Article contents
Colonial Humanitarian? Thomas Gore Browne and the Taranaki War, 1860–61
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 20 February 2014
Abstract
The New Zealand Wars of the 1860s have traditionally been associated with the popularity of antagonistic racial discourses and the growing influence of scientific racism. Building upon recent research into the resonance of humanitarian racial discourses in this period, this article reconsiders the experience of Governor Thomas Gore Browne during the Taranaki War, 1860–61. The Taranaki War was a global news event that precipitated fierce debates within both New Zealand and Great Britain over the war's origins and the rights of indigenous Maori. This article reveals how both Browne and his wartime critics defined themselves as the true defenders of Maori rights. This general usage of humanitarian racial discourses was encouraged by perceptions of metropolitan surveillance, New Zealand's prominence within networks of imperial communication, and an onus to administrate Maori with justice.
- Type
- Articles
- Information
- Copyright
- Copyright © The North American Conference on British Studies 2014
References
1 Hyam, Ronald, Britain's Imperial Century, 1815–1914: A Study of Empire and Expansion (London, 1976), 70–85Google Scholar; Young, Robert, Colonial Desire: Hybridity in Theory, Culture and Race (London, 1995), 92Google Scholar; Porter, Andrew, “Trusteeship, Anti-Slavery, and Humanitarianism,” in The Oxford History of the British Empire: The Nineteenth Century (Oxford, 1999), 214Google Scholar; Lester, Alan, Imperial Networks: Creating Identities in Nineteenth Century South Africa and Britain (London, 2001), 138–39Google Scholar; Hall, Catherine, Civilising Subjects: Metropole and Colony in the English Imagination, 1830–1867 (Chicago, 2002), 23–27, 54–55, 212Google Scholar.
2 O'Brien, Anne, “Humanitarianism and Reparation in Colonial Australia,” Journal of Colonialism and Colonial History 12, no. 2 (Fall 2011)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, http://dx.doi.org/10.1353/cch.2011.0016.
3 Macdonald, Charlotte, “Between Religion and Empire: Sarah Selwyn's Aotearoa/New Zealand, Eton and Lichfield, England, 1840s–1900,” Journal of the Canadian Historical Association 19, no. 2 (2008): 46CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
4 24 September 1860, “Diary of Thomas Gore Browne [Harriet Browne],” ADCZ 1706 W5431/3, Archives New Zealand (ANZ); 30 October 1860, ibid.; 6 January 1861, ibid.; 2 June 1861, “Diary of Harriet Browne,” ADCZ 17007 W5431/7, ANZ. Harriet Louisa wrote the entries in Gore Browne's 1860 diary from 9 July 1860 to 25 January 1861.
5 Laqueur, Thomas W., “Bodies, Details, and the Humanitarian Narrative,” in The New Cultural History, ed. Hunt, Lynn (Berkeley, 1989), 176–204Google Scholar; Halttunen, Karen, “Humanitarianism and the Pornography of Pain in Anglo-American Culture,” American Historical Review 100, no. 2 (1995): 303–34CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed.
6 Bebbington, D. W., Evangelicalism in Modern Britain: A History from the 1730s to the 1980s (London, 1995), 20–27, 71Google Scholar.
7 House of Commons, Report of the Parliamentary Select Committee on Aboriginal Tribes (British Settlements) (London, 1837), 104.
8 See Kidd, Colin, The Forging of Races: Race and Scripture in the Protestant Atlantic World, 1600–2000 (Cambridge, 2006)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Bebbington, Evangelicalism in Modern Britain, 59–60.
9 Hickford, Mark, Lords of the Land: Indigenous Property Rights and the Jurisprudence of Empire (Oxford, 2011), 42–62CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
10 See Ballantyne, Tony, “Humanitarian Narratives: Knowledge and the Politics of Mission and Empire,” Social Sciences and Missions 24 (2011): 233–64CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
11 [Ward, John and Wakefield, Edward Jerningham], The British Colonization of New Zealand (London, 1837)Google Scholar.
12 Ballantyne, “Humanitarian Narratives,” 238.
13 Salesa, Damon Ieremia, Racial Crossings: Race, Intermarriage, and the Victorian British Empire (Auckland, 2011), 43CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
14 Parkinson, Phil and Griffith, Penny, “The Maori Messenger = Te Karere Maori (1855–1861),” Books in Māori, 1815–1900: An Annotated Bibliography (Auckland, 2004), 749–51Google Scholar.
15 Lester, Alan, “British Settler Discourse and the Circuits of Empire,” History Workshop Journal 1, no. 54 (Autumn 2001): 37–38Google Scholar.
16 Auckland Examiner, 1 January 1857.
17 Ibid., 15 June 1859.
18 Taranaki Herald, 28 April 1860; ibid., 5 May 1860; ibid., 12 May 1860.
19 Registrar General, Statistics of New Zealand for 1860 (Auckland, 1860), no. 28–29Google Scholar. New Zealand's prominent location within networks of news transmission is evidenced by postal records. In 1860, colonists received 471,664 newspapers, 51 percent of which came from the United Kingdom. At the same time, colonists despatched 557,692 newspapers, with 29 percent of this total posted to the United Kingdom.
20 Burton, Antoinette, “New Narratives of Imperial Politics in the Nineteenth Century,” in At Home with the Empire: Metropolitan Culture and the Imperial World, ed. Hall, Catherine (Cambridge, 2006), 221Google Scholar.
21 Belich, James, Making Peoples: A History of New Zealanders, from Polynesian Settlement to the End of the Nineteenth Century (Auckland, 2001), 230–31Google Scholar; Wood, Vaughan et al. , “Pastoralism and Politics: Reinterpreting Contests for Territory in Auckland Province, New Zealand, 1853–1864,” Journal of Historical Geography 34, no. 2 (2008): 221–22CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
22 See Oliver, W. H., “The Future Behind Us: The Waitangi Tribunal's Retrospective Utopia,” in Histories, Power, and Loss: Uses of the Past—A New Zealand Commentary, ed. McHugh, Paul (Wellington, 2001)Google Scholar.
23 Paterson, Lachy, Colonial Discourses: Niupepa Māori, 1855–1863 (Dunedin, 2006)Google Scholar; Lyndsay Head, “Land, Authority and the Forgetting of Being in Early Colonial Maori History” (PhD thesis, Canterbury, 2006); Keenan, Danny, Wars without End: The Land Wars in Nineteenth Century New Zealand (Auckland, 2009)Google Scholar.
24 Sinclair, Keith, The Origins of the Maori Wars (Wellington, 1961), 207–25Google Scholar.
25 Gore Browne to Gordon Gairdner, 18 October 1856, “Sir Thomas Gore Browne Letterbook, 1855–1861,” QMS-0284, Alexander Turnbull Library.
26 Francis, Mark, Governors and Settlers: Images of Authority in the British Colonies, 1820–60 (Canterbury, 1992), 213–37CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
27 Stenhouse, John, “Churches, State and the New Zealand Wars: 1860–1872,” Journal of Law and Religion 13, no. 2 (1998–1999): 484CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
28 12 October 1861, “Diary of Thomas Gore Browne,” ADCZ 17006 W5431/4, ANZ.
29 8 April 1860, “Journal of Henry Sewell,” QMS-1783, Alexander Turnbull Library.
30 Belich, Making Peoples, 156–69.
31 Sinclair, The Origins of the Maori Wars, 111–13.
32 Ibid., 113–14.
33 Taranaki Herald, 17 July 1858.
34 Carrington, Frederick Alonzo, The Land Question of Taranaki, with Suggestions for Improving the Condition of the Aboriginal Inhabitants and Developing the Resources of New Zealand (New Plymouth, 1860), 5Google Scholar.
35 Parsonson, Ann, “The Pursuit of Mana,” in The Oxford History of New Zealand, ed. Oliver, W. H. and Williams, B. R. (Auckland, 1981)Google Scholar.
36 Taranaki Herald, 16 January 1858; ibid., 23 January 1858; ibid., 30 January 1858; ibid., 6 February 1858; ibid., 13 February 1858; ibid., 20 February 1858; ibid., 27 February 1858; ibid., 20 March 1858; ibid., 17 April 1858; ibid., 24 April 1858; ibid., 8 May 1858; ibid., 19 June 1860; ibid., 8 January 1859.
37 Thomas Gore Browne to C. W. Richmond, 6 February 1858, The Richmond-Atkinson Papers, ed. Scholefield, G. H., vol. 1 (Wellington, 1960), 344Google Scholar.
38 Francis, Governors and Settlers, 213.
39 Te Karere Maori, 31 March 1859.
40 Ibid.
41 Ibid.
42 Gore Browne to E. Bulwer Lytton, 29 March 1859, No. 1, Correspondence and Papers Relating to the Maori Uprisings in New Zealand, 1861, vol. 12 (Shannon, 1970), 1–2Google Scholar.
43 Parsonson, “The Pursuit of Mana,” 151–52.
44 Te Teira Manuka has no entry in the online Dictionary of New Zealand Biography, http://www.teara.govt.nz/en/biographies.
45 Belich, James, The New Zealand Wars and the Victorian Interpretation of Racial Conflict: The Maori, the British, and the New Zealand Wars (Montreal, 1986), 76–116Google Scholar.
46 Browne to Newcastle, 16 May 1861, No. 25, Correspondence and Other Papers Relating to New Zealand, 1862–64, vol. 13 of British Parliamentary Papers (Shannon, 1970), 49–50; Browne to Newcastle, 27 June 1861, No. 26, Correspondence and Papers Relating to the Maori Uprisings in New Zealand, 1861, 68–73.
47 Browne to Newcastle, 16 May 1861, No. 25, Correspondence and Other Papers Relating to New Zealand, 1862–64, 49–50; Browne to Newcastle, 27 June 1861, No. 26, Correspondence and Papers Relating to the Maori Uprisings in New Zealand, 1861, 68–73.
48 29 July 1861, “Diary of Harriet Browne.”
49 Ibid.
50 New Zealander, 31 July 1861; ibid., 17 August 1861; Southern Cross, 27 September 1861.
51 Browne to Newcastle, 29 August 1860, No. 40, Correspondence and Papers Relating to the Maori Uprisings in New Zealand, 1861, 121–22; Browne to Gordon Gairdner, 18 October 1856, “Sir Thomas Gore Browne Letterbook”; Browne to Gairdner, 24 February 1859, ibid.
52 12 October 1861, “Diary of Thomas Gore Browne.”
53 Ibid.
54 Ibid.
55 Ibid.
56 13 August 1860, “Diary of Thomas Gore Browne.”
57 25 October 1860, “Diary of Thomas Gore Browne.”
58 27 August 1860, “Diary of Thomas Gore Browne.”
59 Browne to Newcastle, [3 December 1860?], “Sir Thomas Gore Browne Letterbook.”
60 Sarah Selwyn to M. A. P., 30 August 1860, Extracts of Letters from New Zealand on the War Question: With an Article from the New Zealand Spectator of November 3rd, 1860 (London, 1861), 15–16Google Scholar.
61 3 July 1860; 6 July 1860, Parliamentary Debates, Commons, 3rd Series, vol. 159 (1860), cols. 1326–29, 1518–20; Brown to Campbell, 25 July 1860, “William Brown Correspondence,” John Logan Campbell Collection, MS 51, f. 60, Auckland War Memorial Museum Library; 23 August 1860, “Diary of Thomas Gore Browne [Harriet Browne].” William Brown's correspondence details how the New Zealand colonist James Edward Fitzgerald campaigned against the New Zealand Bill in Great Britain. Harriet Louisa's diary details how William Fox attacked Gore Browne's proposed legislation as a usurpation of the General Assembly's rights.
62 23 August 1860, “Diary of Thomas Gore Browne [Harriet Browne].”
63 New Zealand Gazette, 25 January 1861.
64 Thomson, Arthur S., The Story of New Zealand: Past and Present—Savage and Civilized, vol. 2 (London, 1859), 297Google Scholar; Southern Cross, 24 April 1860.
65 Southern Cross, 29 January 1861.
66 31 January 1861, “Diary of Harriet Louisa Browne.”
67 Martin, William, The Taranaki Question (Auckland, 1860)Google Scholar.
68 Ibid., prefacing remarks; Browne, Harriet Louisa, Narrative of the Waitara Purchase and the Taranaki War, ed. Morrell, W. P. (Dunedin, 1965), 47Google Scholar.
69 Bell, F. D., Whitaker, F., and Browne, T. G., Notes on Sir William Martin's Pamphlet Entitled the Taranaki Question (Auckland, 1861)Google Scholar; Richmond, C. W., Memorandum on the Taranaki Question: Reviewing a Pamphlet by Sir William Martin, D.C.L., Late Chief Justice of New Zealeand [Sic], on the Same Subject (Auckland, 1861)Google Scholar.
70 Browne to Newcastle, 4 December 1860, No. 55, Correspondence and Papers Relating to the Maori Uprisings in New Zealand, 1861, 169–255; 13 December 1860, “Diary of Thomas Gore Browne [Harriet Browne].”
71 Browne to Belhaven, 3 December 1860, “Sir Thomas Gore Browne Letterbook.”
72 Browne to Newcastle, 4 December 1860, No. 55, Correspondence and Papers Relating to the Maori Uprisings in New Zealand, 1861, 171.
73 Browne to the Duke of Newcastle, [no date], “Sir Thomas Gore Browne Letterbook.”
74 Browne to Herman Merivale, 15 October 1856, “Sir Thomas Gore Browne Letterbook.”
75 Browne to Newcastle, 25 May 1860, No. 19, Correspondence and Papers Relating to the Maori Uprisings in New Zealand, 1861, 48; Browne to Newcastle, 25 May 1860, No. 21, ibid., 60; Browne to Newcastle, 28 June 1860, No. 27, ibid., 77–79; Browne to Newcastle, 7 September 1860, No. 45, ibid., 127–28; Browne to Newcastle, 31 October 1860, No. 50, ibid., 152–59.
76 Browne to Newcastle, 28 May 1860, No. 23, Correspondence and Papers Relating to the Maori Uprisings in New Zealand, 1861, 66; Browne to Newcastle, 31 August 1860, No. 42, ibid., 124–25; Browne to Newcastle, 22 October 1860, No. 49, ibid., 151.
77 Browne to Newcastle, 28 April 1860, No.16, Correspondence and Papers Relating to the Maori Uprisings in New Zealand, 1861, 45; Browne to Newcastle, 25 May 1860, No. 21, ibid., 60–61.
78 Browne to Fortescue, 3 November 1860, “Sir Thomas Gore Browne Letterbook.”
79 Browne to Gairdner, 28 May 1860, “Sir Thomas Gore Browne Letterbook.”
80 Browne to Sewell, 13 June 1859, “Sir Thomas Gore Browne Letterbook.”
81 6 March 1861, “Diary of Harriet Louisa Browne.”
82 25 February 1861, “Diary of Harriet Louisa Browne”; 6 March 1861, ibid.
83 Browne to Newcastle, 9 September 1860, “Sir Thomas Gore Browne Letterbook.”
84 Mary Martin, 21 May 1860, Extracts of Letters from New Zealand on the War Question, 5–7.
85 Caroline Abraham, 24 April 1860, Extracts of Letters from New Zealand on the War Question, 1–4.
86 8 August 1860, “Diary of Thomas Gore Browne [Harriet Browne]”; 23 August 1860, ibid.; 9 September 1860, ibid.; 24 September 1860, ibid.; 4 October 1860, ibid.; 14 October 1860, ibid.; 25 October 1860, ibid.; 6 January 1861, ibid.; 26 January 1861, “Diary of Harriet Browne”; 25 February 1861, ibid.; 28 February 1861, ibid.; 2 June 1861, ibid.; 2 July 1861, ibid.
87 Auckland Examiner, 4 April 1860; ibid., 11 April 1860; ibid., 21 April 1860.
88 Browne to Newcastle, [no date] “Sir Thomas Gore Browne Letterbook”; Jan Pilditch, ed. The Letters and Journals of Reverend John Morgan, vol. 2 (Glasgow, 2010), 559–99.
89 Carrington, The Land Question of Taranaki, 14.
90 Ibid., 5, 25.
91 J. S. Tullett, “Carrington, Frederic Alonzo-Biography,” Dictionary of New Zealand Biography, Te Ara-the Encyclopedia of New Zealand, http://www.teara.govt.nz/en/biographies/1c7/1 (accessed 12 May 2011).
92 Bell, Whitaker, and Browne, Notes on Sir William Martin's Pamphlet; Browne, Edward Harold, The Case of the War in New Zealand (Cambridge, 1860)Google Scholar; Browne, Narrative of the Waitara Purchase and the Taranaki War; Busby, James, Remarks Upon a Pamphlet Entitled ‘the Taranaki Question,’ by Sir William Martin, D.C.L., Late Chief Justice of New Zealand (Auckland, 1860)Google Scholar; Carrington, The Land Question of Taranaki; Clarke, George, Remarks Upon a Pamphlet by James Busby, Esq. Commenting Upon a Pamphlet Entitled the “Taranaki Question,” by Sir William Martin, D.C.L., Late Chief Justice of New Zealand (Auckland, 1861)Google Scholar; Extracts of Letters from New Zealand on the War Question: With an Article from the New Zealand Spectator of November 3rd, 1860; Fox, William, The War in New Zealand (London, 1860)Google Scholar; Hadfield, Octavius, One of England's Little Wars. A Letter to the Right Hon. The Duke of Newcastle, Secretary of State for the Colonies (London, 1860)Google Scholar; Hadfield, Octavius, A Sequel to “One of England's Little Wars”: Being an Account of the Real Origin of the War in New Zealand, Its Present Stage, and the Future Prospects of the Colony (London, 1861)Google Scholar; Hadfield, Octavius, The Second Year of One of England's Little Wars (London, 1861)Google Scholar; Martin, The Taranaki Question; Martin, William, Remarks on “Notes Published for the New Zealand Government,” January 1861: And on Mr. Richmond's Memorandum on the Taranaki Question, December 1860 (Auckland, 1861)Google Scholar; Richmond, Memorandum on the Taranaki Question; Swainson, William, New Zealand and the War (London, 1862)Google Scholar.
93 For example, The Times published thirty-seven articles and editorials on native policy in New Zealand during and just after the Taranaki War.
94 Hadfield, One of England's Little Wars, 7, 20–21.
95 Fox, The War in New Zealand, 5, 44.
96 Martin, The Taranaki Question, 1–10.
97 Bell, Whitaker, and Browne, Notes on Sir William Martin's Pamphlet, 5; Richmond, Memorandum on the Taranaki Question, 2–3.
98 Busby, Remarks Upon a Pamphlet Entitled “the Taranaki Question,” 3–11; Clarke, Remarks Upon a Pamphlet by James Busby, Esq., 6–14.
99 Hadfield, One of England's Little Wars, 7–9, 12; Fox, The War in New Zealand, 26–27, 33; Martin, The Taranaki Question, 13, 19–20, 23; Clarke, Remarks Upon a Pamphlet by James Busby, Esq., 6–14, 19.
100 Martin, The Taranaki Question, 1.
101 Ibid., 23–24.
102 Bell, Whitaker, and Browne, Notes on Sir William Martin's Pamphlet, 24–25.
103 Browne, The Case of the War in New Zealand, 9–11; Bell, Whitaker, and Browne, Notes on Sir William Martin's Pamphlet, 21; Richmond, Memorandum on the Taranaki Question, 3–5.
104 Browne, The Case of the War in New Zealand, 29, 35–36, 41–44; Bell, Whitaker, and Browne, Notes on Sir William Martin's Pamphlet, 27–28, 92; Richmond, Memorandum on the Taranaki Question, 2–3.
105 Michael Belgrave, Historical Frictions: Maori Claims & Reinvented Histories (Auckland, 2005), 235.
106 Belgrave, Historical Frictions, 230.
107 Ibid., 230.
108 Ibid., 235–40.
109 11 May 1861, “Diary of Harriet Browne.”
110 Belgrave, Historical Frictions, 261.
111 Tribunal, Waitangi, The Taranaki Report: Kaupapa Tautahi: Wai 143: Muru Me Te Raupata = the Muru and Raupatu of the Taranaki Land and People, (Wellington, 1996)Google Scholar, 1.6, 3.6, 3.8.
112 Waitangi Tribunal, The Taranaki Report, 3.6.
113 Ibid.
114 Ibid.
115 Browne to Gairdner, 27 September 1857, “Sir Thomas Gore Browne Letterbook.”
116 Southern Cross, 20 April 1858.
117 Ibid., 21 June 1859.
118 Richmond, Memorandum on the Taranaki Question, 2; Bell, Whitaker, and Browne, Notes on Sir William Martin's Pamphlet, 9.
119 24 July 1860, “Diary of Thomas Gore Browne [Harriet Browne].
120 Ibid.
121 Ward, Damen, “Territory, Jurisdiction, and Colonial Governance: ‘A Bill to Repeal the British Constitution,’ 1856–60,” Journal of Legal History 33, no. 3 (2012): 313–33CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
122 Ibid., 331.
123 Clarke, Remarks Upon a Pamphlet by James Busby, Esq., 3–5, 14, 19, 21–22; Bell, Whitaker, and Browne, Notes on Sir William Martin's Pamphlet, 28; Fox, The War in New Zealand, 26–27; Hadfield, The Second Year of One of England's Little Wars, 22; Martin, The Taranaki Question, 10, 13; Martin, Remarks on “Notes Published for the New Zealand Government,” January 1861: And on Mr. Richmond's Memorandum on the Taranaki Question, December 1860, 3; Richmond, Memorandum on the Taranaki Question, 1, 3.
124 Martin, The Taranaki Question, 10.
125 Ibid., 9–10.
126 Mark Hickford, Lords of the Land, 420–34.
127 Busby, Remarks Upon a Pamphlet Entitled “the Taranaki Question,” 7.
128 Ibid., 7.
129 Ibid., 5.
130 Lindsey MacDonald, “The Political Philosophy of Property Rights” (PhD Thesis, Canterbury University, 2009), 158.
131 Ibid., 11, 13–14.
132 Clarke, Remarks Upon a Pamphlet by James Busby, Esq., 3.
133 Busby, Remarks Upon a Pamphlet Entitled “the Taranaki Question,” 3–4.
134 Clarke, Remarks Upon a Pamphlet by James Busby, Esq., 4.
135 Ibid., 5.
136 Ibid.
137 Ibid., 4.
138 Browne to Busby, 21 December 1860, “Sir Thomas Gore Browne Letterbook.”
139 Browne, The Case of the War in New Zealand, 25.
140 Browne to Newcastle, 4 December 1860, No. 55, Correspondence and Papers Relating to the Maori Uprisings in New Zealand, 1861, 169–96; Southern Cross, 3 July 1860.
141 David Burn, 1 July and 4 September 1856, Diary, Microfilm-CY, State Library of New South Wales.
142 Hickford, Lords of the Land, 382–85.
143 Ibid.; MacDonald, “The Political Philosophy of Property Rights.”
144 Saturday Review, 3 November 1860; The Times, 21 November 1860.
145 Saturday Review, 3 November 1860; The Times, 30 August 1861.
146 Jane Maria Atkinson to Margaret Taylor, 7 July 1861, The Richmond-Atkinson Papers, 714–55.
147 29 July 1861, “Diary of Harriet Louisa Browne.”
148 Salesa, Racial Crossings, 175–78.
149 Stenhouse, “Churches, State and the New Zealand Wars,” 498–99.
150 Belich, The New Zealand Wars and the Victorian Interpretation of Racial Conflict, 328; Hall, Civilising Subjects, 56; Lester, “British Settler Discourse and the Circuits of Empire,” 44.
151 Ballantyne, Tony, Orientalism and Race: Aryanism in the British Empire (Cambridge, 2002)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
152 Bank, Andrew, “Losing Faith in the Civilizing Mission: The Premature Decline of Humanitarian Liberalism at the Cape, 1840–60,” Empire and Others: British Encounters in with Indigenous Peoples, 1600–1850 (London, 1999)Google Scholar; Elbourne, Elizabeth, Blood Ground: Colonialism, Missions, and the Contest for Christianity in the Cape Colony and Britain, 1799–1853 (Montreal, 2002)Google Scholar.
153 Perry, Adele, On the Edge of Empire: Gender, Race, and the Making of British Columbia, 1849–1871 (Toronto, 2001)Google Scholar.
154 O'Brien, “Humanitarianism and Reparation in Colonial Australia.”
155 Bebbington, Evangelicalism in Modern Britain, 105.
- 1
- Cited by