Economic Dysfunction or Land Grab?: Assaults on the 19th-century Māori economy and their Native North American parallels

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This article considers some key themes in messages promoted to New Zealand Māori by European colonists. With a focus on the period prior to 1870 when a number of factors came together to end Māori economic dominance, it considers whether the promoters of those messages were correct to claim that Indigenous peoples were not interested in material benefit or that individual ownership and individual endeavour for personal advantage were a greater spur to labour and productivity. Evidence pertaining to Māori is set against similar evidence from North America to argue that claims of laziness, incompetence, and inefficient land use were not merely incorrect but served to justify the transfer of land ownership from Māori to settlers in a process which appears to have parallels in North America and elsewhere.