Abstract
Focusing on New Zealand, the article analyzes the disputes over land and power in the British Empire in the mid-19th century. Occupied in the 1840s, the colony was central to debates about how the British should act globally. Held in the National Archives of London, correspondence exchanged among Maori chiefs, missionaries, settlers, as well as civil, imperial and military authorities reveal how discussions over the deployment of political, economic and military forces evolved along with imperialist expansion. By concentrating on a small and peripheral colony, the article explores the discursive, political and military strategies natives employed as they interacted, participated, or resisted the arrival and installation of the British, i.e. their strategies aimed at securing power and lands. Also examined here are the ways colonists’ private and group interests mobilized fears and discourses in the metropolis for the Maori transformation from civilizable to barbarians who should be quashed by the Imperial Army.
Keywords
British Empire; New Zealand; native resistances