Colonising Te Whanganui ā Tara and Marketing Wellington, 1840-1849

Book excerpt: This book examines the advertising posters, town plans and geographical views that encouraged middle-class emigration to New Zealand in the 1840s. It explores how the New Zealand Company exploited visual literacy to advertise its settlement in Te Whanganui ā Tara Wellington. A tale of two towns, prospective English settlers looked to Wellington to make their homes, while Te Whanganui ā Tara was already home to numerous Māori sub-tribes. The book explores the worlds of each to ask how the images produced by the New Zealand Company were complicit in transferring Māori land into English ownership. Not seeking blame, it works instead to understand, and investigates processes of redress, offering hope for a post post-colonial future in Aotearoa New Zealand. This book will interest scholars and students of migration, visual culture and print history.