Us Maoris used to practise slavery just like them poor Negroes had to endure in America . . .’ says Beth Heke in Once Were Warriors. ‘Oh those evil colonials who destroyed Maori culture by ending slavery and cannibalism while increasing the life expectancy,’ wrote a sarcastic blogger recently. So was M?ori slavery ‘just like’ the experience of Africans in the Americas and were British missionaries or colonial administrators responsible for ending the practice? What was the nature of freedom and unfreedom in M?ori society and how did that intersect with British colonists and the anti-slavery movement?

This book is the first history of M?ori war captives. Drawing on M?ori oral sources as well the records of colonists, Petrie analyses freedom and unfreedom in traditional M?ori society; the role of economics and mana in shaping captivity; and how the arrival of colonists, trade and war transformed M?ori society and the place of captives.