feb 22, 1850 - First Native hostel opened in Waipapa, Auckland
Description:
In Auckland, George Clarke (Chief Protector of Aboriginals) had proposed setting aside a site
for visiting Māori from Thames in Saint George’s Bay in 1841, but nothing came of it.21 By
1845, a troubled townsperson noted:
They [Māori] arrive here with their produce, perhaps in rainy weather, and are often
detained by contrary winds for days and even weeks, and during that time (unless indeed
some solitary instance of favouritism when a few may find shelter in the out-houses of
some kind person) they are obliged to swarm together in hordes upon the beach during
the wet stormy nights, and sleep in the same blankets that have absorbed the rain during
the day
Such conditions made the visitors particularly liable to the type of respiratory ailments that
have contributed so much to their decline, suggested the writer. Surely a large house could be erected where visiting Māori could be sheltered from Auckland’s inclement weather?23 By 1848, nothing had changed. A local newspaper condemned government inertia, asserting it was inhumane to deny Māori visitors decent accommodation. It was also a matter of fairness.
“Considering the large amount of taxation which is so unfairly wrung from the natives … it is
the very least humanity can do, to employ a small portion of such revenue for the protection of the very lives which create the same.”
The following year the government finally agreed to erect a hostelry on Native reserve land at Beach Road, Mechanics Bay, where Māori and other poor visitors could temporarily stay free of charge. (That it was for the use of poor Pākehā as well as Māori supports the before-mentioned class dimension.) The European-styled, U-shaped, wooden building was opened in February 1850.
Source: https://ojs.victoria.ac.nz/jnzs/article/download/4100/3630/
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A chronology of Māori housing in Tāmaki Makaurau - Key events
This timeline charts the changing institutional framework an...
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