Trevor Bentley

This book describes one of the most extraordinary and fascinating stories in New Zealand history. In the early part of the last century, several thousand runaway seamen and escaped convicts settled in Maori communities. Jacky Mamon, John Rutherford, Charlotte Badger and many others—this is their largely untold story. They were regarded as unsavoury renegades by the European settlers, but amongst...

Some of the most interesting and important events in Tauranga's history took place before its occupation by the British and colonial forces, and the battles of Gate Pa and Te Ranga in 1864. In this book, historian Trevor Bentley brings Tauranga's colour and dramatic, pre-colonial, maritime history to light. It is a fascinating history of daring Polynesian migrant-settlers and resident...

While people are aware of the atrocities of the black slave trade, few are aware of the enslavement and trafficking of Europeans in 19th-century New Zealand. Hierarchical and assertive Maori tribal societies considered all Pakeha (non-Maori, mainly Europeans) living within their power and under their protection as chattel slaves (personal property) or demi-slaves (tributary vassals). For Maori, the sailors, convicts,...

The collision of Maori and Pakeha cultures in the nineteenth century has produced some of our greatest stories, among them the capture by Maori of white women such as Elizabeth Guard, Ann Morley, and Caroline Perrett. This book tells of the often terrifying encounters endured by these women and six others for much longer. Two actually chose to remain in...