Mixed Race Studies

Transgressing Boundaries: A History of the Mixed Descent Families of Maitapapa, Taieri, 1830-1940

University of Canterbury, New Zealand
2004
393 pages

Angela Wanhalla, Lecturer in History
University of Otago, New Zealand

A thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in History at the University of Canterbury

This thesis is a micro-study of intermarriage at the small Kāi Tahu community of Maitapapa from 1830 to 1940. Maitapapa is located on the northern bank of the Taieri River, 25 kilometres south of Dunedin, in Otago. It was at Moturata Island, located at the mouth of the Taieri River, that a whaling station was established in 1839. The establishment of this station initiated changes to the economy and settlement patterns, and saw the beginning of intermarriage between ‘full-blood’ women and Pākehā men. From 1848, Otago was colonized by British settlers and in the process ushered in a new phase of intermarriage where single white men married the ‘half-caste’ and ‘quarter-caste’ daughters of whalers. In short, in the early years of settlement intermarriage was a gendered ‘contact zone’ from which a mixed descent population developed at Taieri. The thesis traces the history of the mixed descent families and the Maitpapapa community throughout the nineteenth century until the kāika physically disintegrated in the 1920s. It argues that the creation of a largely ‘quarter-caste’ population at Maitapapa by 1891 illustrates the high rate of intermarriage at this settlement in contrast to other Kāi Tahu kāika in the South Island. While the population was ‘quarter-caste’ in ‘blood’, the families articulated an identity that was both Kāi Tahu and mixed descent. From 1916, the community underwent both physical and cultural disintegration. This disintegration was rapid and complete by 1926. The thesis demonstrates that while land alienation, poverty, poor health and a subsistence economy characterized the lives of the mixed descent families at Maitapapa in the nineteenth century, it was a long history of intermarriage begun in the 1830s and continued throughout the nineteenth century which was the decisive factor in wholesale migrations post World War One. Education, dress and physical appearance alongside social achievements assisted in the integration of persons of mixed descent into mainstream society. While Kāi Tahu initially welcomed intermarriage as a way of integrating newcomers of a different culture such as whalers into a community, the sustained pattern of intermarriage at Maitapapa brought with it social and cultural change in the form of outward migration and eventual cultural loss by 1940.

CONTENTS

• Abbreviations
• Note on Dialect
• Glossary
• Graphs
• Tables
• Maps
• Illustrations
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• Chapter One: Literatures
• Chapter Two: Encounters
• Chapter Three: Boundaries, 1844-1868
• Chapter Four: Assimilations, 1850-1889
• Chapter Five: Recoveries, 1891 164
• Chapter Six: Identities, 1890-1915
• Chapter Seven: Migrations, 1916-1926
• Chapter Eight: Destinations, 1927-1940
• Conclusion
• Appendix One: Taieri Native Reserve Succession List, 1868-1889
• Appendix Two: Taieri Native Reserve Succession List, 1890-1915
• Appendix Three: Taieri Native Reserve Succession List, 1916-1926
• Appendix Four: Taieri Native Reserve Succession List, 1927-1940
• Appendix Five: SILNA Grantees: Taieri
• Bibliography

GRAPHS

1. Composition of the Taieri Kāi Tahu Population, 1874-1886
2. Kāi Tahu Census, 1891
3. Kāi Tahu Mixed Population, 1891
4. Kāi Tahu ‘Racial’ Composition, 1891
5. Application of national census categories to the 1891 Census
6. Composition of Taieri Kāi Tahu and mixed descent population, 1891-1911

TABLES

1. Whakapapa of Patahi
2. Mixed Community, Maitapapa, 1849-1852
3. Census of Maitapapa, 1853
4. Taieri Native Reserve Owners’ List, September 1868
5. Marriages (Maitapapa Women): 1850-1889
6. Marriages (Maitapapa Men): 1879-1889
7. Kāi Tahu Mixed Population, 1891
8. Kāi Tahu ‘Racial’ Composition, 1891
9. Family Size
10. ‘Racial’ Composition of Taieri Kāi Tahu Population, 1891
11. Marriages (Maitapapa Women): 1890-1915
12. Marriages (Maitapapa Men): 1890-1915
13. Marriages (Maitapapa Women): 1916-1926
14. Marriages (Maitapapa Men): 1916-1926
15. Marriages (Maitapapa Women): 1927-1940
16. Marriages (Maitapapa Men): 1927-1940

MAPS

1. Location Map of Whaling Stations in Otago and Southland
2. Lower Taieri Place Names
3. England’s Topographical Sketch Map of Taieri Native Reserve, 1860
4. MacLeod’s Survey Map of the Taieri Native Reserve, 1868
5. Sketch Map of Lake Tatawai (Alexander Mackay)
6. Location Map of Destinations

ILLUSTRATIONS

1. William Palmer
2. Edward Palmer
3. Ann Holmes
4. Peti Parata and Caroline Howell
5. Eliza Palmer
6. Sarah Palmer
7. Robert, William and Jack Palmer
8. James Henry Palmer
9. George Palmer and Mary List
10. Helen McNaught and George Brown
11. Taieri Ferry School Pupils in the mid-1880s
12. Harriet Overton and her son George
13. Thomas Brown, 1885-1974
14. The Joss Family at Rakiura
15. Tiaki Kona/Jack Conner
16. Robert Brown, 1830-1898
17. Te Waipounamu Hall, 1901
18. Official opening of Te Waipounamu Hall, 1901
19. Hangi at opening of Te Waipounamu Hall, 1901
20. Wellman Brothers and Band at Henley
21. William George Sherburd
22. Wedding of Thomas Garth and Annie Sherburd
23. The Drummond Family
24. James Smith and Emma Robson
25. Matene Family
26. Ernest Sherburd and Isabella Mackie
27. George and Caroline Milward
28. William Richard Wellman
29. Elizabeth Garth, Thomas Garth and John Brown
30. The Crane Family at Waitahuna Teone Paka Koruarua and the Maahanui Council, 1905
31. Lena Teihoka, Waitai Brown and Mere Teihoka
32. Teihoka family gathering at Taumutu, c. 1930s
33. Tuarea
34. Portrait of Jane Brown
35. Portrait of Robert Brown
36. Portrait of Mere Kui Tanner

Read the entire thesis here.

The Eurasians of Indonesia: A Problem and Challenge in Colonial History

Journal of Southeast Asian History
Volume 9, Issue 2 (1968)
pages 191-207
DOI: 10.1017/S021778110000466X

Paul W. van der Veur, Professor of History
Australian National University

Persons of mixed European and Asian parentage appeared in the Indonesian archipelago shortly after the arrival of the first “Westerners” in the sixteenth century. Although most of them were absorbed by the indigenous population, some were not and came to constitute a separate, identifiable group. The main reason, apart from paternal pride, seems to have been religious. Christianity, especially during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, encouraged a strong feeling of responsibility toward the biracial offspring of non-European women. A moral obligation was felt to baptize the child and give it the name of the father. Legal rules and regulations facilitated the process: the European father, for example, could “recognize” his natural child by a non-European woman, adopt it, or request a “Letter of legitimation”. Possession of “the status of European” in the nineteenth century permitted persons of mixed descent to benefit educationally from the rapid expansion of “European” (i.e. Dutch) schools. Finally, the Dutch nationality law of 1892—based squarely on the jus sanguinis principle—contained the crucial provision that all those who were considered Europeans when the act came into force (July 1, 1893)—including those who were legally assimilated and socially a part of the European group—became Dutch citizens.

Read or purchase the article here.

Theorizing Interracial Families and Hybrid Identity: And Australian Perspective

Educational Theory
Volume 49, Issue 2 (June 1999)
pages 223–249
DOI: 10.1111/j.1741-5446.1999.00223.x

Carmen Luke, Emeritus Professor of Education
University of Queensland

Allan Luke, Research Professor
Queensland University of Technology

This essay is a theoretical exploration at how interracial families are sites for the development and articulation of hybrid identity: complex ways of representing and positioning oneself within larger social constructs of racial, social class, gender, and cultural difference. Our aim here is to examine the significance of place, locality, and situated “racializing practices” in the constitution of  identity. We draw on Stuart Hall’s concepts of “New Times” and “hybridity” to argue that interracial subjects or family formations have always been and continue to be of cultural and political concern in both postcolonial and post-industrial nation states and economies. Our cases and illustrations come from the context of the current public and political debate over immigration and multiculturalism, in Australia, a debate that highlights once again the centrality of “race” in the popular imaginary. Working from postcoloinial and feminist theory, we argue that “between two cultures” theorizations, and extant research and social policies on multiculturalism do not adequately account for the hybridity and multiply situated character of several generations of interracial subjects. Throughout we offer comments from interracial families we interviewed. In closing, we turn to more specific narratives of the development of racializmg practices and racial identities in two specific local sites: the cities of Darwin and Brisbane.  We conclude by drawing implications from this study for multicultural and antiracist educational theorizing and practices.

The Study

This essay draws on interview narratives from the initial phase uf a three year study ot mtciethmc families in Australia, In the first two years of the study (1996-1997), we interviewed couples in 42 visibly mixed-race marriages, where one partner was visibly Caucasian, white Australian and the other was of visibly Indo-Asian background. Because a key focus was on the effects of the visibility of mixed-race families in what historically has been a predominantly white Anglo-European society, we selected cuuples where one member was of visible racial difference. Because we were also concerned with understanding how the development of…

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Studies in Melanin Pigmentation of the Skin of Racial Crosses in Port Moresby

Oceania
Volume 33, Number. 4 (June, 1963)
pages 287-292

R. J. Walsh
New South Wales Red Cross Blood Transfusion Service, Sydney, Australia

A. V. G. Price
Department of Public Health, Territory of Papua and New Guinea

The colour of the skin in different populations has always been of great interest but until recently few attempts have been made to study the factors determining the nature and amount of skin pigment. Perhaps the greatest difficulty lias been the lack of a reliable method of quantitative assessment. Davenport and Davenport (1910) devised a “colour top”—a rotating disc with sectors of different colours. The areas of the sectors were varied until the blended colours on rotation corresponded to the colour of the skin. Ruggles Gates (1949) approached the problem by producing a series of coloured papers which could be matched against the skin.  These methods, however, did not permit separate analysis of the multiple factors contributing to skin colour (haemoglobin and bilirubin contained in the skin, and carotene pigments, for example). Reflectance measurements of light at various wavelengths have therefore been used by a number of workers (Wiener. 1945 ; Harrison, 1957 ; Baraicot, 1958).

During a recent visit to New Guinea measurements were made of the reflectance of light from the skin of various subjects. A photo-electric reflectometer was used with a filter having maximum transmission at 650 millimicrons. The instrument was adjusted with a rheostat so that a meter reading of 100 corresponded to the reflectance from a magnesium oxide surface.  This instrument is described in another paper (Walsh, 1963) and reasons are given for believing that the reflectance value is related to the melanin content of the skin. Batnicot (1958) also concluded that the reflectance value at this wavelength is a measure of the melanin pigment.

There is now clear evidence that melanin is produced by the melanotytes of the skin from the amino acids phenylalaninc and tyrosine. In the initial stages of this production the copper-containing enzyme, tyrosinase, is important. Absence of tyrosinase, but not of melanocytes, is responsible for albinism and a deficiency of tyrosinase is probably the basis of the pathological condition known as vitiligo, A number of physical conditions, of which the most important is exposure to ultraviolet light, can increase the melanin content of the skin, and some chemical conditions inhibit production. These factors have recently been reviewed by Fitzpatrick and Szaba (1959).

However, there is no information available as to what determines the varying amounts of melanin in human skin of different ethnic groups. Obviously genetic factors must be responsible because there are great differences between people of…

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Turning Aboriginal—Historical Bents

borderlands: e-journal
Volume 7, Number 2 (2008)
pages 1-19

Regina Ganter, Associate Professor, School of Humanities
Griffith University, Queensland, Australia

Under the pressures of binary identity politics the search for Aboriginal identity among people of mixed descent has become a Russian roulette that may end up with a public hanging where those with a larger public profile draw a bigger crowd. This essay explores the historical dimensions that underpin confusion and uncertainty: changing definitions of Aboriginality and the external, often discretionary, imposition of identity. Historical case studies illustrate that a certain slippage was always part and parcel of the quest to define who is, and who is not, considered as Aboriginal.

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Mai i ngā Ao e Rua–From Two Worlds: An investigation into the attitudes towards half castes in New Zealand

University of Otago, Dunedin
October 2006
91 pages

Suzanne Boyes

A dissertation submitted in partial fulfilment of the degree of Bachelor of Arts (Honours), in Māori Studies at the University of Otago, Dunedin

This dissertation investigates the attitudes of others’ experienced by ‘half-caste’ or biethnic people of New Zealand, that is, people who have both Māori and Pākehā heritage. The dissertation combines the personal narratives of four half-caste people, my own story, and historical/theoretical literature to illuminate this subject. The dissertation introduces the topic by firstly, discussing the current identity politics in New Zealand, which has tended to dominate the political landscape as of late, and left half-caste people between the crossfire. Secondly, I introduce part of my own story as a half-caste person in New Zealand. In Chapter one, the pre-colonial origins of attitudes towards race, intermarriage and miscegenation are examined through an analysis of religious and scientific discourses. Chapter Two provides a basic understanding of Māori and Pākehā identity as separate entities, with the aim of demonstrating the binary opposites that have informed attitudes towards half-castes in New Zealand. The third chapter outlines a number of themes regarding attitudes towards the half caste people I interviewed as part of this research. The final chapter brings together literature and interview material through the lens of a Bill of Rights for Racially Mixed People to provide an approach for looking towards the future of half-caste identity politics.

Read the entire dissertation here.

Gender, Work and Fears of a ‘Hybrid Race’ in 1920s New Zealand

Gender & History
Volume 19, Issue 3 (November 2007)
pages 501–518
DOI: 10.1111/j.1468-0424.2007.00495.x

Barbara Brookes, Professor of History
Otago University, New Zealand

The 1929 New Zealand Committee of Inquiry into the Employment of Māori on Market Gardens affords insight into the ways in which masculine fears of racial degradation through miscegenation—of a ‘hybrid’ Chinese/Māori race—operated within a hierarchy of race, gender and Iwi (tribal) interests. The participation of Māori men in national politics contributed to a new articulation of ‘National Manhood’, in which Māori men and white men combined to express fears about women’s work and sexuality and young women’s potential to undermine a fragile and contested hierarchy of racial purity. Māori women, silenced in the cacophony of voices lamenting their plight, were at the centre of debates between Māori men, Pakeha (white New Zealander) employers, Chinese market gardeners, Anglican and Methodist interests and Pakeha women’s groups. I argue that the Inquiry was about commerce, both in a business and a sexual sense. As a historical episode, it also serves to complicate the picture of New Zealand as a historically bicultural society, made up only of Māori and Pakeha, by signalling the importance of the Chinese in debates about national belonging.

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Mixed Messages, Mixed Memories, Mixed Ethnicity: Mnemonic Heritage and Constructing Identity Through Mixed Parentage

New Zealand Sociology
Volume 25, Number 1 (2010)
pages 75-99

Zarine L. Rocha, Research Scholar in the Department of Sociology
National University of Singapore

This article explores the concept of mixed ethnic identity from a social memory-based perspective. Drawing on the personal testimonies of individuals of mixed ethnic heritage in New Zealand, the UK, Australia and Canada, the complex influence of collective memory on the construction of a mixed ethnic identity is drawn out, highlighting the contradictions and reconciliations negotiated by those who feel a strong sense of belonging to two groups, with potentially contrasting stories and memories. Participants express their feelings of belonging in multiple ways, showing how appreciation of heritage and internalization of family memories do not have to be equal nor experienced in the same way for both sides of the family. Rather, the unpredictable way in which collective memory shapes mixed ethnic identity indicates that each collectivity can have its own way of being understood for the individual, without reducing or denying its importance.

…The lingering idea of marginalization and internal conflict is particularly interesting from the memory perspective. Do individuals of mixed heritage experience internal conflict due to the different experiences and mnemonic heritages of their parents? Is it possible to reconcile “mixed memories”? Vivero and Jenkins (1999, p. 12) describe the “cultural homelessness” of mixed heritage, indicating that the lack of a coherent memory framework can lead to psychological distress: “Culturally homeless individuals may have the intense feeling and longing to ‘go home’; however, they cannot, because they have never had a cultural home… they cannot rely on memories of having had a cultural home”. In contrast, a number of recent studies have found that individuals of mixed descent have multiple and positive senses of identity, identifying to different extents with both sides of their heritage (Binning, et al., 2009; Root, 1992; Stephan & Stephan, 1989; Ward, 2006).

The reconciliation of mixed memories is illuminated by [Homi] Bhabha’s concept of a “third space” of hybridity, which illustrates new forms of identity and belonging where different cultures collide and collude (Ang, 1999, p. 558; Bhabha, 1994). In contrast to historical discourses of “hybrids” as the mingling of biologically separate “races”, this antiessentialist understanding of identity can instead highlight different forms of cultural recombination, whether based in ancestry or interaction (Bolatagici, 2004, p. 75; Gomes, 2007; Parker & Song, 2001, p. 4). Hybridity thus emphasises the fluidity and multiplicity of mixed ethnic identity, as constructed through memory and experience – suggesting that “cultural homelessness” may not be a lack of a home, but rather “…belonging at one and the same time to several ‘homes’ (and to no one particular ‘home’)” (Hall, 1992, p. 310)…

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Hybridity in the Third Space: Rethinking Bi-cultural Politics in Aotearoa/New Zealand

Paper Presented to Te Oru Rangahau Maori Research and Development Conference
1998-07-07 through 1998-07-09
Massey University
7 pages

Paul Meredith (Ngati Kaputuhi/Pakeha), Research Fellow
Te Matahauariki Institute
University of Waikato, New Zealand

This brief paper joins a growing call for a reconceptualisation of bicultural politics in Aotearoa/New Zealand that draws on an inclusionary and multifaceted identity politics. (Reilly 1996; McClean 1997; Spoonley 1997) The paper argues the need for this conceptualisation to take place in an alternative space that blurs the limitations of boundaries and engenders new possibilities.

In this paper I invoke Homi Bhabha’s notions of hybridity and the third space and offer some introductory comment as to what these concepts might mean for a project that seeks to redesign the laws and institutions for a bicultural Aotearoa/New Zealand.

Read the entire paper here.

Q&A With Researchers: Associate Professor Manying Ip

asia:nz online
Asia New Zealand Foundation

Associate Professor Manying Ip
Asia:NZ Trustee; Associate Professor of Chinese, School of Asian Studies, University of Auckland

Manying Ip came to New Zealand in 1974 from Hong Kong where her family lived for five generations. With her strong classical Chinese education at home and colonial English education at shool, she grew up sharply aware of the challenges of being cross-cultural.

Her interest in Maori-Chinese interactions started from the mid 1980s when she conducted extensive qualitative interviews among the pioneering Chinese families, which grew ever stronger with the immigration and ethnic identity debates

Manying is Associate Professor in Asian Studies at The University of Auckland and the author of several critically acclaimed books on Chinese in New Zealand. These include: Aliens At My Table: Asians as New Zealanders See Them (Penguin, 2005), Unfolding Identity, Evolving Identity: The Chinese in New Zealand (Auckland University Press, 2003) as well as numerous journal articles and book chapters on issues pertaining to recent Asian immigrants. Dr Ip’s most recent book Being Maori-Chinese: Mixed Identities (Auckland University Press, 2008) uses extensive interviews with seven different families of mixed Chinese-Maori descent to explore both historical and contemporary relations between Maori and Chinese, a subject which has not been given serious extended study before. Her edited volume The Dragon and The Taniwha: Maori and Chinese in New Zealand will be published in April 2009, investigating the complex social fabric of New Zealand and offering a nuanced study of ancient and contemporary shared identities amongst two significant ethnic minority groups.

Dr Ip is a respected advocate for Chinese communities living in New Zealand. She was awarded a Suffrage Centennial Medal in 1993 and was made an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit in 1996.  In 2004 she co-directed New Faces Old Fears, a television documentary exploring racism, multiculturalism and social cohesion in New Zealand. In late 2008, she was elected a Fellow of the New Zealand Academy of Humanities (FNZAH) in recognition of her distinction in research and the advancement of the humanities.

1. Your most recent publication Being Maori–Chinese: Mixed Identities explores the historical and contemporary significance of the relationship between Maori and Chinese New Zealanders.  How did you become interested in this topic and what were some of the most interesting findings?

Ever since I started conducting oral interviews on the early days of Chinese New Zealanders, I heard my interviewees mentioning their relationship with Maori people: as co-workers in the market gardens, as neighbours  and workmates. Quite often they mentioned the existence of mixed Maori-Chinese families because early Chinese men came to New Zealand as bachelors and many of them formed relationships with Maori women…

Read the entire interview here.