Hell and High Water: A German Occupation of the Chatham Islands, 1843-1910

by Sheila Natusch

Never again will there be anything quite like that hopeful band of German missioners who in 1842 set off in the general direction of New Zealand and more by chance than guidance ended up on the Chatham Islands. They were Engst, "a tormented volcano of a man"; Beyer, touchy and impulsive; Schirmeister, intense and clever; Müller, "burdened with a most gentle disposition"; and Baucke, who lived on into his nineties obsessed by then with redress for lost land. They reached the Chathams not long after invading Maoris had crushed the native Morioris, who declined to resist because of a covenant against warfare made with their ancestors. Enslaved, they were killed if they did not work hard enough, or just for food. The good Germans, confronted by such respected customs as muru and utu, suffered what is now called cultural shock -- the heathen overcharged for everything, burnt down fences, demanded to be paid for sending their children to school. Zeal began to "they are a lazy lot... full of tricks and guile." Three fräuleins arrived and were allotted as brides. (They young women were asked to reveal their preferences but replied piously that they held all the brothers equally dear.) So began this bizarre little colony in one of the most out-of-the-way places in the South Pacific.

Hardcover

Published January 1, 1977