In this excerpt from James Belich's award-winning history of Māori vs Pākehā armed conflict, tensions simmer in 1850s Taranaki and Waikato, between land-hungry settlers and Māori who don't want to sell. This resolve to retain their land results in what Belich calls "one of the most important developments in Māori political history" — the birth of the King Movement. But a new governor determined to reassert British authority exploits disunity between Māori factions, and a disputed sale at Waitara culminates in "New Zealand's great civil war of the 1860s".
Both races already form one harmonious community — professing the same faith, resorting to the same courts of justice, connected together by the same commercial and agricultural pursuits, enjoying the same public sports.– An overly optimistic Governor Grey
Landmark Productions
Made with funding from NZ On Air
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