Te Puna - A New Zealand Mission Station: Historical Archaeology in New Zealand

ISBN-13: 9781441926593 / Angielski / Miękka / 2010 / 276 str.

Angela Middleton

Opis

Evangelical missionary societies have been associated with the processes of colonisation throughout the globe, from India to Africa and into the Pacific. In late 18th-century Britain, the Church Missionary Society for Africa and the East (CMS) began its missionary ventures, and in the first decade of the 19th-century, sent three of its members to New South Wales, Australia, and then on to New Zealand, an unknown, little-explored part of the world. Across the globe, a common material culture travelled with its evangelizing (and later colonizing) settlers, with artefacts appearing as cultural markers from Cape Town in South Africa, to Tasmania in Australia and the even more remote Bay of Islands in New Zealand. After missionization, colonization occurred. Additionally, common themes of interaction with indigenous peoples, household economy, the development of commerce, and social and gender relations also played out in these communities. This work is unique in that it provides the first archaeological examination of a New Zealand mission station, and as such, makes an important contribution to New Zealand historical archaeology and history. It also situates the case study in a global context, making a significant contribution to the international field of mission archaeology. It informs a wider audience about the processes of colonization and culture contact in New Zealand, along with the details of the material culture of the country's first European settlers, providing a point of comparison with other outposts of British colonization.

Spis treści

Introduction: Te Puna Mission Station.- The New Zealand Mission.- Mission Station and Subsistence Farm.- The Archaeological Investigations.- Domesticity and Daily Life.- Conclusions.- Appendix: CMS inventory.

Blurb

Evangelical missionary societies have been associated with the processes of colonization throughout the globe, from North America to India, Africa, and into the Pacific. In late eighteenth century Britain the Church Missionary Society for Africa and the East (CMS) began its missionary ventures, and in the early nineteenth century sent three of its members to New Zealand, then an unknown, little-explored part of the world. This book anthropologizes the processes of missionization, presenting a case study of the New Zealand CMS mission station, Te Puna, settled in 1832 following the closure of New Zealand’s first mission, established in 1814.

The historical archaeology of Te Puna demonstrates the particularities of one outpost of early nineteenth century British colonization, but its story resonates around the globe, reflecting local differences as well as common patterns in missionization. In all mission types, domesticity is revealed as a central, unifying concern of the ‘civilizing mission’; other themes of interaction with indigenous peoples, household economy, the development of commerce, and social and gender relations were played out. Across the globe, a common material culture traveled with its evangelizing (and colonizing) settlers, with artifacts appearing as cultural markers from Cape Town in South Africa, to Tasmania and Victoria in Australia, and the even more remote Bay of Islands in New Zealand.

This book brings to life the Te Puna mission: a simple, rural household, where the larger dramas of settlement, colonization, and culture contact are clearly reflected in the archaeological and archival records. At the same time, the processes of missionization within New Zealand are placed within the wider framework of evangelical efforts in other parts of the world in the early nineteenth century.