Aureretanga: Groans of the Maoris

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.