Description

In order to address the issue of whether the colonisation of New Zealand by the British was of benefit to the native people it is necessary to understand how they were living at the time of discovery of the islands of New Zealand by the outside world, starting with Captain Cook’s Endeavour in 1769, the year that changed New Zealand forever.

Using the written accounts of eye-witnesses of the time rather than unreliable oral history or the claims of revisionist historians, this book describes the way of the life of the Maoris before colonisation and the changes that came about with the introduction of British sovereignty, British law and British people as a result of the Treaty of Waitangi in 1840.