PAKEHA SLAVES MAORI MASTERS.

1. PĀKEHĀ
SLAVES
MĀORI
MASTERS
TRAFFICKING OF
EUROPEANS IN THE
19TH CENTURY NEW ZEALAND

2. PĀKEHĀ SLAVES
For Māori, the sailors, convicts,
missionaries, traders, whalers who
were captured were viewed as the
property of their chiefs and existed
primarily to serve their masters.
Trevor Bentley's new book, Pākehā
Slaves, Māori Masters, details the
slave trade in 1800s New Zealand
which, as he puts it, was "not
something that only white people did
to black people".
Children were also captured - often
in retaliation against Pākehā doing
the same.

3. KIDNAPPING MĀORI
Lawless sealing and whaling crews
frequently kidnapped Māori
women and girls and took them
to sea as sex and labour slaves
before abandoning them on Pacific
Islands and at the Australian ports.
As late as 1841, before sailing from
Otago, the crew of the French
whaleship Oriental carried off a
Māori woman and child by night
"for the captain's use".

4. CAROLINE PERRETT
Māori, on the other
hand, rarely
kidnapped Pākehā
settler women and
girls from their homes
during times of peace
and war with Pākehā.
One exception was
Caroline Perrett.
Caroline Perrett, aka Queenie or Kuīni, a Pākehā slave. Photo: Te Puke Ariki.

5. UTU/REVENGE
Following the kidnapping of a
Māori child by Pākehā at Taranaki
and destruction of Māori graves by
her father at Lepperton in 1874, 8-
year-old Caroline was kidnapped
from her parent's farm by a band
of dispossessed Māori seeking utu
(revenge).
Spirited away to the Northern gum
fields, her captors always remained
one step ahead of government and
private search parties.
Lepperton School Centennial, Group

6. BECOMING WHĀNGAI/ADOPTEE
Māori often adopted the children
of defeated enemy tribes.
Renamed Kuīni (Queenie), Caroline
became their whāngai (adoptee).
The men, woman and children of
her hapū shared the hard work
equally, but Caroline found her
initial treatment distressing and
the unfamiliar tasks of digging and
back-packing gum and provisions
exhausting.
Queenie (Kuini) as a whāngai.
https://www.geni.com/people/
Caroline-Queenie-Perrott/
6000000016110890511

7. ILL TREATMENT
She later said,
"They didn't treat me too kindly in those
days. I don't mean to say they beat me a
lot, or actually ill used me, but they were
harsh, and I had to do whatever they told
me ... Some of the women were not very
kind, and my life was not a happy one, but
I can't remember it very clearly ... Our
camp was 10 miles from this place [the
trading store], and when I was only a
child, I used to walk this distance with
about 60lb of gum in a sack. It was
backbreaking work ... A pīkau of gum is
not a light load for a girl, and I was not as
strong as they".
Maori Kauri gum diggers ready for a
day's work.

8. FAIR PAYMENT
Sensationalised newspaper reports portrayed her life as
one of tribulation and misery, akin to that of a slave.
Caroline recalled, however, a kindly Māori woman, her
matua kēkē, or stranger parent, who guided her as she
was assimilated into their world.
Though compelled to work hard like every child in the
hapū, Caroline's captors never exploited her labour for
their own gain.
She recalled,
"About one pound was allowed me each time I sold my gum,
the balance in accordance with Māori custom went toward
the camp food".

9. This woman is holding
the two most important
gum digging tools – the
spear and the Skelton
spade.
The spear was used to
probe the ground for
kauri gum, and an
experienced digger could
tell.
LEFT
The soil from swamps
was often washed
through screens, leaving
behind kauri gum chips,
small pieces of wood and
other debris. This was
heaped in a pile, usually
on top of a hill that was
exposed to sun and wind.
The gum chips would be
thrown in the air,
allowing the wind to
blow away the lighter
material – a process
called winnowing.
RIGHT

10. When diggers returned to
their huts, there was still
work to be done – the
tedious but necessary task
of scraping the oxidised
crust off the gum.
Unscraped kauri gum sold
for much less than scraped
gum. In the evenings by
candlelight, and on
Sundays, diggers would
use a knife to scrape off
the rind.
LEFT
These dead, standing kauri
trees on the Coromandel
Peninsula were probably
killed by the practice of
bleeding gum. As gum
became less common in the
ground, diggers started
collecting it from living
tree trunks.
Tree climbers would cut
the trees to bleed them,
returning months later for
the gum. Bleeding kauri
was banned in all state
forests in 1905, when it
became obvious that it was
killing many trees.
RIGHT

11. RECOGNISED IN WHAKATĀNE
Caroline bore the name Kuīni for 50 years,
during which she forgot her original
name. Recognised in 1926 (55 years later)
by her niece while standing with a group
of Māori women in the main street of
Whakatāne, Caroline chose to remain
with her Māori husband, children and
relatives. In the first interview following
her discovery, Caroline made the point
that she finally had a name and identity:
"I am content that the mystery of my birth
has been solved, and that I am no longer a woman
without a name".

12. RECOGNISED IN POVERTY BAY
In 1929, Mary Murray, a Poverty Bay settler, recalled a
"fair haired, white-skinned girl in her early twenties ... of
distinctly British parentage", who also may have been
kidnapped or abandoned among Māori as a child.
The young woman had previously lived "for years" at the
local pā and was well known to Europeans in the district.
Older Māori refused to discuss her origins and, like Kuīni
Perrett, she worked alongside her hapū, in this case
journeying from shed to shed with the gangs of Māori
shearers engaging in the work of fleece-picking with the
rest of the women.

13. MŌKAI/PET SLAVE
White female slaves continued to fetch much lower cash
prices than their white male counterparts in the post-
Treaty of Waitangi era.
Māori sellers and Pākehā buyers spoke of their trade in
female slaves as if they were buying and selling pigs.
The callousness of this process was evident in Auckland
during the early 1840s when two white female mōkai (pet
slave) were actually sold alongside their masters' pigs.

14. THE STORY CONTINUES
Some of the lowest cash prices were paid by butchers at
Auckland's meat market during the 1840s.
Among the Māori traders transporting agricultural produce
to the town's thriving markets aboard their sailing vessels
in 1842 was a Pākehā-Māori and his Pākehā female
companion.
They had sailed their little vessel to Auckland from the
distant East Coast to sell a cargo of pigs and potatoes.

15. A SALE FOR THE HISTORY
After a good deal of haggling with a butcher near the
corner of Shortland and High Sts, the Pākehā-Māori offered
to sell his pigs alive at 4 1/2 pence per pound, which was
agreed to by the butcher on two conditions.
Firstly, the Pākehā-Māori had to put his woman on the
scales with the pigs as part of the sale. Secondly, a sixth
part was to be deducted for offal from pigs and woman
alike.
The Pākehā-Māori agreed and the money was paid "down
on the nail". The sale, reported at the time as "singularly
novel and altogether unique in the history of social
economy", was followed by two further sales.

16. Missionary James Buller. Photo/National Library of New Zealand.

17. A SALE FOR THE HISTORY
At one Māori village in 1869, English missionary James
Buller found an 18-year-old "European lad" who refused to
leave his Māori whānau, as "He had lived with them from a
child".
It was not uncommon for babies born out of wedlock to
be abandoned by desperate Pākehā mothers near Māori
settlements, in the knowledge that, when found, the
children would be raised as whāngai or adoptees.
Others were directly handed over to Māori families to raise
and a 1909 law, prohibiting the adoption of Pākehā
children by Māori parents, was, in part, a response to this
practice.

18. JENNY
One female child found abandoned on the edge of the
Waitematā Harbour by a Māori trading party during the
1840s was named Jenny and raised as a whāngai among
her adoptive people on Waiheke Island.
In later years, several young men became smitten with
Jenny. Their quarrels over her so disrupted community life,
the elders decided that she should be returned to the
Pākehā world.
Twice, Jenny was taken to Auckland and left there. Twice,
she managed to find her way back to Waiheke, where the
quarrels continued.

19. SELLING JENNY
Recalling, perhaps, the sale of the Pākehā woman to the
Auckland butcher in 1842, the exasperated elders decided
to enslave and sell Jenny.
A Māori trading party loaded their living chattel and a
drove of pigs aboard two canoes and set off for Auckland.
After setting up camp near the town, a party of Pākehā
butchers arrived and offered to buy their pigs.
The Māori traders refused to sell unless the butchers also
bought their white slave.

20. JENNY MARRIED
After some haggling, one of the butchers agreed.
Like her predecessor, Jenny and the pigs were hung up on
steelyards, weighed and paid for at the rate of two pence,
half penny per pound.
After remaining with the butcher's family for two years,
Jenny was reported to have married "a fine, strapping
bushman".
She returned to Waiheke Island where she worked beside
her husband, "sawing in the pit as well as any man, and a
living very happily for years".
Whether the bushman was Pākehā, Maori or Pākehā-Māori
is not stated.

21. GEORGINA MEEN
The last-known white female slave sold in New Zealand
was Georgina Meen, an Englishwoman and former
Londoner.
Sold at Mangakahia in the Kaipara district in 1872, her
story is a poignant one.
When Mr DG Fraser, an Englishman, arrived in New
Zealand in 1870, his surveying work took him to many
remote districts.

22. GEORGINA MEEN MARRIED WIREMU POU
While surveying in Northland, his party arrived one
evening at a kainga [home] in Mangakahia and were
surprised to encounter among the party of welcoming
Māori, two Englishwomen, one of whom translated for the
visitors and their hosts.
The women were former Londoners, who had married the
tattooed chiefs Kamariera Te Hau Takari Wharepapa and
Wiremu Pou when they visited London with a travelling
show.

23. Wiremu Pou, pictured far left, married an Englishwoman who later became a slave. Photo/Alexander Turnbull Library

24. SOLD FOR 2.1 POUNDS
Accompanying their husbands back to New Zealand, the
women lived for 14 years among their husbands' hapū.
Mr Fraser stated that of the two Englishwomen, the
translator, Elizabeth Reid [married to Kamariera], "was of
a more refined nature and took her stand among the tribe".
Georgina, however, had become a slave following the death
of her husband Wiremu and had recently been sold to a
European bushman for the sum of £2.1.

25. SLAVE KIMBLE BENT
At Taranaki in 1864, the Hauhau warriors (of the Māori
religious movement) seized private Kimble Bent, who
deserted the British 57th Regiment after receiving 25
lashes for insubordination.
An American, Bent had run away to sea at 17 and served
three years in the American Navy before joining the 57th in
Liverpool in 1859 and seeing action in India.
Bent was seized at a time when the Taranaki tribes were
engaged in a brutal guerrilla war with British, colonial
and kūpapa Māori troops.

26. Pākehā slave Kimble Bent.
Photo/Alexander Turnbull Library.
New Zealand writer James Cowan.
Photo/Alexander Turnbull Library.

27. THE DESERTER
The deserter was harshly treated for months, his
conditions only improving when he proved adept at making
cartridges and repairing the muskets and pistols of his
Ngāti Ruanui and Ngāti Ruahine masters.
Bent recalled, "I lived exactly like a Māori, worked like a
n*****, and always went about bare-footed." He was also
compelled to work in the plantations and helped to
construct ditches and palisades for the fortifications.

28. JAMES COWAN
Following an interview with the deserter during the 1890s,
New Zealand writer James Cowan wrote:
"Now began for the runaway an even harder life than that
which he had endured in the army. He found that he was
virtually a slave amongst the Māoris.
He had had fond imaginings of the easy time he would enjoy
in the heart of Māoridom, but to quote from his own lips,
'they made me work like a blessed dog'.

29. TITO THE MASTER
"Soon after his arrival at the pā ... he was set to work
felling bush, clearing and digging, gathering firewood, and
hauling water for the camp.
Tito was his master – not only his master, but in fact his
owner, with power of life and death over him. Bent divined
the Māori nature too well to refuse "fatigue duty," as he
had done at the Manawapou [military] camp.
There would be no court martial in Taiporohenui – just a
crack on the head with a tomahawk. So he bent his back to
the burdens.

30. TITO THE MASTER
"Soon after his arrival at the pā ... he was set to work
felling bush, clearing and digging, gathering firewood, and
hauling water for the camp.
Tito was his master – not only his master, but in fact his
owner, with power of life and death over him. Bent divined
the Māori nature too well to refuse "fatigue duty," as he
had done at the Manawapou [military] camp.
There would be no court martial in Taiporohenui – just a
crack on the head with a tomahawk. So he bent his back to
the burdens.

31. Link: https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12241815
Based on the article “The Pakeha slaves taken by Maori” published in New Zealand Herald on 30 June 2019.