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Abstract:
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In New Zea1and's brief colonial history little has
happened on an epic scale; even the Maori wars were minor episodes in the affairs of an empire. Nevertheless those campaigns were the most dramatic event to interrupt, from within, the relatively smooth tenor of the country's
existence. It has been as an interruption to the work of founding a new state, rather than as a formative struggle, that the colonists and their descendants have generally regarded the wars. Few, except Maoris and historians have cared to recognise their influence. At once civil was rebellion and conquest, the wars roused the usual
bitterness of such conflicts, and were marked by the savagery of racial strife. Their immediate legacy was recurrent denunciation and recrimination. Yet they formed what now
seems a necessary prelude to the growth of a new nation which embraces two races. |
