Charles and Pourewa Cossill: What we know - and don't know - so far (Part 2)

This is part 2 of the story of Charles and Pourewa Cossill. You can find Part 1 here. 

In the absence of any further confirmed facts or information about Charles and Pourewa, I have researched as much local history  as I could find. This can at least help place their lives in the context of the time and place in which they lived. 

So, where does this place Charles and Pourewa's story with the known and speculated facts?  How could they have met? 

We know that all available evidence suggests that Pourewa was taken captive from her home area  in the Waikato some time from about 1820 during Hongi Hika's campaign against southern tribes. It is most likely that she was a child, and she would have been taken to Northland to the Bay of Islands area. Hongi Hika's  drive to provide supplies and services to visiting ships meant that over 4000 captives were taken to the north of New Zealand  by the 1820s.  Captives were invariably women and children and were used to carry out  menial tasks for the conquering tribe -  as forced labour in gardens, for dressing flax, and for  providing a range of sexual hospitality services to visiting sailors.  Captive labour could also have been provided by local chiefs to work with European entrepreneurs in the extraction industries, especially for heavy work like dragging spars to waiting vessels. 

There seems to have been a range of circumstances that captives could find themselves in, ranging from precarious to comparatively secure. It was was not uncommon for some captives to become loyal and life-long servants or even marriage partners within the tribe - all depending on their circumstances, rank, and possibly their luck.  They could also be used as food if supplies were short, or could be dispatched swiftly for a variety of reasons beyond their control. A high-born captive woman had a greater chance of survival, and could have been taken as a secondary wife by a conquering chief, thereby  strengthening his right over her land or connections to her tribe.  Once taken, a captive lost their mana and, as such, served useful purposes doing jobs or activities that no other members of the tribe could do without risk of breaching the associated tapu.  Even so, for the captives, there were degrees of being without mana and degrees of being in breach of tapu: women were treated differently to men, and higher-born captives were of greater value than commoners. In general, captives were unlikely to escape to return home, as they could have been killed if caught and could likely have been rejected by their own people for having lost their mana through capture. 

The rapidly changing nature of Maori society during this period, however, meant that captives' circumstances, opportunities and prospects may not always have followed their traditional expectations. The  cost and availability of resources to feed and maintain such a large number of captives in this period of time eventually had a direct relationship to their usefulness and length of captivity.  While the missionaries may have taken the credit for "redeeming"  captives and securing the release of many others through an increasing Maori uptake of Christianity, the simple economics of the cost of keeping an oversupply of labour  could have been a more significant factor in the peak of captive labour being reached by the 1840s. 

In the absence of available European women, many visiting sealers, whalers, traders and labourers took Maori women to be temporary or permanent partners depending on the length of their stay in New Zealand. Temporary relationships tended to be monogamous and affectionate in nature, but undoubtedly, a sex trade existed and may even have provided the context for some of the longer-term relationships to establish. The availability and designation of women for either function was controlled by Maori leaders, ultimately to benefit their access to European goods.   If the Maori woman was well-connected within the local tribe, a suitable European man could gain access to the use of her lands and the chief's protection, and in return,  the chief secured regular access to European goods - especially much desired muskets, and he increased his superiority over other chiefs.  Such relationships between higher ranked Maori women and  European men of perceived value usually involved careful negotiation and required the man's ongoing obligation to the tribe. Chiefs would have been only interested in arranging a formal alliance with a European of some benefit to his purposes. Such marriages could be accommodated within Maori customs while including recognisable elements of western civil practices. 

 Sex was more likely to have been treated as a commodity when the woman was not of chiefly rank  or of any strategic value - a position entirely suitable for captive females. There is no evidence of prostitution in pre-European New Zealand, although entrepreneurial chiefs were quick to capitalise on the supply and demand opportunities presented by the increasingly frequent visits of  shiploads of sex-starved sailors - mostly centred around Kororareka in the Bay of Islands. This "sexual hospitality" was viewed quite differently by all parties involved. Missionaries and European and English observers with high ideals of morality viewed any such transactions as prostitution, whereas within Maori culture, gift exchange was an established part of negotiating a relationship. But undoubtedly, payments in kind were received by the girls and women visiting the ships, and part or all of the rewards were returned to the chief for the benefit of the entire community. I'm not sure the sailors thought too much about it either way. 

 Missionaries were not initially in favour of inter-racial marriages, and Henry Williams refused to formalise such unions, especially if the woman was unbaptised. He opposed Philip Tapsell's first marriage to a Maori woman (who promptly left her new husband on the day of their marriage), but later he changed his opinion and performed the ceremony for Tapsell's third marriage to a Maori woman. Samuel Marsden, however,  believed that lawful marriage was of the highest importance in leading Maori towards Christian civilisation. 

While visiting northern settlements during the 1830s, Englishman Edward Markham observed that arrangements between interracial couples seemed to be for pragmatic reasons - although sentiment was also apparent, and that women would suffer incredible persecution for the men they live with. (I can find no elaboration on that  or examples - but it could fit the context of Pourewa's alleged refusal of Hone Heke as mentioned in Nancy Wake's biography by Peter Fitzsimmons.)

Ideas to ponder:

- Charles Cossill worked in the extractive industries - most likely kauri spars - in the Hokianga area and around Taipa at some stage in the early 1830s. Could he have met Pourewa here?  Might she have been involved in wider range of interactions between Maori providers of food or labour to the bushmen, labourers and sailors involved in the kauri spar industry? 

 - There would have been no advantage to a chief in negotiating a marriage alliance between a woman of  rank and a common labourer.  This suggests  that Pourewa's marriage to Charles (seemingly a common labourer of no strategic value to any chief)  was most likely outside of any kind of negotiated arrangement possibilities described above.  A  possible clue from their son Richard Cossill's obituary is "... while in the north, the adventurous sailor [Charles] fell in love with a native lady".  It is clear that their descendants believed the marriage was based on a love match. In the context of the times, though, necessity, pragmatism, and a lack of other options could well have induced affection in most relationships in the colonial era. 

- Was Pourewa actually living at Waimate as a servant or worker? The Davises had many Maori as part of their domestic community, including freed slaves who worked on the farm or as part of the household staff. Education was part of the civilising process. If  she was there, Pourewa would most likely have had access to the school - which included Maori females - run by missionary Richard Davis's wife Mary, and she would probably have learned  to write her name to some degree. The fact that she could not write her name could indicate she wasn't part of the Waimate Mission community. 

- Were Charles and Pourewa married  on site at the Waimate church, or elsewhere by William Williams when he was off-site visiting the outer areas of the Bay of Islands and beyond? The register is obviously from the Waimate parish, but the ceremony could have taken place anywhere, including their home if Charles and Pourewa were already living together. Living together outside of marriage, surely, would not have been sanctioned on the Mission grounds. To be married in the church, would they each have been living in close proximity to Waimate? The witnesses were both from the Waimate mission though, so were either travelling with William Williams around the district or it could indicate that Charles and Pourewa were in close proximity to the mission. 

- It is unlikely that Charles would have been part of the Waimate mission establishment. He wasn't in their target market.

- It is unlikely - given Pourewa's status - that she would have been assigned for sexual hospitality duties, especially with a common labourer or sailor - but it does create another option to consider how she and Charles could have met. 

- Pourewa's first child Sarah (previously believed to have been called Ella)  was born in 1836. If so, given the October date of the marriage, Pourewa must have been significantly pregnant, or the child was already born before the marriage. Just a thought: was Sarah even Charles' daughter? 

- If Pourewa was on site at Waimate, how would she have met Charles, and would she have had the opportunity to know him well enough to create Sarah?

- Polygamous chiefs newly converted to Christianity "put aside" surplus wives as part of their adherence to the Ten Commandments. Could Pourewa have been a surplus wife? Is it possible that Sarah may not have even been Charles' child?

- There is no evidence to indicate that Charles and Pourewa had any ongoing connection to, or affiliation with, any marae, hapu or iwi. The family appear to have lived and been raised as colonial settlers. This is further evidence that the marriage was not one strategically negotiated by a chief. How much of Pourewa's story did she tell her children, and how much of her Maori culture did she take with her into her marriage? It seems as if she rejected or relinquished - either by choice or Charles' insistence - any Maori heritage, culture or connection. It could well be that Pourewa was disconnected from her own culture, after many years away from her home and any family connections. 

- How much control over her own life and decisions did Pourewa have? Was she independent enough to make her own choice of Charles? Nancy Wake's story of Hone Heke fancying Pourewa for himself and being outraged when she chose Charles instead seems to be the only evidence - albeit anecdotal - of Pourewa's pre-marriage existence anywhere.  This story must have come from Nancy Wake's mother Ella Rosieur, or possibly her grandmother Maggie (Granny) Rosieur and  could have even been told when they visited the family back in New Zealand.  It would confirm that Pourewa was recognised as a person of rank.  Whatever truth is in the anecdote, it does prove that Pourewa's rank and story - however much of it she shared with her children -  was a point of pride for at least three subsequent generations. 

I seem to have posed more questions than I answered. I am happy to be challenged on any of my comments or speculations - teasing out the possibilities and the impossibilities may help us get closer to the facts. 

Sources : 

- Ngā uri o Pourewa : a Pākehā family discovers its Māori ancestry by Nigel Cooper, 2005 

- Mangonui Gateway to the Far North by Neva Clarke McKenna, 1990. 

- New Zealand Births, Deaths and Marriages Online (NZBDM) 

- Papers Past 

- My Heritage 

- Ancestry.com 

- New Zealand: the first British arrivals, 1769-1839 - Jock Phillips 

- Ranulph Dacre and Patuone's Topknot  (Stout Centre Review March1995)

- TOITU TE WHENUA E Only the land remains, constant and enduring.  Muriwhenua Land Claim (Wai-45) A Preliminary Report on the Historical Evidence Barry Rigby and John Koning Waitangi Tribunal Division 4 December 1989

- INTERMARRIAGE: ITS ROLE AND IMPORTANCE WITHIN EARLY NEW ZEALAND SHORE WHALING STATIONS. A thesis in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Masters of Arts in History at Massey University, Emily V. Owen (2007) 

- Transcription of the Biography of Stephen Wrathall (1779 -1872)

 - Whakawhanaungatanga Using DNA, Part 1 of 3: It's Complicated (Easy to find links to Parts 2 and 3 from here). Can thoroughly recommend this.

- Muriwhenua Land Report (1997) 

- The New Zealand timber and flax trade, 1769-1840 

Ngati Porou Leadership - Rapata Wahawaha and the politics of conflict - Monty Soutar thesis, Massey University, Palmerston North (2000) pp 155 - 160. 

Hargreaves, R. P. “Waimate: Pioneer New Zealand Farm.” Agricultural History, vol. 36, no. 1, 1962, pp. 38–45. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/3740396.

Marriage in Early New Zealand (from  Matters of the Heart: A History of Interracial Marriage in New Zealand, by Angela Wanhalla)