Maori Teaching and Learning in Australia in the Early Nineteenth Century

Abstract

The Māori struggle to enter a direct educational relationship with Europeans has its roots in a period earlier than many people realise: prior to the first permanent Pākehā settlement in New Zealand in 1814. And it began in a surprising place: Australia. Māori study of European society in Australia in the first two decades of the nineteenth century has had little attention. This article is an attempt to reveal something of those initial attempts by Bay of Islands Māori to learn about modern European life by visiting Australia. The article is part of a project that revisits the earliest Māori-Pākehā educational engagements in order to stimulate a more Māori-centred perspective on that relationship.