1840: Maoris Given Negrohead Tobacco At Waitangi
February 12, 2022
By AHNZ
Negrohead was the tobacco distributed to Maoris who turned up at Waitangi to sign the Treaty back in 1840. If it were done today it would be identified as part of a Show Bag of samples everyone attending an Expo or Fair would get, perhaps including a commemorative biro pen or USB stick.
Join our Empire and you’ll get access to lots of nice flags and food and uniformed guys and tobacco like this!
“In the afternoon a quantity of tobacco (negro-head) was distributed among the Natives, or, rather, was intended to be so, for they soon upset the superintending officer (who was obliged, nolens volens, to put up with the loss of his dignity), and so got the tobacco among them, by which, however, some got a large share, and some got little, and others none at all. This occurrence occasioned much dissatisfaction among the Natives, and for some time I feared the result.”- THE AUTHENTIC AND GENUINE HISTORY OF THE SIGNING OF THE TREATY OF WAITANGI, WILLIAM COLENSO (1890); Early New Zealand Books, Auckland University
Sadly, Maoris are not given any free tobacco at all at Waitangi these days. Least of all, Negrohead. Tradition has been sidelined by Political Correctness and Smoke Free interventionalism.
It is not recorded if the recipients had Identity Political objections to receiving tobacco so named. It is recorded that they leapt upon it and devoured it and those who missed out were very sorry. Is it possible that these Maoris didn’t know that they were offended? Or just that such offence was yet to be invented until our own day?
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Image ref. oldshopstuff.com
2 thoughts on "1840: Maoris Given Negrohead Tobacco At Waitangi"
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More likely in todays world the product would be called TRIBALHEAD, come wrapped in tinfoil and be referred to as a bullet.
“I wasn’t going to sign, but somebody slipped me a spiked quill.”
Well, it was a better deal than Busby gave out when he had his moment. Will write about that very soon (by request.)