AHC: British New Zealand Remains Maori-Majority

Today, Maoris in New Zealand make up about 15% of the country's population. They are relatively well off, although somewhat societally disadvantaged. On average, Maori are a little poorer and shorter-lived than other New Zealanders. Nevertheless, they are a powerful voting bloc and have strong rights based on the 1840 Treaty of Waitangi, which remains in effect to this day.

Your challenge is to make the New Zealand of 2012 a Maori-majority state, while still keeping it a British colony well into the 20th century, just as OTL. Bonus points if you avoid structuring the country as a white minority ruling over a Maori majority (a la South Africa) and extra bonus points if you make the country even richer than it is today (difficult, since it's a very rich country already).

I've always had an affinity for New Zealand, and I'd love to see where you guys take this!

Cheers,
Ganesha
 
There would be quite a few ways of doing this I would think.

However, the following needs to be considered:

There is no way to mitigate some of the demographic collapse that has happens to the Maori. They will still be impacted by disease, internal warfare and possible external warfare. Then, there may well be some for of land alienation anyway which makes it harder to recover.

It does not take much immigration to demographically overtake Maori. If that isn't British, then it may be someone else.

Anyway, here is a broad sketch of an idea

Early on, around the settlement of the First Fleet in NSW, Europe agrees formally that NZ is British controlled. Something, somehow, that means that Britain does not need to worry about asserting sovereignty again later on, for fear of other countries making a claim.

NZ Maori continues to trade with NSW/the Australian British colonies, settlers arrive, but not too many and the new tools, crops etc start to take effect in stabilising and growing the population.

The United Tribes movement is not supplanted by the Treaty. No formal colonial government is instituted and no mass settlement begins in the 1850s in the North Island. The United Tribes develops a recognised government/parliament that is largely effective in acting as legitimate voice of NI/other Maori

The British settler communites are still planted in Christchurch and Dunedin. Gold is still found. Settlement still occurs.

The Settlers form two provinces but are not allowed to by the British government to start exploiting the NI as per OTL. So they must mediate with local tribes and develop around the initial port towns. These towns are under British rather than settler governance.

Perhaps one of the NI Tribes starts to settle the Upper/central South Island. This claim is some how recognised by Britain/other tribes?

The South Island British provinces form a united entity and join the discussions with the other Australasian colonies. They then form a federation.

The United Tribes, with a substantial British minority and British Resident/force gradually consolidate into a recognisable state.

Various big wars occur which involve both the *Australasia and *United Tribes as part of, or associated with the Empire.

Britain seeks to retreat from this kind of direct Empire and encourages the UT to form some sort of association with *Australasia that is not unification
 
Is there any way to get low-density settlement - for instance, most of NZ divided into a few huge sheep-raising estates, a few port towns but no real cities, and the Maori living everywhere that isn't being used to raise sheep? I'm thinking something like Punta Arenas in the late nineteenth century.

I assume the trick would be to have a few influential sheep barons stake claims to all the land before the yeoman farmers show up. Any idea who they might be, or if such a thing was even possible?
 
It would be extremely difficult to have a white minority-ruled state al a South Africa in New Zealand. First of all, the Maori were seen as a type of 'noble savage', and were often called the 'handsome natives'. They weren't seen as alien as Negros in Africa. The Maori had built a relatively advanced communal culture, far more so than the other Polynesian peoples, including the Hawaiians.

It's possible to give New Zealand, or at least the North Island, a Maori majority. What is difficult, though, is keeping the South Island as majority Maori. The South Island is very attractive to British settlers when gold is found, and the Canterbury plain is good for agriculture. Christchurch is the main city there, and its the second largest in New Zealand, after only Auckland. The only sizeable tribe there is Ngai Tahu, which controls lots of land, but has a relatively small population.

Julius Vogel, what do you mean by 'NI' tribes?

The Maori population experienced a boom after the introduction of potatoes (at the time, kumara/sweet potato were about the size of a thumb), due to the larger number of available calories. If the potato is introduced by the first settlers, we can see the Maori trading with them (almost all colonies were dependent on trade with the Maori) for potatos. I imagine that growing potatoes would be similar to growing kumara, so the Maori would already have a high level of expertise.

It is questionable whether the Nga Puhi, the most Northern, populous and warlike tribe, signed the Treaty of Waitangi (Te Tiriti o Waitangi) and they tended to have a fierce independent streak. Perhaps an analogue to the Musket Wars takes place, with the Nga Puhi winning before many significant tribes can get European weapons? A more centralised, powerful Maori authority would likely be able to weaken direct British control, even if de jure being British-controlled.

BTW, the Maori were affected by foreign diseases, but it seems not to the extend of Native Americans (which seems bizarre, Polynesians had no contact with any non-tropical diseases)

"Is there any way to get low-density settlement - for instance, most of NZ divided into a few huge sheep-raising estates, a few port towns but no real cities, and the Maori living everywhere that isn't being used to raise sheep? I'm thinking something like Punta Arenas in the late nineteenth century.

I assume the trick would be to have a few influential sheep barons stake claims to all the land before the yeoman farmers show up. Any idea who they might be, or if such a thing was even possible?" - Jonathan Edelstein


This sort of happened OTL. In many areas, absentee landlords took prime farming land, with Maori living elsewhere. And even now, in most places outside of the major urban centres, there are lots of people who classify themselves as "NZ European", when they clearly are of partial Maori descent.
 
*snip*

This sort of happened OTL. In many areas, absentee landlords took prime farming land, with Maori living elsewhere. And even now, in most places outside of the major urban centres, there are lots of people who classify themselves as "NZ European", when they clearly are of partial Maori descent.

How big is this population? Would it be possible for an earlier Maori identity movement to sweep these folks up as well, and have them count themselves as Maori?

Was there much intermarriage during the colonial period? And how about now? Is their intermarriage, or do the communities remain separate?

Cheers,
Ganesha
 
It would be extremely difficult to have a white minority-ruled state al a South Africa in New Zealand. First of all, the Maori were seen as a type of 'noble savage', and were often called the 'handsome natives'. They weren't seen as alien as Negros in Africa. The Maori had built a relatively advanced communal culture, far more so than the other Polynesian peoples, including the Hawaiians.

It's possible to give New Zealand, or at least the North Island, a Maori majority. What is difficult, though, is keeping the South Island as majority Maori. The South Island is very attractive to British settlers when gold is found, and the Canterbury plain is good for agriculture. Christchurch is the main city there, and its the second largest in New Zealand, after only Auckland. The only sizeable tribe there is Ngai Tahu, which controls lots of land, but has a relatively small population.

Julius Vogel, what do you mean by 'NI' tribes?

The Maori population experienced a boom after the introduction of potatoes (at the time, kumara/sweet potato were about the size of a thumb), due to the larger number of available calories. If the potato is introduced by the first settlers, we can see the Maori trading with them (almost all colonies were dependent on trade with the Maori) for potatos. I imagine that growing potatoes would be similar to growing kumara, so the Maori would already have a high level of expertise.

It is questionable whether the Nga Puhi, the most Northern, populous and warlike tribe, signed the Treaty of Waitangi (Te Tiriti o Waitangi) and they tended to have a fierce independent streak. Perhaps an analogue to the Musket Wars takes place, with the Nga Puhi winning before many significant tribes can get European weapons? A more centralised, powerful Maori authority would likely be able to weaken direct British control, even if de jure being British-controlled.

BTW, the Maori were affected by foreign diseases, but it seems not to the extend of Native Americans (which seems bizarre, Polynesians had no contact with any non-tropical diseases)

"Is there any way to get low-density settlement - for instance, most of NZ divided into a few huge sheep-raising estates, a few port towns but no real cities, and the Maori living everywhere that isn't being used to raise sheep? I'm thinking something like Punta Arenas in the late nineteenth century.

I assume the trick would be to have a few influential sheep barons stake claims to all the land before the yeoman farmers show up. Any idea who they might be, or if such a thing was even possible?" - Jonathan Edelstein


This sort of happened OTL. In many areas, absentee landlords took prime farming land, with Maori living elsewhere. And even now, in most places outside of the major urban centres, there are lots of people who classify themselves as "NZ European", when they clearly are of partial Maori descent.

North Island (NI), any Iwi that is principally based in the North Island and I guess the Nelson/Tasman district
 
North Island (NI), any Iwi that is principally based in the North Island and I guess the Nelson/Tasman district

Sorry, Julius Vogel, I don't understand what you're responding to here. What question is it that has the answer "North Island"?

Cheers,
Ganesha
 
How big is this population? Would it be possible for an earlier Maori identity movement to sweep these folks up as well, and have them count themselves as Maori?

Was there much intermarriage during the colonial period? And how about now? Is their intermarriage, or do the communities remain separate?

Cheers,
Ganesha

The size of the population is extremely hard to determine, considering that they answer polls as "NZ European". But most of the people I know who are considered "Pakeha" (A generic term pretty much meaning 'Western Europeans', but extending to all 'White' people (btw, I hate that term, it has its origins in what is pretty much a slur)) are aware of some Maori ancestry, even if you couldn't tell by looking at them. Anyway, the amount of people of mixed descent is large.

During the colonial period, there was a relatively high amount of intermarriage, because of the lack of European women, but this decreased in the long term, as more Brits settled in New Zealand. It really depends on the areas. In the South Island, there was very little, because there were very little Maori. In the North Island, however, there was quite a lot, especially in rural areas. For example, most of the earliest Croatian immigrants, who settled in Northland, were young men who married Maori women, and their offspring are known as Tarara-Maori (Tarara being the term for Yugoslavs, also comes from a slur, apparently Serbo-Croat sounds like "ta, ra, ra").

The communities are not separate for the most part. Whilst its less common for Maori to live in well-off areas, it doesn't raise any eyebrows. And only a relatively small group of Maori live on, or frequent, maraes. There are now very high rates of intermarriage, and even higher of sexual relationships, during the teenage years to the mid 20s. It usually isn't looked down upon. It is notable however that Maori boy - European girl is far more common than Maori girl - European boy, although the second is not considered particularly strange.

Intermarriage with Pacific Islanders is subject to the same way of thinking for the most part, though is slightly more likely to be looked down upon than intermarriage with Maori.
 
Is there any way to get low-density settlement - for instance, most of NZ divided into a few huge sheep-raising estates, a few port towns but no real cities, and the Maori living everywhere that isn't being used to raise sheep? I'm thinking something like Punta Arenas in the late nineteenth century.

I assume the trick would be to have a few influential sheep barons stake claims to all the land before the yeoman farmers show up. Any idea who they might be, or if such a thing was even possible?

That might work I think. They actually existed IRL, to a certain extent. One of my ancestors made a fair bit of money breaking up these estates/runs into smaller units for resale to smaller settlers.

These large runs or estates did not fully dissolve till after the 1880s though, by which time there had already been quite substantial population settled. Something like half a million British by the 1880s iirc.

Anyway, a lot of the High Country of the South Island was and is leasehold, then the river flats, coastal plains and foothills tend to be freehold. Some of these big land barons owned tends of thousands of acres of the latter an hundreds of thousands of acres of the latter. According to figures I've seen the top 1% of the landowners held 78% of the lands of the South Island vy 1890. After that, things rapidly changed, for economic and government reasons.

One particular person was Robert Campbell, who eventually had about 300k acres under his control. He lived not far from where I grew up and you can get a picture of his wealth by looking at the below picture, given this was colonial NZ! He was educated in Eton too, having had a proper Home Counties up bringing, before being sent to NZ to build and administer commercial interests in land

It certainly is an outlier in North Otago, or at least, one of about three or big estate style houses. The North Otago I grew up in was structured around farms that ranged between 500-10,000 acres, with the larger usually being High Country runs with little carrying capacity. So largely, family farms.

http://www.teara.govt.nz/en/1966/campbell-robert/1

the_home_for_defective_boys_at_otekaike_formerly_t_1162994947.jpg
 
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