Kōrero: European ideas about Māori

When the French navigator Marc Joseph Marion du Fresne stopped in the Bay of Islands in 1772 a series of misunderstandings led to violence. Marion du Fresne and 24 of his crew were killed. The survivors took retribution on the locals, and the incident helped establish a view that Māori were treacherous 'savages'. This romanticised depiction of Marion du Fresne's killing was drawn by the French artist Charles Meryon, who spent time in New Zealand in the 1840s.