Studying the suffrage campaign in the Napier context allows for examination of an influential component which has not been addressed by previous scholarship: the interaction between Māori and Pākehā suffrage activists. The latter decades of the nineteenth century witnessed significant upheaval in established social structures and gender norms. Women were at the forefront of debates over the meaning of citizenship proliferated in both Māori and Pākehā society. Seeking to exert some influence on the institutions of colonial power, women turned to extra-parliamentary activism in an effort to have their voices heard. Debates over democratisation of the franchise had been present in settler society since the earliest years of settlement in New Zealand, with discussion of universal manhood suffrage recorded as early as 1842 and murmurs of female enfranchisement emerging in the 1860s and 70s. From 1892, Māori engaged actively with both the Māori Parliament, Te Kotahitanga o te Tiriti o Waitangi, and the WCTU petitioning campaigns, with several Māori signatures appearing on the 1893 petition. It is critical to note that, in addition to Māori women who supported the WCTU in an effort to address Pākehā political structures, a motion was also addressed to Te Kotahitanga in May 1893 by Meri Te Tai Mangakahia, supported by Ākenehi Tomoana of Hawke's Bay, requesting that women be granted the right to vote and stand for election in the Māori parliament.
Te KotahitangaTe Kotahitanga hui were held in Hawke's Bay in the early 1890s, demonstrating the significance of the East Coast as a site of Māori political activism. The presence of significant Māori leadership, largely unscathed by the wars of the 1860s, is worth noting in conjunction with the significance of Napier as a site for local level analysis of the suffrage campaign. Pākehā and Māori communities coexisted in the region, and within Napier itself, with Māori secondary schooling for girls offered by Hukarere Native Girls' School from the 1870s. Such a presence sets Napier further apart from previous sites of local level suffrage analysis. Dunedin, for example, a prime example of New Zealand's industrial, urban landscape, lacked any notable interaction between Pākehā and Māori suffrage campaigners. Analysis of the manifestation of political activism in the Hawke's Bay context promised to shed some light on this relationship. Angela Ballara has argued that Māori and Pākehā came to the political sphere with differing levels of experience in 1893. Māori were enfranchised alongside Pākehā in 1893, setting the New Zealand suffrage campaign apart from narratives which played out in other colonial contexts. As such, analysis of Māori participation in the suffrage campaign, within the local context, deserves some attention. Hukarere Girls' SchoolMaterial evidence of Māori participation can be found among the Napier sheets used in the present analysis. While the role of Napier Girls' High School in shaping supportive suffrage sentiment has already been addressed by scholars, little attention has been paid to the influence of Hukarere, established by William Williams in 1875 and thereby predating NGHS (est. 1884) by nearly 10 years. Credit: 'Hukarere Girls School, Napier', MTG Hawke's Bay, https://collection.mtghawkesbay.com/objects/81509 Mary Eliza Brown, Hukarere assistant matron in 1893, emerged as a particularly consistent activist in the present analysis, appearing on both the 1892 and 1893 petition, and 1893 and 1896 electoral rolls. Signing in 1893, she appears alongside a cluster of women associated with the school. Matron Mary Minton is a notable inclusion, and she is joined by former students Agnes Down (school roll 1875), Laura Down (1887), Emily Prentice (1876) and Matilda Ngapua (1888). Affixing their names to the same sheet, it appears that this group of women signed at the same time, raising two critical points. First, the women in question remained in contact, to some degree anyway, once they had completed their schooling. Second, the support of those associated with Hukarere was actively solicited by local suffrage canvassers. Credit: Cluster of Women Associated with Hukarere Māori Girls' School, sheet 432. With elections held separately from Pākehā, Māori women exercised their newly won right to vote in December 1893 when, in Northland at least, women were seen 'rolling up in great numbers' to cast their votes for the Māori seats. The presence of these women on the petition is significant, highlighting the extent to which Māori and Pākehā alike engaged with the campaign for the vote. Evidence of Māori signing the petition in Napier provides fresh insight into the manner in which suffrage campaign organisers engaged with their local context, actively seeking the support of the population at large, not just Pākehā. Sources and Further Reading
Atholl Anderson, Judith Binney and Aroha Harris, Tangata Whenua: A History, (Wellington: Bridget Williams Books, 2015). Angela Ballara, 'Wāhine Rangatira: Māori Women of Rank and Their Role in the Women's Kotahitanga Movement of the 1890s', NZJH, Vol.27, no.2, 1993, pp.127-139. Barbara Brookes, A History of New Zealand Women, (Wellington: Bridget Williams Books, 2016). Lindsay Cox, Kotahitanga: The Search for Māori Political Unity, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993). Patricia Grimshaw, 'Settler Anxieties, Indigenous Peoples, and Women's Suffrage in the Colonies of Australia, New Zealand and Hawai'i 1888-1902', Pacific Historical Review, Vol.69, no.4, November 2000, pp.553-572. Charlotte Macdonald, 'People of the Land, Voting Citizens in the Nation, Subjects of the Crown', Law & History, no.32, 2015, pp.32-59. Lachy Paterson and Angela Wanhalla, He Reo Wāhine: Māori Women's Voices from the Nineteenth Century, (Auckland: Auckland University Press, 2017).
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