Full bibliography

Maori election petitions to the 1876 Eastern Maori and the 1879 Northern Maori elections were high-stakes political manoeuvres. The outcomes of such challenges were significant in the weighting of political power in Wellington. This was a time in New Zealand politics well before the formation of political parties. Political alignments were defined by a mixture of individual charismatic men with a smattering of provincial sympathies and individual and group economic interests. Larger-than-life Maori and Pakeha political characters were involved in the election petitions, providing a window not only into the complex Maori political relationships involved, but also into the stormy Pakeha political world of the 1870s. And this is the great lesson about election petitions. They involve raw politics, with all the political theatre and power play, which have as much significance in today's politics as they did in the past. Election petitions are much more than legal challenges to electoral races. There are personalities involved, and ideological stances between the contesting individuals and groups that back those individuals. Maori had to navigate both the Pakeha realm of central and provincial politics as well as the realm of Maori kin-group politics at the whanau, hapu and iwi levels of Maoridom. The political complexities of these 1870s Maori election petitions were but a microcosm of dynamic Maori and Pakeha political forces in New Zealand society at the time.