Maori police personnel and the rangatiratanga discourse

Examining matters of imperial intent and method, and of indigenous aspirations and responses to the colonisers, goes to the heart of the colonising project – a project whose results continued to underpin life in New Zealand in post-colonial times. This chapter introduces one key aspect of the relationship between the Crown and Maori. ‘The Crown’ is used synonymously with ‘the state’, representing as it does the legoconstitutional ruling authority in New Zealand since annexation by Britain in 1840. The configuration of personnel and lines of responsibility within the state, of course, changes through time – from governors (until the 1850s) to ministers and their officials. The state’s constitutional profiles are those of Crown Colony until 1853, Colony (with internal self-government from 1856) until 1907, Dominion until 1947 and independent realm thereafter. The discussion draws upon my work on both policing history in New Zealand (Hill, 1986, 1989, 1995) and the history and contemporary practice of relations between Maori and the Crown (Hill, 2000, 2003, 2004).