Notes

In 1769 the Hauraki region was rich in resources - resources valuable to both inhabitant Maori and Europeans of the future. Timber and gold were easily accessible; a long coastline stretched from Waihi and Thames in the south past Auckland in the north; food was caught, grown and traded. HAURAKI CONTESTED tells the story of a vigourous Maori economy, interacting with settlers and the government at the then capital of Auckland. It traces also Maori resistance to colonisation, wars and debt, and the eventual loss and confiscation of vast acres of Maori land. By 1875 the riches of Hauraki were mostly in the hands of the newcomers: European settlers and their government. The book's earlier title - THIS IS MY PLACE: HAURAKI CONTESTED, 1769-1875 - aptly draws on the words of the resistance leader Te Hira Te Tuiri: 'This is my place, why do you seek after it?' His story is only one of many from both sides of the Hauraki 'frontier'.Leaders from different iwi, Pakeha traders, government officials: all are drawn as vividly as history will allow, as their actions impact on the Maori-Pakeha world of 1769-1875. HAURAKI CONTESTED, 1769-1875 weaves a detailed and subtle history from fragmentary evidence - government documents, shipping records, missionary journals and settler accounts. It is a story that yields no simple answers but takes the reader directly to the landscape and the people who lived in it through tumultuous change. That this was, for Maori, a period of loss and devastation is painfully demonstrated, in this careful account.