Criminal sittings – rape in the colony, New Zealand, 1862

In 1862 His Honor, Justice Johnston, issued his instructions to the jury of the New Zealand Supreme Court for two simultaneous rape trials – the alleged rape of a European woman by two Māori men, and an alleged “assault with intent to commit a rape” of a Māori woman by a European man. This article argues that those instructions should be read within an historiographical critique of British colonial expansion, print capitalism and violence. Drawing on feminist postcolonial theorizing the question posed here, is, “What is the historical, ideological context for a newspaper reporting of the possible rape of a Māori woman in 1862?