General copyright and disclaimer - ResearchSpace@Auckland ...

unenlightened pagans, who were readily associated with such practices as cannibalism,
infanticide and idolatry, were viewed to be too primitive to possibly comprehend European ideas
and values, and therefore beyond conversion. If the savage could not be converted into a
peaceable and European-like form at a time when racial intolerance and evangelical persecution
were on the rise, it often resulted in the less subtle use of force:
Few tribal peoples were seen as brighter or whiter than the Maori, but a harsher view of them
lurked in the wings, prophesying empire by conquest. This was linked to the irreparably ferocious
Red Savage, who had to be spoken to in the only language he understood; to the ultimately
unsalvageable Brown Savage, whose limited virtues had to be brought out with a touch of the
‘beneficent whip’; and to the indelibly inferior Black Savage, who needed to be swept from the
path of progress. Such ideas were in turn linked to ‘polygenist’ racial theories that stressed the
fixity of racial characteristics throughout time, and even argued that the different races were
actually different species, descended from separate Adams and Eves. Moderate versions of this
thinking were more common in New Zealand than some scholars concede, and they flowered
during conflict, causing and being caused by it. The rhetoric of conquest and indelible Maori
difference was couched in terms of realism: you could not make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear,
whatever wishy-washy humanitarians and philanthropists might say. In the end, the savage
reflexively resisted progress and civilisation, and would have to be crushed. There could be
absolutely no question of the European capacity to crush. It was unEuropean to be beaten by
savages. 12
Thus, the ‘Black Maori’ was viewed as the lowest of the low on any human scale; in fact, closer
to that of an untamed beast than a human being and should consequently be treated like one. 13
Just as wild and untrustworthy was the ‘Red Maori’, ranging from the warmongering and
bloodthirsty cannibal, either constantly fighting and taking prisoners or happily eating his
enemies in a fit of frenzy, to the bold and fearless, albeit hostile and aggressive, warrior who, if
not avoided, should be met with force. Less violent and more subordinate, however, was the
‘Brown Maori’ who was born to serve and could never be more than a subjugated second-class
citizen, a simple lowly, albeit relatively loyal, slave to the white man.
Undoubtedly, the most powerful stereotype to exist was the ‘Grey Maori’, which managed
to spread through all European thinking regardless of objectivity and vocation, specifically
through the notion of ‘fatal impact’: 14
Fatal impact was the belief that peoples like the Maori would crumble, collapse and ultimately die
out as a result of European contact. The fit with the Grey Savage lens was obviously close, but it
12
Ibid., 125f.
13 th
See Arthur O. Lovejoy, The Great Chain of Being: A Study of the History of an Idea. 9 Ed. Cambridge,
Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1970.
14
This terminology is taken from the title of Alan Moorehead’s The Fatal Impact: An Account of the Invasion of the
South Pacific 1767-1840 (2 nd Ed. Hammondsworth, Middlesex; Ringwood, Victoria: Penguin, 1971).
13