White female Captives, Sex & Racism On The Nineteenth Century New Zealand frontier

The capture of white women by Māori in the nineteenth century was often accompanied by high hysteria and moral outrage. Trevor Bentley tells these women’s stories, including those of Charlotte Badger, Ann Morley, Caroline Perrett and Elizabeth Guard, exploring contemporary myths that all of these women were mistreated and held against their will. The white settler population was at once fascinated and appalled by these stories: what did the women have to do to survive, how did they live and, well, what about sex? The settlers were obsessed with the virtue of these women and in the retelling of their experiences most enjoyable aspects of living with Māori were suppressed. Bentley reveals that two of these women actually chose to remain in the Māori world.