The Aotearoa History Show - Episode 3 | Early Encounters

Summary

The transcript summarizes the early encounters between Māori and European explorers in New Zealand. It describes the first meeting in 1642 between Māori and Dutch explorer Abel Tasman, which ended in violence. Over 100 years later, British explorer James Cook made contact and developed greater cultural understanding through a Tahitian translator. However, Cook also introduced new diseases and sparked the devastating Musket Wars by bringing guns to New Zealand. Missionaries later came, converting some Māori to Christianity but suppressing aspects of Māori culture. By 1840, Māori outnumbered Europeans in NZ 40:1, but a partnership between cultures was disrupted as Europeans came to dominate.

Takeaways

• 😲 In 1642, Abel Tasman was the first European to arrive in New Zealand but his initial encounter with Māori was hostile
• 👥 James Cook later established more peaceful relations between Europeans and Māori in 1769
• 🔫 The introduction of muskets by Europeans contributed to devastating intertribal Māori conflicts dubbed 'the Musket Wars'
• 🥔 Potatoes introduced by Europeans fueled population growth enabling larger war parties during this period
• ☠️ Intertribal conflicts and European diseases caused massive fatalities, killing 10-30% of the Māori population
• ✝️ Missionaries converted some Māori to Christianity but also suppressed Māori culture
• 😷 European ships introduced diseases like tuberculosis and gonorrhea to New Zealand
• 🐖 Pigs, potatoes and other introduced species fundamentally altered traditional Māori lifestyle
• 💰 By the 1840s, Māori were profiting from trade with Europeans and acquiring European technologies
• 🏴 In the next episode, the establishment of New Zealand as a British colony is explained

Q & A

What was the nature of the first encounter between Māori and Europeans?

The first encounter was hostile. Māori warriors paddled out to challenge Tasman's ships, blowing conch shell trumpets. Tasman's crew responded by firing cannon shots, which the Māori saw as accepting their challenge to battle. Fighting broke out the next day, resulting in deaths on both sides before Tasman sailed away.

How was James Cook's interaction with Māori different from Abel Tasman's?

Cook came with more peaceful intentions, bringing a Tahitian translator to communicate. There was some trading and learning of each other's cultures. However, there were still misunderstandings and violent incidents between Cook's crew and Māori.

What were some of the major impacts of Europeans on Māori in the early period of contact?

Europeans introduced new animals, plants, technologies, and diseases to Māori. Pigs, potatoes, metal tools, and muskets had major impacts on Māori lifestyle and warfare. Diseases like syphilis and tuberculosis caused population decline.

What factors contributed to the devastating Musket Wars among Māori tribes?

The introduction of muskets combined with the increased food production from potatoes allowed tribes to support larger war parties and raids. Old grievances were settled with this new technology, setting off waves of conflict.

What was the role of missionaries in this early contact period?

Missionaries aimed to convert Māori to Christianity. They had mixed success, but provided literacy education, helped build peace between tribes, and sometimes participated in the musket trade. They also suppressed elements of traditional culture.

How did Māori relate to European traders and settlers prior to 1840?

There was a two-way exchange happening. Māori encouraged Europeans to live among them, trade with them, and provide technology. Māori were in control, making decisions about where Europeans could live and who they could trade with.

What signs were there that Māori were adopting European technologies in this period?

Some Māori acquired European ships for trade, started using plows and flour mills, bought shares in sailing vessels. They seemed to be harnessing European tech while retaining control over their own society.

Why didn't the early contact period lead to an equal partnership between Māori and European settlers?

Within just a couple decades, European settlement and political control increased dramatically. What had been more two-way exchanges eventually turned into colonial domination as the 19th century progressed.

What happened in the encounter between Māori invaders and the Moriori people of the Chatham Islands?

A Māori war party conquered the Moriori using their muskets, and proceeded to enslave the existing population. The Moriori were a peaceful people unable to resist the armed invaders.

What shift does the next episode suggest is coming in New Zealand history after 1840?

The script hints that European domination increased, the partnership ended, and New Zealand shifted from independent Māori control into becoming a colony.

Outlines

00:00

😯 First Encounter with Europeans

In 1642, Abel Tasman and his crew from the Dutch East India Company arrived in Golden Bay, New Zealand on two large, unfamiliar ships. This was the first encounter between Maori and Europeans. The Maori warriors paddled out to challenge the intruders as per custom. When Tasman's crew responded by firing cannons, the Maori saw it as an act of war. Violent conflict followed over the next two days, resulting in deaths on both sides. This encounter did not have any serious or lasting cultural impact.

05:01

🌎 James Cook's Voyages and Early Exchanges

In 1769, the British navigator James Cook arrived in New Zealand on an exploratory scientific mission also aimed at claiming new territory for Britain. With the help of Tahitian navigator Tupaia, Cook traded with Maori, introduced new species, and made territorial claims. There were some violent skirmishes between Cook's crew and Maori. Over three voyages, Cook left a lasting impact through animals, plants, technologies, and diseases exchanged. This set the stage for further European incursions.

10:02

🔫 The Musket Wars and Early Colonial Economy

In the 1810s-1830s, Ngapuhi chief Hongi Hika acquired hundreds of muskets from Europeans and waged devastating raids on other tribes, triggering large-scale tribal conflicts known as the Musket Wars. The wars caused massive casualties and disruption. The potato's introduction had also boosted food supplies, enabling larger war parties. Some tribes invited Europeans to live among them to facilitate musket trade and peace deals. By the 1840s, a bustling early colonial economy saw Maori utilising European tech but still largely controlling trade.

Keywords

💡colonization

The process by which a foreign power takes control over another region or people. The script discusses how European colonization of the Americas set the stage for later colonization of New Zealand. It was driven by a quest for new resources and trade combined with a sense of cultural superiority.

💡muskets

A type of gun introduced to Maori by Europeans. The muskets allowed tribes like Ngapuhi to completely overpower their traditional enemies, leading to the devastating Musket Wars that killed up to 30% of the Maori population.

💡missionaries

Christians sent to convert native peoples to Christianity. Missionaries in NZ worked to stop the Musket Wars but also suppressed elements of Maori culture and promoted colonial attitudes.

💡British colonization

The process by which Britain took control of New Zealand, began with explorers like Cook and later mass settlement. The script contrasts early hopes for partnership between Maori and British with later colonial domination.

💡Abel Tasman

A Dutch explorer who made first European contact with Maori in 1642. His brief visit had little lasting impact compared to later colonizers like Cook.

💡James Cook

A British naval captain whose voyages mapped much of the Pacific and made sustained contact between Europeans and Maori. His reports paved the way for later colonization.

💡musket wars

A series of devastating conflicts in the 1820s-1830s triggered by Maori acquisition of muskets from Europeans. These conflicts killed up to 30% of the Maori population.

💡technology transfer

The spread of European technologies like muskets, ships, plows and mills to Maori society. Some prosperity but also dependency on trade and vulnerability to colonization.

💡partnership

The early hopes from some Maori and Europeans for an integrated society based on trade and cultural exchange. Undermined by later trends towards colonial domination.

💡cultural suppression

The damage done to Maori cultural practices like tattoos and carvings due to European missionary attitudes. Part of wider pattern of suppressing indigenous identity.

Highlights

In 1642, Abel Tasman became the first European to sight New Zealand, but his initial encounter with Māori did not go well.

Māori had an established protocol for greeting strangers that involved threats and challenges to avoid being seen as weak.

Tasman's crew responded to Māori threats by firing cannons, which Māori interpreted as accepting their challenge to battle.

Tasman's visit had little lasting impact. It was over 100 years before Europeans returned to New Zealand.

James Cook's official mission was scientific, but he also had secret orders to claim new lands for Britain.

Interactions between Cook's crew and Māori were not always peaceful, with shootings and killings on both sides.

Cook introduced new animals, plants and diseases to New Zealand that had a huge impact on Māori society.

The introduction of muskets from Europe helped trigger the devastating Musket Wars between Māori tribes.

The potato's introduction was also a factor, allowing tribes to feed more warriors to keep fighting longer.

The Musket Wars killed up to 30% of Māori and redrew tribal boundaries and alliances.

Some Māori developed closer ties with Europeans, using them to acquire muskets or act as neutral peace negotiators.

Missionaries succeeded in introducing literacy but worked to suppress Māori culture, causing long-term damage.

By the 1840s, Māori were profiting from trade and integrating new technologies, seeming to move towards partnership.

In 1840 Māori still greatly outnumbered Europeans and largely controlled contact and trade.

Over the next 60 years European settlement and authority would come to dominate New Zealand.

Transcripts

in 1642 a group of natty to magical

kitty saw something no Maori had ever

seen before sitting off the coast of

their home in Golden Bay were a pair of

giant triple masted sailing ships they

belonged to the Dutch East India Company

under the command of Abel Tasman tamati

these ships must have seemed bizarre the

people on board looked pretty weird too

pale skin

strange clothes in completely new

technology what happened next is well

let's just say that Maori Party our

relations did not get off to a great

start

I'm Lee madam in mcLaughlin and I'm

William ray welcome to the LT Aurora

history show

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last episode we talked about the

evolution of Maori culture in Altered or

400 years worth of cultural and

technological revolution over those same

four hundred years Europeans were going

through their own revolutions the

Christian reformation the Renaissance

Wars plagues political turmoil a complex

combination of historical forces kicked

off an age of European exploration and

technical logical innovation and

scientific discovery which often went

hand in hand with the colonization

exploitation and oppression of non

Europeans by the time Abel Tasman turned

up a not here door the colonization of

the American continent was well underway

and the Atlantic slave trade has been

running for more than a hundred years

but the Maori who sought hasman ships

arriving on their coastline didn't know

about any of this we should say all we

have to go on for this encounter as

Tesman diary because no oral traditions

of this meeting have survived from the

Maori side so according to Tasman - raka

full of ERT - matically warriors peddled

out to challenge the intruders they

chanted and blew on Twitter today which

are trumpets made from conch shells this

was standard protocol for greeting

strangers make yourself look as

threatening as possible and challenge

the newcomers to a fight so they don't

assume you're an easy target the

newcomers were supposed to respond with

a series of ritual greetings to

establish they came in peace but Tesla's

crew responded by sounding the own

trumpets then firing a blast of fire

smoke from the cannon the Dutch

explorers assumed this was all just a

friendly greeting

they brought their ships closer to shore

hoping they could trade with Maori for

supplies but in the minds of Matthew to

mattock or Kitty the signals were

obvious the strangers had accepted the

challenge the next step was war the next

day another Walker filled with 92 month

ago Kitty warriors attacked a small boat

which was varying people between the two

sailing ships killing four of Tasman

sailors then they seemed to had a fleet

of worker two priests their attack but

the Dutch had powers 90 - matakohe curry

had never seen here's how Tessman

described what happened

eleven Walker swarming with men came

toward us we kept quiet until some of

the first were within shot

we fired one or two shots from the

Gunners room but without effect the Z

hey Maya - and hurt in the largest

Walker one man who stood with a white

flag in his hand so that he fell down

the Walker quickly rode back to shore

and Tesman ship sailed away this was the

first meeting between Marty and

Europeans not exactly the best start but

we have to remember how alien these two

cultures were Maori had no frame of

reference for people outside of New

Zealand it was hard to imagine people

who didn't understand the nuances of

ceremonial warnings in peaceful

greetings so in their context you can

understand why eighty-two matically

responded to the Dutch with violence

Abel Tasman didn't stay in out here or

long he sailed along the west coast of

the North Island and traced a ragged

line on his map he didn't know if what

he'd found was an island or the edge of

a giant continent later a famous map

maker gave a label to that line of coast

Nova Zealandia aka

New Zealand this first encounter seems

like a really big deal from today's

perspective because eventually I'll - I

was colonized by Europeans but really

Tesman visit didn't have any serious

impact on Maori or Europeans he didn't

leave behind any introduced animals or

tools he only interacted with one small

group of Maori and he didn't stick

around long enough for those moldy to

learn anything about the European world

it was more than a hundred years before

Maori saw another European and this was

a totally different story to test men on

October 6th 1769 British Navy lefthand

and James Cook arrived in all Teodoro

aboard a ship the HMS endeavour cook's

official mission was scientific his job

was to explore the Pacific and make

observations of the transit of Venus as

part of a project to work out the

distance from the earth to the Sun but

he had another secret mission many

Europeans thought they must be a giant

continent in the southern hemisphere to

balance out all of the land in the north

you can even see this imaginary

continent marked on old maps as

Terra Australis incognita the unknown

southern land quarks orders were to

discover this unknown land and try to

claim at least part of it for Great

Britain you are with the consent of the

natives to take position of convenient

situations in the country in the name of

the king of Great Britain or if you find

the country uninhibited take position

for his majesty Cook made three voyages

into the Pacific he never managed to

find the great southern continent

because it didn't exist but he did

manage to make the islands of New

Zealand on his first voyage Cooke

recruited a Tahitian chief called true

paya as an expert navigator tip I could

speak to Maori in the own language so he

was often able to negotiate peacefully

with sunlit surf win Lua he have to

organised trading and allowed cooking

his crew to better understand Maori

culture but that does not mean that

Cook's interactions with Marty were

always peaceful the log books and

Diaries of his expeditions described

several shootings of Maori people and

out here or including some fatal

shootings kookiness crew perceived some

of these shootings as self-defense

because they thought Maori were acting

aggressively towards them of course from

a Maori perspective the endeavor started

the aggression by invading their

territory so they were the ones acting

in self-defense some of the shootings

actually didn't have anything to do with

self-defense

sometimes Cook screws shot at Maori

because they thought they were stealing

from them all because they wanted Maori

to stop rowing the worker away from the

ship toward the end of first

voyage he walked up to the top of a hill

in Queen Charlotte Sound raised the

Union Jack and claims possession of the

surrounding area for Great Britain at

the end of his first and second voyage

Cook also wrote reports with details of

New Zealand's natural resources huge

trees which would make good timber to

repair ships flex for making ropes lots

of whales and seals around the coast

these were the first steps towards

British colonisation James Cook's food

trip to New Zealand was his last he was

killed in Hawaii after his crew got into

a dispute with local indigenous people

but he lived the lasting impression on

Altera where

he introduced animals like pigs and ship

rats plants like the potato and the

sailors introduced diseases like

tuberculosis gonorrhea and syphilis if

that was the last interaction Marty had

with Europeans it would still have been

an enormous change pigs and potatoes

became major sources of Chi for Maori

while the new diseases caused

infertility and stillbirth but this was

only the beginning the next major wave

of European visitors began and the 18

teens at first these were well as in

sealers who see that bases along the

coast trading with Maori for supplies

and sometimes offering them work aboard

these ships then the British set up

prison colonies in Australia and from

the 1820s there was a steady stream of

ships carrying potatoes import from hapu

and the bay of islands to hungry

settlers in New South Wales and return

for food MALDI got lots of cool stuff

like middle tools and cotton clothing

and also lots of less cool stuff like

tobacco alcohol and muskets the

introduction of muskets helped trigger

the most devastating series of conflicts

and New Zealand's history the musket was

traditionally Maori Wolfie was

widespread that small-scale the fighting

was hand-to-hand using weapons like

midair Pat so Anthea ha battles usually

involved a few hundred warriors on

either side at most and often ended

without many people being killed the

musket Wars though were very different

they began with the famous Ngapuhi learn

that cedar Hong ichika he was a skilled

diplomat and an astute tactician any of

the ambition to settle old scores with

new technology he bought hundreds of

muskets from European traders and need

thousands of warriors and raids against

his enemies the tribes who knew he get

attacked responded by buying the own

muskets the nature and the accounts on

tribes fear the south who were still

using traditional weapons but before we

get too worked up about muskets let's

acknowledge another big contributor to

the musket wars the potato your average

spud is the original superfood it's

super easy to grow and store and it's

jam-packed with carbohydrates and

micronutrients when

taters were brought to Europe from South

America and the 1500s they ended famines

all across the continent and contributed

to skyrocketing populations in all

Teodoro Maori were quick to replace

kumara with potatoes as their staple

crop kumara might be delicious but they

are tricky to grow in our climate and

they rot quickly unless they're stored

very carefully growing potatoes meant

Marty could feed a lot more warriors and

those warriors could fight for a lot

longer without running out of food in

fact potatoes were so important to Maori

warfare that some historians have

suggested renaming the musket wars as

the potato wars whatever you call them

these wars were devastating in they

spread all over altaira natty sward

traveled cells from Coffea it made war

on the tribes around karpati Wellington

and parts of the South Island Mattie

Tama and natty moo tuna used a European

ship to sail all the way from Wellington

to the Chatham Islands where they

conquered and enslaved the peaceful

moriori people had settled there

hundreds of years earlier the war's only

ended in the late 1830s once all Maori

had access to guns and there were no

more easy victories to behead by the

inner combination of war and introduced

disease had killed somewhere between 10

and 30 percent of the Maori population

the wars redrew the boundaries of tribal

authority and created all kinds of new

alliances and feuds it's hard to

overemphasize how disruptive these wars

were for Maori and part of that

disruption involved a much closer

relationship with Europeans Maori often

encouraged Europeans to live among them

to help them buy muskets sometimes these

were escaped convicts from Australia or

sailors who jump ship to live among

Maori sometimes they were missionaries

missionaries had come to our Teodor to

civilize Mardy by converting them to

Christianity initially Marty were not

particularly keen to convert but the

missionaries did have some successes

Maori were very keen to learn reading

and writing from missionaries hungee he

came in another Ngapuhi donut eater

called Waikato traveled all the way to

the UK to help develop a Maori alphabet

in the first written Dictionary of

Tyrael

most Northland and Latina refused to

convert to Christianity but they still

encouraged missionaries to live with

them so long as they helped buy and

repair guns the missionaries were pretty

uneasy about this particularly when they

saw the enormous death tolls those guns

were inflicting so while some

missionaries participated in the musket

trade some also worked to stop the

bloodshed and they were at least partly

successful the Christian message of

forgiveness offered Maori a way to avoid

the demands of a chav without

diminishing the manor is missionaries

gain status amongst Maori they could be

used as neutral intermediaries to

organize peace deals but missionaries

also did long lasting damage to

traditional Maori culture which they

often described as barbaric or sinful

missionaries two-faced Maori artwork

they chopped the genitals of carvings

and preached against the practice of

Tamil core some modern Maori activists

and academics think Maori were also

totally accepting of taku taku II it's

an umbrella term for lesbian gay trans

and non-binary people until the

machinery steeped in the missionaries

kicked off a long history of suppression

of Maori culture which has only started

to be reversed in recent times but back

then Maori were still in control in 1940

Maori outnumbered parka hair by 40 to 1

I'm latina we're making decisions about

where Parker could live who they traded

with and how they should behave and

after the musket was ended Mari society

started to bounce back trade got more

and more profitable and by the 1840s and

50s those profits were being reinvested

into new technologies like iron plows

and mills for grinding flour some Maori

even bought shares in European ships so

they can make even more profit from

trade some Parker was settling down in

Maori villages and living according to

thickener Maori you could see a future

where Maori were able to harness

European technology on the anton's

a genuine partnership where Europeans

integrated and for Maori societies but

that's not how New Zealand's history

played out over the next 60 years

Europeans would come to dominate all

Tara and Maori would be forced to

integrate into their coal

what started off as a partnership would

soon become a colony in the next episode

we'll see how that process began

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