colonial New Zealand (1833 - 1872)
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Humanitarian Governance in Colonial New Zealand (1833 - 1872) by Matthew Marshall Woodbury A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (History) in The University of Michigan 2018 Doctoral Committee: Associate Professor Kali A. K. Israel, Co-Chair Professor Mrinalini Sinha, Co-Chair Professor Pamela Ballinger Professor Emeritus Richard P Tucker Matthew Marshall Woodbury [email protected] ORCID id: 0000-0003-3792-8155 © Matthew Marshall Woodbury 2018 This dissertation is dedicated to my mother, Dr. Marsha Cook Woodbury, with gratitude for her support and encouragement. ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Historical inquiry can sometimes be an isolating task. Though compensated by moments of quiet but elated archival discovery and the joys of putting the finishing touch on a piece of writing, my happiest moments have been spent with the people and communities that made this work possible. Two unflappable co-chairs, Mrinalini Sinha and Kali Israel, provided a wealth of guidance and perspective at all stages of the project. Their astute commentary, insightful questions, and deep reservoirs of knowledge were crucial to the dissertation’s success. Pamela Ballinger’s introduction to the field of humanitarian history opened my eyes afresh to a topic I thought I knew. Her suggestions and feedback were central to how this project engages humanitarian action. Richard Tucker’s perspectives on the connection between environment and warfare proved especially valuable and his graciousness throughout is a model I aspire to emulate. The failings of this dissertation are, of course, mine alone. Arriving at the University of Michigan, I had no real concept of what rich academic opportunities awaited. Coursework and seminars with Brandi Hughes, Damon Salesa, Douglas Northrop, Howard Brick, Kathleen Canning, Marty Pernick, and Sueann Caulfield sharpened my thinking about political economy, global history, intersectionality, and ways of teaching it. A public history course with Michelle McClellan not only opened up a world of thinking about how broader publics engage the past, but also introduced me to a community of scholars – among them Adam Johnson, Jacki Antonovich, and Joe Cialdella – who are also interested in history’s role beyond the university. My Michigan education would have been impossible without the resources of the University of Michigan Libraries. To all the librarians and staff who helped find books, make maps, and scan obscure articles, thank you. The History Department and Eisenberg Institute staff of Dawn Kapalla, Diana Denny, Greg Parker, Kathleen King, Kimberly Smith, Lorna Altstetter, Sue Douglas, and Terre Fischer made my slow progress through the various stages of the doctorate an administrative dream. I’m also deeply appreciative of financial support from the University of Michigan’s Department of History; Rackham Graduate School; Center for European Studies; the Law School’s Race, Law, and History Program; the Alumni Association; and the International Institute. During my years in the program I have been the fortunate beneficiary of the friendship, counsel, and support of a remarkable cohort. While the potlucks, happy hours, and road trips to iii places near and far from Ann Arbor are most salient in my mind, the intellectual work of dissertation would also not have been possible without Aaron Seamen, Brady G’sell, Kate Silbert, Nora Krinitsky, Sophie Hunt, and Tapsi Mathur. My gratitude to this crew is exceeded only by collective consumption of wine and cheese. Nick Rinehart arrived in my life halfway through this process and has been of invaluable personal and emotional support during the final years of the doctoral journey. His patience and understanding eased the burden of long days of research and writing. Colleagues and friends in the History Department were also crucial interlocutors in conceptualizing and framing the dissertation. The European History Workshop provided early experience in reading and talking about ideas. I am particularly thankful for feedback about chapters, conference papers, and job talks provided by Alyssa Reiman, Andres Pletch, Andrew Rutledge, Chelsea Del Rio, David Spreen, Emma Thomas, Jaqueline Larios, Joseph Ho, Kate Wroblewski, Leslie Hempson, Marie Stango, Marvin Chochotte, Noah Blan, Sara Katz, Sarah Mass, Tiggy McLaughlin, Trevor Kilgore, and Yanay Israeli. For five years the Michigan Branch of the Telluride Association was my home. Over long dinners, longer house meetings, and debates about community service, intellectual inquiry, and democratic self-governance I could rely on Arden Finn, Lisa Lau, Madeline Huberth, Melinda Kothbauer, Michele Wogaman, Nils Stannik, and Yourui Yeo to remind me that a world existed outside of history. The amount of patience and determination it takes to write a dissertation is only matched by the forbearance of those who have to witness somebody go through it. My friends Jan Machielsen, Kristin Emilsson, Laurel Gabler, Meredith Fahrner, Michaela Oldfield, and Ryoko Oono bore the burden of my successes and failures with aplomb and good humor. As shown by the dedication, I am grateful to my mother Marsha Woodbury for supporting my academic choices, even when they are years in the making, and encouraging me to keep a healthy perspective about the world and the people in it. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS DEDICATION ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS iii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS vi MAP OF NEW ZEALAND vii ABSTRACT viii PROLOGUE 1 Edward Gibbon Wakefield and the New Zealand Company INTRODUCTION 13 Humanitarian Governance in New Zealand (1830 - 1872) CHAPTER 1 43 A Theatre of Dangers Theories of Humanitarian Governance and Maori Protection (1833 - 1840) CHAPTER 2 85 An Uneasy Submission The New Zealand Company and the Protectorate of Aborigines (1840 - 1846) CHAPTER 3 129 To Gain Their Confidence and Attachment Humanitarian Governance in Health, Education, Economy and the Law (1845 – 1856) CHAPTER 4 176 English in Spirit if not Absolutely in their Form Trusteeship, Humanitarian Institutions, and Individualizing Native Space (1854 - 1865) CHAPTER 5 226 A Shadow of Responsibility Humanitarian Governance at War (1860 - 1872) CONCLUSION 282 BIBLIOGRAPHY 287 v LIST OF ABBREVATIONS AJHR Appendix to the Journal of the New Zealand House of Representatives ANZ Archives New Zealand APS Aborigines’ Protection Society CMS Church Missionary Society GBPP Parliamentary Papers of Great Britain NZC New Zealand Company TNA The National Archives [UK] vi vii ABSTRACT “Humanitarian Governance in Colonial New Zealand” focuses on a landmark intervention, Britain’s 1840 annexation of New Zealand, to show how officials, settlers, and indigenous Māori implemented a transnational discourse of humanitarian care within the colony. Invoking favorable impressions of Māori capacity for “civilization,” British proponents of colonization in the 1830s and 1840s advocated planned settlement and an intentional approach to managing indigenous peoples. New Zealand constituted an early experiment in humanitarian governance – defined as the administration of human collectivities in the name of a higher moral principle – as a solution to the grim consequences European settlement entailed for aboriginal populations. Uncertainly surrounding the terms of annexation, competition between a private company and the British government, and the colonial state’s lack of military power relative to Māori slowed early efforts at implementing policies of humanitarian governance. The dissertation examines several areas of government action – land reserved for Māori, the administration of health and education, and programs promoting legal assimilation – to show how colonial officials initially deployed humanitarian governance as the only viable means of assimilating Māori into the colonial state. With the arrival of more colonists in the 1850s and London’s devolution of authority over Māori affairs to New Zealand, humanitarian governance became more assertive. Instead of seeking Māori participation, settlers prioritized the individualization of communal lands and accelerated the legal assimilation of Māori communities. A hardening of racial attitudes toward indigenous peoples throughout the British Empire, and a decade of intermittent warfare in the 1860s, reframed practices of governance. If in the 1840s agents of empire implemented ideas of humanitarian governance as an experiment in colonization and a way of encouraging Māori engagement with the colonial state, by the 1870s the government conceptualized humanitarian governance as a way to limit Māori autonomy and justify interventions in the name of progress. viii Prologue: Edward Gibbon Wakefield and the New Zealand Company In June 1836, Edward Gibbon Wakefield, a noted advocate of British colonization, spent four days testifying before the British Parliament’s Select Committee on Colonial Lands. At forty-years-old with “fair complexion, fine skin, and fine intellectual forehead,” Wakefield’s notability derived from a scandalous personal life, a campaign against capital punishment, and from writings regarding Britain’s overseas settlements.1 His Letter from Sydney, published in 1829 as he finished a prison sentence for abducting the fifteen-year-old heiress Ellen Turner, adopted the voice of an Australian settler arguing for colonial emigration as a solution to Britain’s overpopulation and Australia’s demand for labor.2 Four years later, the two volumes of England and America compared the sources of wealth and civilization in each country.3