Abstract
The decades prior to the Treaty of Waitangi in 1840 saw a transformation of Māori society and warfare as a result of contact with Europeans. Trade with these newcomers could bring revolutionary new tools and crops, but it also brought muskets. The introduction of these new weapons led to a period of intensified intertribal warfare known as the Musket Wars. These conflicts massively shifted tribal territories and contributed to the British discourse around colonisation. But despite the significance of these conflicts and a wealth of historical scholarship on the subject, information about the actual firearms trade itself is lacking. This thesis is focussed primarily on two ports connected by the trans-Tasman firearms trade, the Bay of Islands and Sydney. The first of these is significant because it was the most popular port in New Zealand for European vessels prior to colonisation. This factor saw the local iwi Ngāpuhi develop a near monopoly on the firearms trade, thus becoming the first to use the weapons in intertribal conflict. Although Sydney had begun as a penal settlement in 1788, it had gradually developed into a substantial merchant port, with a massive growth in maritime traffic occurring from the late 1820s. New Zealand exports such as timber, flax, potatoes, and pork formed a substantial part of the New South Wales economy. Whale and seal products harvested in New Zealand waters were also highly valuable, being worth over 58,000£ in 1830, 42 percent of the value of Sydney’s total exports. Facilitating all of this trade were muskets, which were highly valued by Māori at this time.
The publication of shipping manifests in Sydney newspapers, and the subsequent digitization of these sources makes it possible to explore this trade in unprecedented detail. They reveal that over 18,000 muskets were exported to New Zealand during the 1830s, along with a similarly substantial quantity of gunpowder. Import figures relating to firearms reveal that most of these muskets were imported to New South Wales from Britain, primarily from Birmingham. This connection between the Musket Wars and the industrial production of the British military fiscal state, and the colonial economy of New South Wales helps to place this period of conflict into a greater global context. This is of increasing importance as works such as Priya Satia’s Empire of Guns, and Emrys Chew’s Arming the Periphery have demonstrated the global nature of the British arms industry in the nineteenth century.