Paperback, 175pp

The story of New Zealand’s musket wars is one of killing, cannibalism and enslavement on a horrific scale. These activities did not originate with the arrival of European weapons but were endemic as hapu strove to expand or to defend their homelands. Nor was the arrival of these weapons in itself the cause of the scale of the horror, but it was the imbalance of one hapu or iwi  acquiring large numbers of weapons which they used against those that had none..

Muskets, powder and shot were acquired by maori in different ways and different circumstances throughout New Zealand, but this story is confined to the trade in the northern half of the North Island. The written history of New Zealand pre-1840 tends to compress time but in the musket trade Ngapuhi started serious trading for muskets in 1814, the Marutuahu iwi, Ngati Paoa and Ngati Maru over 10 years later and Waikato some 15 years after Ngapuhi. Even then the trading avenues to Marutuahu and Waikato had to be opened up by seamen/traders to bring to an end this unequal conflict.   

 Two men led this opening up and they are the subjects of this book. Captain (later Chevalier) Peter Dillon who initiated  arms trade with Marutuahu and Captain John Rodolphus Kent who brought large scale arms trading to the Waikato. This is their story, and with it a somewhat different perspective of events in pre-1840 New Zealand.