The impact of British Imperialism on the Maori people of New Zealand in the 1860s

BRITISH IMPERIALISM 'S IMPACT ON THE MAORI

The effects of British imperial rule on New Zealand 's Maori people have left a mostly negative but also somewhat ambiguous legacy . During the 1860s , the British imposed undeniably harsh conditions on the Maori inflicted considerably violence on them , and marginalized them both politically and economically , but the Maori did not suffer to the same extent as other peoples

Even before 1840 's Treaty of Waitangi , which made New Zealand a Crown colony and theoretically granted equality to all Maori New Zealanders the British

dealt harshly with the islands ' native people . Whalers who settled there in the early nineteenth century treated the Maori brutally , and British settlers (many of whom created farms and sheep ranches on Maori land , which was often simply appropriated ) arrived ready to fight the Maori during the 1820s alone , says historian Tom Brooking , European-borne diseases and violence reduced the Maori population by roughly 40 percent , from 100 ,000 to about 60 ,000 . Though this was a far less drastic rate than seen in Australia 's anti-aborigine violence or the United States ' wars against Native Americans , it was theless slaughter on a significant scale

In the 1860s , the British ruthlessly suppressed Maori uprisings particularly between 1860 and 1872 . British settlers comprised a majority in New Zealand by 1860 and increasingly appropriated native lands , and the Maori , fearing that they would all of their communally-held territory , waged a long resistance that brought a brutal reaction from the Crown . 18 ,000 British...