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This series focuses on Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific region from the arrival of European seafarers and missionaries to the early twentieth century. Contemporary accounts document the gradual development of the European settlements from penal colonies and whaling stations to thriving communities of farmers, miners and traders with fully-fledged administrative and legal systems. Particularly noteworthy are the descriptions of the indigenous peoples of the various islands, their customs and their differing interactions with the European settlers.

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107 results in Cambridge Library Collection - History of Oceania

Page 4 of 6

A History of the Colony of Victoria
  • From its Discovery to its Absorption into the Commonwealth of Australia
  • Volume 1, A.D. 1797–1854
  • Henry Gyles Turner
  • Published online:
    05 May 2012
    Print publication:
    24 November 2011
    First published in:
    1904
  • The first attempt by Europeans to settle in the area that eventually became the state of Victoria, Australia, was led by Colonel David Collins in 1803. Melbourne was founded in 1835, and after the discovery of gold in 1851 became the financial centre of Australia. This authoritative two-volume history of the state's first century, published in 1904 by the banker Henry Gyles Turner (1831–1920), is based on parliamentary records and information from leading political figures with whom the author was personally acquainted. Volume 1 traces Victoria's development from its early settlement to its establishment as an independent colony and the discovery of gold. It explores the region's progress and the challenges it faced as the gold rush led to overpopulation, high living costs, and mining disputes. The book gives first-hand insights into a time of rapid political, social and economic change.

Aureretanga: Groans of the Maoris
  • Edited by G. W. Rusden
  • Published online:
    05 May 2012
    Print publication:
    15 December 2011
    First published in:
    1888
  • When George William Rusden (1819–1903) was fourteen, his family emigrated from England to Australia, where he later became a prominent educationalist and civil servant, responsible for establishing national schools. In 1883, after retiring to England, he published histories of Australia and New Zealand, both of them sympathetic to the indigenous populations. The latter proved controversial and resulted in a libel case against Rusden, which he lost. Aureretanga, first published in 1888, was written with the purpose of exposing British abuses of the Treaty of Waitangi, which had ceded New Zealand to the Crown in 1840. Drawing on government documents, official correspondence, court records, petitions and press reports, Rusden lists the hardships and injustices inflicted on the Maori, asserting that the actions of the British-led government 'dishonoured the name of England'. His book provides intriguing contemporary insights into the harsh realities of even supposedly enlightened colonialism.

The Story of New Zealand
  • Past and Present, Savage and Civilized
  • Volume 2
  • Arthur S. Thomson
  • Published online:
    05 May 2012
    Print publication:
    24 November 2011
    First published in:
    1859
  • Arthur S. Thomson (1816–60) was a Scottish military surgeon and medical scientist who was posted to New Zealand in the late 1840s. During his eleven years in the country, settlement increased and British sovereignty over the colony was extended. Thomson felt that previous historical accounts of New Zealand all demonstrated a certain political, colonial or religious bias, and decided to write his own comprehensive history of the islands, which was published in 1859. In Volume 2, Thomson continues the story of European discovery and settlement. He justifies the progress of British colonisation by arguing that it brought civilisation to the native people, fully supporting the introduction of English (property) law and the introduction of Christianity. Thomson advocates that the Maoris be taught English, as this is the only way to give them hope that they can 'rise above the hewers of wood and drawers of water'.

A Statistical, Historical, and Political Description of the Colony of New South Wales, and its Dependent Settlements in Van Diemen's Land
  • With a Particular Enumeration of the Advantages Which These Colonies Offer for Emigration, and their Superiority in Many Respects over Those Possessed by the United States of America
  • William Charles Wentworth
  • Published online:
    05 May 2012
    Print publication:
    15 December 2011
    First published in:
    1819
  • The politician, landowner and journalist W. C. Wentworth (1790–1872), was an energetic and controversial character in the early history of modern Australia. Together with Gregory Blaxland and William Lawson, he was the first to cross Australia's Blue Mountains. A well-known public figure in the colony of New South Wales, he founded a newspaper called The Australian (in 1824) and campaigned, among other things, for a free press, trial by jury, rights for emancipated convicts, public education, and a representative government. He also became extremely wealthy. In this book, first published in 1819, Wentworth argues that the Australian colonies are a better choice than the United States of America for European emigrants. The book contains a vast amount of information about the colonies of New South Wales and Tasmania, together with Wentworth's suggestions for the improvement of their government, and remains an important source for historians.

Maori Wars of the Nineteenth Century
  • The Struggle of the Northern against the Southern Maori Tribes Prior to the Colonisation of New Zealand in 1840
  • S. Percy Smith
  • Published online:
    05 May 2012
    Print publication:
    15 December 2011
    First published in:
    1910
  • Stephenson Percy Smith (1840–1922) arrived in New Zealand as a boy, and in early 1858 travelled six hundred miles exploring the volcanic interior of North Island, including Taupo, Lake Tarawera and the Tongariro-Ruapehu area, returning via Rangitikei and Wanganui. He also witnessed the unrest caused by the rapid European encroachment on Maori lands. After retiring in 1900 from his career as a government surveyor, Smith devoted himself to the study of the Maori and co-founded the Polynesian Society, in whose journal this study originally appeared between 1899 and 1901. Reissued here in its enlarged second edition of 1910, it deals with the inter-tribal 'Musket Wars' of the early nineteenth century, when different Maori communities competed for territory shortly before European settlement began in earnest. Although Smith's interpretations do not meet modern scholarly standards, his pioneering work still provides fascinating insights into nineteenth-century Maori traditions and their colonial reception.

An Account of a Voyage to Establish a Colony at Port Philip in Bass's Strait, on the South Coast of New South Wales
  • In His Majesty's Ship Calcutta, in the Years 1802–3–4
  • James Hingston Tuckey
  • Published online:
    05 April 2012
    Print publication:
    08 November 2011
    First published in:
    1805
  • James Tuckey (1776–1816) was a naval officer who was appointed first lieutenant on H.M.S. Calcutta. In 1802 the ship was given orders to sail to New South Wales, Australia, to survey the harbour at Port Phillip, and to establish a colony. The Calcutta departed from Portsmouth in April 1803 and arrived in New South Wales in October. After Tuckey returned from the assignment, he published this account in 1805. He begins the work by explaining the motives behind establishing the colony - it was to be used for convicts, some of whom he was transporting on the ship. The first four chapters discuss the journey but the final chapter focuses on the attempts to establish a colony and encounters with the indigenous population, and gives a survey of the coastline. Port Phillip became the city Melbourne, and this work is a valuable source about its early years of settlement.

New Zealand's First War
  • Or, the Rebellion of Hone Heke
  • T. Lindsay Buick
  • Published online:
    05 April 2012
    Print publication:
    08 November 2011
    First published in:
    1926
  • Thomas Lindsay Buick (1865–1938) became interested in New Zealand history while working as a political journalist in Wellington, and became an influential figure in the field. He wrote twelve books and numerous pamphlets on the early history of the country and was elected Fellow of the Royal Historical Society in 1914. This book, first published in Wellington in 1926, describes one of the most significant conflicts in nineteenth-century New Zealand, the Flagstaff War (1845–6), in which European settlers and their Maori supporters fought those Maori who were resisting colonial encroachment. A key figure during the war was the Nga Puhi chief Hone Heke, from the Bay of Islands, who famously refused to acknowledge British sovereignty and repeatedly felled the British flagpole in Kororareka. Buick's account probes the complex relationships among the warring factions, describes the individual phases of the war, and explains how peace was eventually restored.

The History of New South Wales
  • With an Account of Van Diemen's Land [Tasmania], New Zealand, Port Phillip [Victoria], Moreton Bay, and Other Australian Settlements
  • Volume 2
  • Roderick Flanagan
  • Published online:
    05 April 2012
    Print publication:
    08 November 2011
    First published in:
    1862
  • Having arrived with his parents from Ireland in New South Wales in 1840 as a 'bounty emigrant', the young Roderick Flanagan (1828–62) quickly developed a passionate interest in his adopted country. Following an apprenticeship with a city printer, the educated and astute Flanagan worked for a number of Australia's early newspapers, including Melbourne's Daily News and the Sydney Morning Herald, where he acquired his distinctive, journalistic approach to history. Published shortly after his early death in London in 1862, Flanagan's two-volume chronicle of New South Wales represents a lifetime of research, and demonstrates the author's balanced and unpartisan approach to politics. Picking up the narrative in 1838, Volume 2 covers the campaign for the discontinuation of criminal transportation, the origin of the Elected Council, and the political and social character of neighbouring New Zealand. This volume concludes with appendices on the economic, geographic and agricultural status of the colony.

A History of Tasmania
  • From its Discovery in 1642 to the Present Time
  • James Fenton
  • Published online:
    05 April 2012
    Print publication:
    08 November 2011
    First published in:
    1884
  • James Fenton (1820–1901) was born in Ireland and emigrated to Tasmania (then known as Van Diemen's Land) with his family in 1833. He became a pioneer settler in an area on the Forth River and published this history of the island in 1884. The book begins with the discovery of the island in 1642 and concludes with the deaths of some significant public figures in the colony in 1884. The establishment of the colony on the island, and the involvement of convicts in its building, is documented. A chapter on the native aborigines gives a fascinating insight into the attitudes of the colonising people, and a detailed account of the removal of the native Tasmanians to Flinders Island, in an effort to separate them from the colonists. The book also contains portraits of some aboriginal people, as well as a glossary of their language.

The Daily Life and Origin of the Tasmanians
  • James Bonwick
  • Published online:
    05 April 2012
    Print publication:
    08 November 2011
    First published in:
    1870
  • James Bonwick (1817–1906) arrived in Tasmania, then Van Diemen's Land, in 1841, beginning an unstable and itinerant career as school-master, writer, and archivist. A zealous non-conformist and mystic, who was briefly in contact with Madame Blavatsky, Bonwick became interested in the plight of the Tasmanian aborigines after a visit to Flinders Island, to which the last of the nearly extinct population had been removed. Published in 1870, by which time Bonwick had become a fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, this book is a sympathetic anthropological study of indigenous Tasmanian culture and society, based on colonial records, interviews with early settlers and Bonwick's own experiences. The companion volume to The Last of the Tasmanians, which discussed the reasons for the extinction and was cited by Darwin in The Descent of Man, it provides important source material, as well as insight into the morally difficult subject of nineteenth-century anthropology.

The Treaty of Waitangi
  • How New Zealand Became a British Colony
  • T. Lindsay Buick
  • Published online:
    05 April 2012
    Print publication:
    08 November 2011
    First published in:
    1933
  • Thomas Lindsay Buick (1865–1938) became interested in New Zealand history while working as a political journalist in Wellington, and became an influential figure in the field. He went on to write twelve books and numerous pamphlets on the early history of the country and was elected a fellow of the Royal Historical Society in 1914. In this book Buick recounts the events leading up to the Treaty of Waitangi, the controversial document signed by British officials and Maori chiefs which ceded New Zealand to the British Empire in 1840. Buick claims that the need for a formal handover of authority to Britain arose from the rowdy misdeeds of sealers, whalers, and escaped convicts from Australia, who needed to be kept in check. The work was first published in 1914; the revised edition reissued here appeared in 1933, and a third edition was published in 1936.

Six Months among the Palm Groves, Coral Reefs, and Volcanoes of the Sandwich Islands
  • The Hawaiian Archipelago
  • Isabella Bird
  • Published online:
    05 April 2012
    Print publication:
    17 February 2011
    First published in:
    1875
  • Recommended an open-air life from an early age as a cure for physical and nervous difficulties, the indefatigable Isabella Bird (1831–1904) toured the United States and Canada, Hawaii, New Zealand, Australia, the Far East, India, Turkey, Persia and Kurdistan. Her accounts of her travels, written in the form of letters to her sister, were bestsellers. In 1875 she published her account of six months in the Hawaiian archipelago. During this time she explored the islands on horseback, visiting volcanos, climbing mountains, and living with the natives. The book includes considerable detail about the lifestyles, customs, and habits of the people she encountered, and of the geography and geology of the islands. Her enthusiasm for Hawaii and its people is evident from her vivid descriptions, but she disliked the restrictive atmosphere of the foreign settlements. The book includes outlines of the history and economy of the islands.

The History of the Island of Van Diemen's Land, from the Year 1824 to 1835 Inclusive
  • Henry Saxelby Melville
  • Published online:
    05 April 2012
    Print publication:
    03 November 2011
    First published in:
    1835
  • Van Diemen's Land was the name originally given to the island known today as Tasmania, Australia, and it was settled by the British in 1803 as a penal colony. Before writing this history of the island, the author, Henry Saxelby Melville (1799–1873), a journalist, was imprisoned in 1835 for contempt of court over an article he wrote about an ongoing trial. While experiencing the prison system at first hand, he completed this work, which examines the history of Van Diemen's Land, focusing on the period from 1824 to 1835, and offers harsh criticism of the colonial administration and penal reforms enacted by lieutenant-governor Colonel George Arthur (1784–1854). Melville also includes an essay of his views on the island's system of prison discipline. He initially had the book printed on the island, but later smuggled copies to London where it could be freely published and read.

Kennedy's Colonial Travel
  • A Narrative of a Four Years' Tour through Australia, New Zealand, Canada, etc.
  • David Kennedy, Jr
  • Published online:
    05 April 2012
    Print publication:
    08 November 2011
    First published in:
    1876
  • Published in 1876, this vivid, action-packed account describes the experiences of David Kennedy Jr (1849–85) as he toured the world with his musician father and family choir between 1872 and 1876 performing 'The Songs of Scotland'. Kennedy travelled through 'nearly every town and village in Australia, New Zealand and Canada', and over a three-year period wrote articles recording his impressions for publication in Edinburgh newspapers; this book is an edited and expanded compilation of those pieces. Kennedy describes places and events including Sydney Harbour, floods in Melbourne, the New Zealand volcanic country, a violent storm at sea, the cosmopolitan, frenetic atmosphere of San Francisco, the American trans-continental railway and a Canadian snowstorm. His closely observed vignettes of local society are particularly fine, and depict entertainments and pastimes, education and worship, and indigenous traditions as well as individuals such as innkeepers, stage-coach drivers, travellers, miners, and particularly his fellow Scots.

The Maori King
  • Or, The Story of our Quarrel with the Natives of New Zealand
  • J. E. Gorst
  • Published online:
    05 April 2012
    Print publication:
    08 November 2011
    First published in:
    1864
  • The British politician and lawyer Sir John Eldon Gorst (1835–1916) arrived in New Zealand in 1860, shortly after the outbreak of the Taranaki Wars (from 1860 onwards), with idealistic intentions of working with Bishop Selwyn and the Maori. He took on various governmental roles that required contact with the Maori, including those of school inspector, magistrate and, later, Civil Commissioner for the Waikato region, whose powerful chiefs had not signed the 1840 Treaty of Waitangi. In 1864 he published this book analysing the social and economic situation in New Zealand, the rapid deterioration of relations between Maori and Europeans (which he ascribes largely to errors and neglect on the part of the British administration) and Maori demands for self-government. He describes, often as an eye-witness, the complex political wrangling that took place, and sets out his own views about the past and future relations between the two ethnic groups.

Murihiku
  • A History of the South Island of New Zealand and the Islands Adjacent and Lying to the South, from 1642 to 1835
  • Robert McNab
  • Published online:
    05 April 2012
    Print publication:
    10 November 2011
    First published in:
    1909
  • Robert McNab (1864–1917), lawyer, politician, and historian, was one of the most prominent and influential of New Zealand's early intellectuals, renowned for his meticulous gathering of historical resources. The result of nine years of painstaking research, this book was developed from a series of articles on Southland history published in the newspaper Southern Standard in the late 1890s. Murihiku spans the history of European exploration and settlement in the South Island, from the voyages of Abel Tasman and Captain Cook to the arrival of the sealers, whalers, missionaries, and the early settlers in the years leading up the Treaty of Waitangi in 1840. The book was first published in 1905. After extensive research in archives in Australia, the USA, and Britain, McNab produced a more substantial edition in 1907. This third edition appeared in 1909. McNab was elected fellow of the Royal Geographical society in 1908.

The French at Akaroa
  • An Adventure in Colonization
  • T. Lindsay Buick
  • Published online:
    05 April 2012
    Print publication:
    08 November 2011
    First published in:
    1928
  • Thomas Lindsay Buick (1865–1938) became interested in New Zealand history while working as a political journalist in Wellington, and became an influential figure in the field. He went on to write twelve books and numerous pamphlets on the early history of the country and was elected a fellow of the Royal Historical Society in 1914. First published in Wellington in 1928, this work describes the history of Akaroa in the South Island, a small settlement on the Banks Peninsula founded by French settlers in 1840. In the same year, New Zealand became part of the British Empire, and much of Buick's account focuses on the interaction and disputes between the French and British settlers. The book, which was published under the auspices of the Board of Maori Ethnological Research, also includes the history of the local Maori tribes.

The History of New South Wales
  • With an Account of Van Diemen's Land [Tasmania], New Zealand, Port Phillip [Victoria], Moreton Bay, and Other Australian Settlements
  • Volume 1
  • Roderick Flanagan
  • Published online:
    05 April 2012
    Print publication:
    08 November 2011
    First published in:
    1862
  • Having arrived with his parents from Ireland in New South Wales in 1840 as a 'bounty emigrant', the young Roderick Flanagan (1828–62) quickly developed a passionate interest in his adopted country. Following an apprenticeship with a city printer, the educated and astute Flanagan worked for a number of Australia's early newspapers, including Melbourne's Daily News and the Sydney Morning Herald, where he acquired his distinctive, journalistic approach to history. Published shortly after his early death in London in 1862, Flanagan's two-volume chronicle of New South Wales represents a lifetime of research, and demonstrates the author's balanced and unpartisan approach to politics. Opening with Cook's voyage of 1770, early expeditions inland, and initial encounters with aboriginal peoples, Volume 1 covers the first sixty-eight years of European immigration, and the various political, criminal and military skirmishes that shaped the new colony.

Labour and Industry in Australia
  • From the First Settlement in 1788 to the Establishment of the Commonwealth in 1901
  • Volume 4
  • T. A. Coghlan
  • Published online:
    05 March 2012
    Print publication:
    02 May 2011
    First published in:
    1918
  • Sir Timothy Coghlan (1855–1926) was the statistician for New South Wales from 1886. He produced the world's first example of national financial accounts, and is regarded as Australia's first 'mandarin'. His advice was sought by state and federal governments on matters as diverse as tax, public sanitation and infant mortality. In 1905 he took up an appointment as a New South Wales government agent in London, remaining there for the rest of his life. First published in 1918, this monumental book is Coghlan's very personal history of Australia, embracing materials, population growth, trade and land. In Volume 4 Coghlan discusses in depth the foundation of the Australian Labor Party, which came after a series of devastating strikes in the 1890s. The recovery from depression and crisis, and the growing move towards federation, are also examined, alongside the recurrent themes of immigration, land and industry.

State Experiments in Australia and New Zealand
  • Volume 2
  • William Pember Reeves
  • Published online:
    05 March 2012
    Print publication:
    04 May 2011
    First published in:
    1902
  • William Pember Reeves' scholarly work of 1902 provides a full and candid account of radical and experimental laws in Australia and New Zealand. From the Anti-Chinese Acts of 1881 to the adoption of the women's franchise by the Commonwealth Parliament in Australia in 1902, the two volumes survey all noteworthy laws and statutes, addressing colonial questions of the time. Well-known for his history of New Zealand, The Long White Cloud (1898), the statesman Reeves (1857–1932) draws attention to admitted defects or failures in the laws without imposing his personal political views on the reader. Volume 2 covers areas including labour and factory laws, pensions, liquor and licensing laws and immigration issues. Overall, the two volumes represent an important record of the many reforms and changes occurring in the political and social systems of Australasia at this time.

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