I was reading this article and wondered if the immigrants that populated both places came from approximately the same places or not?
The bulk of the white population in both Australia and New Zealand are descended from British and Irish immigrants
The Irish influence in Australia was significantly stronger than in New Zealand.
Heh heh. Try telling an Ozzy and a Kiwi they have the same cultural/racial heritage and they’ll each take turns in slugging you.
I shouted out to the Australian and the New Zealender currently staying with me and got the following reply (roughly transcribed):
Yes, they are both from roughly the same stock, but there are (to the residents) hugely important differences: not just that the Irish roots are stronger (which, among other things, accounts for the different accents [not that I can tell the difference]) but that Australia was settled significantly earlier by the British, and that most of the original settlers were not voluntary expats: they were either convicts or soldiers/government folks who’d gone out to look over them. There are still huge chunks of the NSW (New South Wales, Australia’s Northwesterly province) that can trace their ancestry directly back to convict forefathers, and its something of a status symbol.
New Zealand, in contrast, was settled exclusively by voluntary migrants, who moved in after the British beat the Maoris in a series of wars. This means that not just the Irish, but also the Scottish element was much more deep-rooted (consider the large Scotch and Irish immigrant populations in America- both were fleeing from the same economic depression). The somewhat friendlier relations between the indiginous pop. and the immigrants (compared to Australia, which made an effort to wipe out the Abo’s via forced racial mixing until about 1950) also have led to greater element of mixing between white and maori new zealenders, so that the guy in my flat right now is 1/8th maori, while the Australian girl is pure Anglo.
So, ultimately, there’s little difference between the two in terms of locational roots- but to mix the two would rather be like, say, confusing a Texan and a New Yorker (something I’ve only done twice.)
Uhh… try South Easterly
Minor correction: in Australia we have states, not provinces.
GAH! Any geographical errors are entirely my fault. I failed to type down what I was told.
You know, maybe I should stop using quick reply. Or at the very least, learn to connect between ears, brain and keyboard.
I doubt that. The general relationship between the nations is very much that of siblings and although NZ tends to be fiercely independent most Australians either support or are ambivalent towards amalgamating the nations. I never heard of anyone of either nation being offended by being confused with the other.
:dubious: I think you are holding your map upside down.
It was the massive increase in free settlers that was primarily repsonidble for the Maori wars. IOW the settlers didn’t move in after the Maori Wars, they were well established before the Wars started, and by the time the Wars ended in the 1880s New Zealand was a thriving nation.
Neither situation was freindlier. In both cases contact brough a series of skirmishes followed by a kind of unstable truce.
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Please don’t use the wortd “Abo”. It is the equivalent of “Spic” or “Coon” and quite offensive.
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There was never any effort made by any grou[p at any time to wipe out Aborigines via forced racial mixing.
Nope, per capita Aborigines were far more likely to mix with Europeans than Maori were.
The difference is that Maori were Polynesians with the resistance to Eurasian diseases that entailed and were primarily agriculturalists . As a result Maori were never decimated by disease the way that Aborigines or Native Americans were and could maintain high populations. That is the reason why mixing was relatively higher.
Maybe he’s holding McArthur’s Universal Corrective Map of the World right side up?
If he were, the compass points would be reversed and NSW would still be south-easterly, not north-westerly.
Largely erroneous. Here is an earlier post by me on essentially the same subject
Leaving aside the very first white emigrants, convicts and their keepers were never numerically very significant. There are no huge chunks of NSW who can trace their ancestors to convicts. People who can are rare as rocking horse shit. For the most part, even those who can “trace their ancestry back to convict forefathers” mean only that their great great great [etc] grandfather was a convict and every single other of their forefathers was a free settler.
The convict period is much talked about and taught in Australian schools, to an extent that is out of all proportion to importance; I guess just because the convicts were the first white Europeans to arrive, and because it makes for an interesting tale. Consequently, even Australians who should know better tend to have a distorted view of the subject.
I’m surprised. I’ve known and lived with a number of each, and the general consensus on being confused was a tooth-grinding sentiment that “they’re just stupid, self-important Yanks and don’t know any better”. New Zealanders, particularly, will talk a blue streak about how they’re as far east of Australia as Moscow is of London, how they were settled under different circumstances, how they have their own government, and DON’T F*CKING CALL US AUSSIES if they think you’re in a position to know better.
Strange - the accents sound very different to my ear.
That sounds about right. But note that the resentment is focussed on the person making the error. IOW it is annoyance that people don’t understand that these are two separate nations, not offence at being confused for a member of the other nation.
IOW no Australian is going to get seriosuly offended at being called a NZer or vice versa. They may well take offence at people who can’t be bothered to understand that these are two separate nations.
To expand briefly on some of the points in Blake’s post, the Treaty Of Waitangi was signed in 1840, officially ceding New Zealand to the British Crown: it was intended as a document which guaranteed Maori the rights and protection of British subjects in return for accepting Crown governance. However, there were two versions of the Treaty, one Maori, one English, and the translations of each differed significantly, leading to ambiguities regarding the ownership of or right to purchase land. Furthermore not all tribes signed the Treaty, and some which did were reluctant about it however by May 1840 British sovereignty was a done deed.
Prior to that, European immigration to New Zealand was on an ad hoc and often transient basis, especially in the early 19th century, when many of the new arrivals were whalers, sealers, and traders for flax and timber: for their part, the Maori were eager to acquire muskets for inter-tribal warfare.
As the immigrant population gradually increased, there were fears that the French were seeking influence in the region, and in 1838 a dodgy character named Edward Wakefield had floated had floated the New Zealand Company, offering land for sale, sometimes before it had been acquired: Wakefield’s scheme was to buy Maori land cheaply, and sell it to wealthy settlers, who would then import low-paid and indentured British workers to work the land.
In short it was a scamble with no-one in charge, hence the Treaty, which was an effort not so much to acquire New Zealand as British territory - at that point there was no indication the colony would pay its way, and apart from as a southern base for the Navy it had little strategic or military value - as to establish some kind of order which would protect both Maori and colonists.
There were a few early skirmishes between settlers and Maori, but with increased immigration the European population had, by 1858, exceeded that of Maori, and with the increased desire for arable land, conflict, which had been previously confined to relatively isolated incidents, was inevitable. It began in Taranaki in 1858, then spread to the Waikato and the central North Island: with a growing immigrant population and troops brought in to defend them - as well as “friendly” tribes the results were inevitable, and the bulk of the fighting was over by 1872, although the King Country of the central North Island held out until around 1880.
Much Maori land was confiscated, often illegally, both before and during the conflict, and this is still a bone of contention for many Maori, with the Waitangi Tribunal to this day attempting to address past injustices by researching historical grievances and awarding compensation to tribes.
Dinner time.
An Aussie. We’re not a collection of slightly psychotic, drug-addled 70s-80s English Metal Music Stars…
Also - Not all of Australia was settled by convicts. South Australia happened to be primarily settled by free immigrants, and a substantial number of those happened to be German.
It’s like asking if America and Canada are forged from the same cultural and genetic stock - the broad answer is yes, because a lot of the people who settled in those areas were from the same areas of the world. But when you get down to the nuts and bolts of it, there’s a lot of little things here and there that will also say “no, there’s a lot of differences between the genetic background of all of those people”.
None of Australia was settled primarily by convicts.
There was a strong Scottish influence here, particularly down south. Wakefield, whom I mentioned in my earlier post, planned settlements which mirrored parts of the UK: Christchurch has a strong English influence, and Dunedin, modelled and named after Edinburgh, still has a strong Scottish heritage.
I wanted to jump in here and add a disclaimer: It’s offensive if you’re speaking to an Aboriginal person or fairly Politically Correct people.
Many, many people (especially in Queensland, and rural areas) use “Abbo” quite freely, in mixed company, and around people they’ve only just met. It’s not (always) automatically meant in the same way as “Nigger” or “Coon”, but merely a shortened form of “Aboriginal”.
I offer no comment on the appropriateness of this, but I think it needs to be mentioned that “Abbo” is not considered “Offensive” by all and sundry in Australia.
[QUOTE=Blake]
The difference is that Maori were Polynesians with the resistance to Eurasian diseases that entailed and were primarily agriculturalists . As a result Maori were never decimated by disease the way that Aborigines or Native Americans were and could maintain high populations. That is the reason why mixing was relatively higher.[/QUOTE
I remember being taught at school that authorities thought around 1900 that the Maori people would die out becuase their numbers had gone down to 40,000. I do not have a cite for this. Does anyone ?