ABSTRACT

Interracial marriage was a defining feature of interaction between local Ngāi Tahu and newcomers in southern New Zealand from the early nineteenth century. Scholarship has explored the importance of such relationships to development of New Zealand’s early resource-based economies and to colonial assimilation policies. However, the experiences of cross-cultural households and families in colonial New Zealand are less well documented.

Using a body of writing produced by fathers and their mixed-race children in response to land claims investigations in the mid-nineteenth century, this article explores the political, economic and social world of interracial families in southern New Zealand. The correspondence over land rights reveals the ongoing importance of kinship ties through generations as colonial expansion impinged on these communities. Through petitioning and letter writing, fathers and children contested what marriage and family meant and strategically asserted their individual and collective identity in the face of increasing land dispossession and economic hardship.

摘要

从19世纪初期开始，异族通婚就是当地的NgāiTahu与新西兰南部新移民之间互动的特征。奖学金研究了这种关系对新西兰早期以资源为基础的经济发展和殖民同化政策的重要性。但是，关于跨文化家庭和新西兰殖民地家庭的经验文献较少。

本文使用父亲及其混血儿所写的文字作为对19世纪中叶土地权利调查的回应，探讨了新西兰南部异族家庭的政治，经济和社会世界。土地权利的对应关系表明，随着殖民地扩张对这些社区的影响，世代之间的亲属关系一直很重要。父亲和孩子们通过上访和写信来对抗婚姻和家庭的含义，并在面对越来越多的土地占用和经济困难的情况下，从战略上肯定了他们的个人和集体身份。