Peter Entwisle - Behold the Moon: The European Occupation of the Dunedin District 1770-1848

PETER ENTWISLE
PORT DANIEL PRESS
96 CARGILL ST, DUNEDIN, NZ
portdanielpress@actrix.co.nz

First published by Port Daniel Press, Dunedin, 1998
Reprinted, 1999
This revised and expanded edition containing transcripts of recently discovered documents published by Port Daniel Press, Dunedin with the assistance of the Alfred & Isabel Reed Trust administered by the Otago Settlers Association, 2010

Cataloguing-in-publication information:
ISBN: 978-0-473-17534-4
eISBN: 9781623092139

Entwisle, Peter, 1948- (Peter Malcolm William)
Behold the moon: the European occupation of the Dunedin district, 1770-1848, by Peter Entwisle, Dunedin, Port Daniel Press, 1998. Revised edition, 2010. Published with the assistance of the Alfred & Isabel Reed Trust, administered by the Otago Settlers Association

COVER: MARTIN FISHER
TYPESETTING: ROSEMARY MCQUEEN

In preparing the revised edition I have again been assisted by people in many institutions but particularly wish to thank Ann Jackman of the Hocken Collections, as the Hocken Library has been renamed, for her considerable exertions beyond the call of duty on my behalf. I have had the benefit again of discussing matters with several other historians but once more have a special debt to Ian Church for the extended and detailed exchanges we have had. We still dont agree about everything but this revised edition would be much poorer without his input.

This edition has been designed by Ro McQueen and the new cover by Martin Fisher. The text has been copy-edited by Meg Davison. I thank all these people for their effective and generous efforts without which the book would be much poorer. Like the first this edition has the benefit of the permissions to reproduce images extended by various institutions and individuals, named in the list of illustrations, and I gratefully acknowledge them. I have been given further permission by the Mitchell Library in Sydney to reproduce here, for the first time, the whole of Thomas Shepherds drawing Port Oxly for which I am truly grateful. With the kind assistance of Dorothy Page the production of this edition has been helped by a grant from the Alfred and Isabel Reed Trust, administered by the Otago Settlers Association which I am delighted to acknowledge.

The research for this edition became intimately entwined with work on Gaining a Foothold: Historical Records of Otagos Eastern Coast, 1770-1839, which was edited by Mr Church and published by the Friends of the Hocken Collections in 2008. I benefited from my association with those engaged on that project which is a fitting memorial to the late David McDonald. I want to acknowledge that and point out that book is complementary to this: it publishes many of the primary documents on which this narrative depends.

This whole field of research is considerably more developed than it was in 1998 when the first edition was published. I am grateful to all who have helped to produce this remarkable expansion and wish to acknowledge that here too.

The Otago Peninsula, 1976

William Mathew Hodgkins & his Circle, 1984

Pavilioned in Splendour: George OBriens Vision of Colonial New Zealand, (with Roger Collins), 1986

Nerli, (with Michael Dunn and Roger Collins), 1988

Treasures of the Dunedin Public Art Gallery, 1990

Elaine & Other Stories, 1992

Behold the Moon: the European Occupation of the Dunedin District 1770-1848, 1998

Taka, a Vignette Life of William Tucker 1784-1817, 2005

Although there have been several histories of the lower South Island, the last published as recently as 1984, and a number of more or less general histories of Dunedin, there has never been a specific study of the origins and growth of the European occupation of the territory of the modern City of Dunedin.

The histories of Otago and Dunedin cover the subject more or less briefly as a preamble to their discussion of the Wakefield settlement. Robert McNab examined the period in more detail in his books Murihiku and The Old Whaling Days. But Murihiku began as an account of Southlands history, to which the Dunedin district is peripheral, and admirable as both books are, they have been out-dated by the very considerable researches undertaken since their publication in 1909 and 1913.

Moreover the widespread impression still persists that the Scots who came in 1848 entered a nearly empty territory where Europeans had scarcely ventured before. It is supposed they bought this excellent real estate from a few tattooed tribesmen who inexplicably wished to give up their ancestral land. In fact the Scots arrived in the aftermath of a prolonged, traumatic encounter which had undermined both Maori and European populations here and provided Maori with reasons to sell.

Indeed the studies referred to and documents only recently discovered offer the potential to understand this crucial time of transition better than ever before. For these reasons a review of the subject seemed timely and the following account is the result. It is concerned primarily to describe the offshore breeze and then the footprint of European occupation as this affected and was affected by, the existing settlements of the Maori.

After publishing the first edition I thought of producing another to clear up several matters. The murk surrounding the early European reconnaissance of this coast, the obscurity of Fowlers and Kellys visits, made the picture shadowy. Although questions become fewer as we advance in time there was still uncertainty about the identity of various Robert Browns and sparse information about the founding of the Wellers whaling establishment, for example, to make our understanding of the 1820s and 1830s fragmentary and uncertain. The broad picture could be seen but I was interested to fill in details and answer outstanding questions. I made a list of projects: to follow up some individuals lives, search for new documents and compile and publish all known records.

While I was embarked on the first Ian Church suggested the last to the committee convened to make a memorial to the late David McDonald. The suggestion was adopted and pursued, notably by Mr Church. My plans for a new edition were thus developing when there was a highly significant discovery.

In September 2003 the Reverend Donald Phillipps, seeking material for the McDonald project, found a manuscript in the Alexander Turnbull Library, previously unknown to historians. Written between 1848 and 1850 by Charles Creed, the second missionary at Waikouaiti, it records Maori informants reports of the earliest encounters between Maori and Pakeha in what is now the Dunedin district.

The Creed manuscript illuminates events we already knew about and tells of others previously unknown. It confirms the primary thesis of the first edition, that fatal encounters between Maori and Pakeha were not isolated events but a spiralling feud; it also disproves the first editions claim that William Tuckers theft of a preserved Maori head was the triggering cause.

In fact the Creed manuscript shows Tucker came and settled in this district as a friend to Maori, importing sheep and goats, before leaving and then returning to his death. It also pushes back the start of European ship visits to Otago Harbour to a time long before 1810, challenging us to identify these very early visitors. The new found document thus modifies and enlarges the whole vista.

The manuscript is probably the most significant historical find for this place and period since Kents journal came to light about the middle of the 20th century. It is always difficult to say if a single document is more or less important than the weight of incremental discoveries. Wherever the balance of significance lies the combined effect of these accretions was to encourage me to produce the new edition sooner rather than later. Questions remain but this revised edition aims to improve on the first.