The Fate of the Land Ko nga Akinga a nga Rangatira: Maori Political Struggle in the Liberal Era 1891-1912

Description

In the second half of the nineteenth century, settlers poured into Aotearoa demanding land. Millions of acres were acquired by the government or directly by settlers; or confiscated after the Land Wars. By 1891, when the Liberal government came to power, Maori retained only a fraction of their lands. And still the losses continued. For rangatira such as James Carroll, Wiremu Pere, Paora Tuhaere, Te Keepa Te Rangihiwinui, and many others, the challenges were innumerable. To stop further land loss, some rangatira saw parliamentary process as the mechanism; others pursued political independence. For over two decades, Maori men and women of outstanding ability fought hard to protect their people and their land. How those rangatira fared, and how they should be remembered, is the story of Maori political struggle during the Liberal era.

Danny Keenan (Ngati Te Whiti ki Te Atiawa) completed a PhD in history at Massey University in 1994 and became a senior lecturer there in 2004. In 2009 he won a Fulbright Senior Scholar Award to teach New Zealand history at Georgetown University, Washington DC. He has published widely on Maori and New Zealand history. In 2016, Te Whiti O Rongomai and the Resistance of Parihaka (Huia, 2015) received a Nga Kupu Ora Maori Book Award and his 2009 book Wars Without End: Nga Pakanga Whenua o Mua New Zealand's Land Wars - A Maori Perspective was revised and reissued in 2021.