'Every Comfort of a Civilized Life': Interracial Marriage and Mixed Race Respectability in Southern New Zealand

Abstract

During his 1843 trip along the southern coast of New Zealand, government official Edward Shortland found the whaling settlement recently established at Jacob's River/Aparima (now Riverton) in the Foveaux Strait 'built on the southern slope of some well wooded hills, and being white-washed, and having near them green enclosures of corn and potatos, presented, while shone on by the morning sun, the most smiling and refreshing aspect imaginable. Shortland's account presents a sharp contrast to descriptions of northern settlements in the Bay of Islands, where early cultural exchanges were often characterized by licentious and lewd behaviour.

New Histories: Creating Video Work to Fill Adoption Absences

“…Kate Stevens reminds me that it was seen as increasingly desirable, from the mid nineteenth century, for mixed-race women to "pass" in settler society for Pākehā. 76 I decided to film myself wearing the kind of Victorian boots that Elizabeth might have worn. I acknowledge that I cannot pretend to know how Elizabeth felt about what she wore, but I was hoping to use the boots as a way of stepping out of my everyday identity, in the way that clothing can help us shift our self from one mode of being to another.…”

A ‘class of no political weight’? Interracial Marriage, Mixed Race Children and Land Rights in Southern New Zealand, 1840s-1880s

“…Moreover, some families who had occupied land prior to the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi applied for title through the Old Land Claims Commission procedure, and later, under the Land Claims Settlement Act 1856. In particular, men of high status (such as ship captains or station managers) who married Ngāi Tahu women of chiefly birth were more likely to confirm large land titles through these processes (Anderson 1990;Stevens 2013). While only a fraction of the mixed descent families in the area were able to secure land in this manner, many more were eligible under the promises made by Mantell and within the terms of the Rakiura Purchase.…”

“…In New Zealand, historical scholarship on interracial marriage has focused on the relationship between race, intimacy and questions of colonial power and authority (Salesa, 2011;Wanhalla, 2013;Wanhalla, 2017;Stevens, 2013). Kate Riddell (1996), for instance, characterised interracial relationships as forming part of a 'control test' for power on the colonial frontier, particularly in New Zealand's North Island during a period of intense interracial conflict in the 1860s.…”