1. Brown, Arthur. "The Development of the Scout Movement in Nigeria." African Affairs 46 (1947), 38-42.
   Written by a Nigerian Scout official, the article provides a useful survey of the scope of scouting in colonial Nigeria.
2. Baden Powell, Lord Robert. Scouting for Boys. 13th ed. London: C. Arthur Pearson, 1957.
   This is the 13th edition of Baden Powell's original manual on scouting that launched the movement. He revised it regularly in later editions, but it remained scoutings' central canon.
3. Baden Powell, Sir Robert. "White Men in Black Skins." Elders Review of West African Affairs 8, no. 30 (July 1929), 6-7.
   Baden Powell published hundreds of books and articles on scouting, but this piece offers a frank and rare glimpse into his views on race.
4. Gaitskell, Deborah. "Upward All and Play the Game: The Girl Wayfarers' Association in the Transvaal 1925-1975." In Apartheid and Education: The Education of Black South Africans, edited by Peter Kallaway. Johannesburg: Ravan Press, 1984.
   There are very few scholarly works on the Pathfinder movement, but this article covers its sister movement, which was known as the "Wayfarers."
5. Proctor, Tammy. "'A Separate Path': Scouting and Guiding in Interwar South Africa." Comparative Studies in Society and History 42, no. 3 (July 2000), 605-31.
   Written by a historian specializing in modern Britain, this article is useful for comparing the South African versions of scouting and guiding to their metropolitan British counterparts.
6. Parsons, Timothy. Race, Resistance and the Boy Scout Movement in British Colonial Africa. Athens: Ohio University Press, 2004.
   This is the only book length treatment of the Boy Scout movement in colonial Africa. It focuses primarily on scouting in English-speaking eastern and southern Africa.
7. PAXTU: International Web Site for the History of Guiding & Scouting, http://www.paxtu.org/index.html (accessed May 16, 2008).
   This website tracks the most current scholarship on international Scouting and Guiding.

by Elizabeth Ten Dyke
(Suggested writing time: 50 minutes)

In the introduction to this unit, author Tim Parsons writes, "Scouting was thus both an instrument of colonial authority and a subversive challenge to the legitimacy of the British empire." In other words, scouting would "train" African boys to accept colonial power as well as empower Scouts to use the movement to resist or oppose colonial power. Write a well-organized essay drawing on evidence from three primary sources that helps you support this point of view.

Grateful acknowledgment is made to the following institutions for primary sources

• Eagle Press,
• East African Standard,
• Imperial War Museum, London,
• Journal of the Royal African Society,
• Oxford University,
• South African Scout Association,
• Tanzania National Archives,
• Trustees of the National Library of Scotland, and
• University of Witwatersrand.

About the Author

Tim Parsons is a Professor at Washington University. Parsons is the author of several books including: Race, Resistance and the Boy Scout Movement in British Colonial Africa; The 1964 Army Mutinies and the Making of Modern East Africa; The African Rank-and-File: Social Implications of Colonial Service in the King's African Rifles, 1902-1964; and The British Imperial Century, 1815-1914: A World History Perspective.

About the Lesson Plan Author

Elizabeth Ten Dyke has a Ph.D. in Cultural Anthropology. She is Director of Instructional Services for the Kingston City School District, and is the author of Dresden: Paradoxes of Memory in History.

Conceived by General Sir Robert Baden Powell to reduce class tensions in early 20th-century Britain, the Boy Scout movement evolved into an international youth movement that offered a romantic program of vigorous outdoor life for boys and adolescents as a cure for the physical decline and social disruption caused by industrialization and urbanization. One of scouting's main goals was to create social stability by dealing with the complex problem of adolescence. Every generation fears that the generation that comes after it will not respect its rules, values, and division of property. As a uniformed and disciplined youth organization, the Scout movement taught young males in the difficult years between childhood and adulthood to respect older generations and accept their place in society. By the 1920s most of the nations of the world had embraced the movement as a way to teach young people to be loyal to the state and respect their elders. While governments worldwide utilized scouting to reinforce political and social authority, such was not the case in colonial Africa where marginalized groups and social outsiders used scouting to challenge dominant institutions.

Scouting began in 1907 with Robert Baden-Powell's creation of a youth organization aimed at promoting physical, moral, and imperial fitness among British youth by capitalizing on their fascination with "frontier woodcraft" and "tribal" life. He incorporated these elements into scouting in order to inspire young Britons to emulate what he interpreted to be the most praiseworthy aspects of African life. A diverse and eclectic mix of tribal peoples that included Amerindians, Arab Bedouins, and New Zealand Maoris served as inspirations for the movement, but Africans occupied a central place in Baden Powell's thinking. A 20-year career fighting colonial wars made him a self-proclaimed expert on "tribal" cultures, which he claimed to have incorporated into the scout movement.

At first, Baden-Powell did not have a specific ideology for scouting. But eventually several key themes emerged in his thinking and became the central core of the scout creed. Concerned that urban slums and vice were undermining British security, he aimed to prepare younger generations to defend their nation and empire. Just as life on the imperial frontier taught virility, resourcefulness, and self-control, scouting was a "school of the woods" that would instill these same ideals in British youth. By adopting the values and discipline of "tribal" peoples, scouting would teach the vital manly qualities that consumerism and materialism had drained away from "civilized" western society.

Similarly, Baden Powell also believed that class tensions led to national weakness. He therefore envisioned scouting as a way to teach working-class boys to accept their place in society by stressing obedience, discipline, and simplicity. This helps to explain the Fourth Scout Law: "A Scout is a Brother to every other Scout." Baden Powell never intended for this brotherhood to lead to social equality; rather it was a sense of fraternity in scouting that would defuse social tensions by reducing friction between rich and poor boys.

In the tense years before World War One, the movement's critics charged that scouting secretly prepared young men for military service. Baden Powell emphatically denied the charge, and after the war he recast scouting as an international peace movement. More significantly, he also acknowledged that non-Europeans could also be scouts and gave his blessing to administrators and educators who introduced scouting throughout the empire to teach imperial loyalty, encourage African and Asian students to accept their place in colonial society, and reduce the political and social friction that came with foreign imperial rule. By the inter-war era, colonial administrators and educators had begun to fear that student unrest, urban migration, and juvenile delinquency were products of a growing social crisis in local African communities. British administrators relied on local allies and chiefs to govern the African majority, and they worried that the younger generation's rejection of their elders' authority threatened widespread political and social instability.

The Boy Scout movement promised to correct this imbalance by teaching students and city boys to respect colonial authority throughout the continent. In French-speaking Africa, Baptist missionaries in the Belgian Congo tried to substitute scouting for secret male initiation ceremonies, which they considered immoral, while Catholic educators sought to use the movement to train "Christian knights" to assist in converting the wider African population. Similarly, in the French colonies the authorities tried to use scouting to train a small African elite that would help them control the rest of colonial society.

In eastern and southern Africa, British officials claimed that the authority of their African allies stemmed from "tribal tradition." But they also introduced western schooling to train the young Africans to help run the colonies and to demonstrate that they were "civilizing" their "primitive" subjects. The scout movement never achieved a mass African following, but it targeted the students, juvenile delinquents, and urban migrants that were the greatest threat to British rule. Colonial educators and administrators worried that these "detribalized" Africans were politically dangerous, particularly when they flaunted "tribal tradition" and aspired to live a western lifestyle alongside European settlers. The colonial authorities turned to scouting to "retribalize" African adolescents by teaching them to remain in the countryside and accept the authority of their "native chiefs." Ironically, they looked to scouting to teach African boys how to be "tribal."

Yet Africans also used scouting to claim the rights of full citizenship. They invoked the Fourth Scout Law, which declared a scout was a brother to every other scout, to challenge racial discrimination. Rather than making colonialism run more smoothly, then, scouting offered African boys a way to resist the discriminatory laws and social barriers that made them second-class citizens. Rejecting the authority of official colonial scout associations, they formed their own unauthorized troops to claim the power and legitimacy of the scout movement for themselves. Scouting was thus both an instrument of colonial authority and a subversive challenge to the legitimacy of the British Empire. The African Scout experience thus demonstrated how marginalized groups and social outsiders could use the movement to challenge these very same institutions.

Baden Powell would have been dismayed by how these independent troops twisted and reinterpreted the scout canon to demand rights, respect, and eventually independence. In Kenya, some African troops ventured into politics during the early 1950s by supporting the anti-colonial Mau Mau rebellion, which was essentially a civil war between landless Kikuyu young men and the wealthy Kikuyu chiefs and landowners who were allied with the British colonial regime. While some African boys who wanted to join the movement illegally acquired uniforms they donned, others used scout clothing to exploit the colonial authorities' assumption that they were trustworthy. Dressed as scouts, they could travel more freely about the colony and were often able to collect money for "scout" activities. Scouting thus simultaneously bolstered colonial authority and challenged the legitimacy of the British Empire.

Despite the challenges they posed during the 1950s, most territorial scout associations in Africa grew and prospered by allying with the colonial authorities. European scout leaders demonized African nationalists and were caught by surprise when these men came to power after independence in the early 1960s. It seemed likely that the movement's close ties to British imperialism would lead to its demise in post-colonial Africa, but the Africans who inherited control of the scout associations reinterpreted the scout canon to transfer their loyalty to the new nationalist regimes. The survival of scouting in the nationalist era thus demonstrates that the movement's vulnerability to re-interpretation by outsiders was also one of its great strengths. Once the new lines of political authority were clear, the scout associations made African nationalist regimes the focus of their second law ("A Scout is Loyal"). Even modern South African scouting, which lost popular African support for its unwillingness to challenge apartheid, has successfully reinvented itself as a force for economic and social development in the new South Africa.

The Boy Scout movement exposes the tensions and divisions in any given society. Official scouting seeks an alliance with authority, and scout leaders interpret the scout canon to reflect prevailing values and social norms. Conversely, unofficial local modifications of scouting can express political and social opposition. National scout associations usually prevail in the struggle to define scout orthodoxy when their ties to political authority remain intact. Problems arise when the political and social terrain shifts before official scouting has time to react. As a result, scout authorities have become embroiled in controversies ranging from the civil rights struggle in the American South, nationalist resistance movements in India, and the contemporary American debate over gay rights.

In colonial Africa, scouting exposed the hypocrisy and instability of British imperial rule. Administrators and educators hoped to use the movement to teach young Africans to accept their subordinate place in colonial society, but the Fourth Scout Law, which declared that all scouts were brothers, gave Africans the means to reject this second-class status. Thus, the two central themes that emerge from colonial African scouting are: 1) the movement's official role in imperial governance and administration, 2) African moves to take scouting over for their own purposes.

Discussion Questions

• What was the official purpose of the scout uniform? Why would boys in general, and African boys in particular find it appealing? How did the scout uniform and badges both reinforce and disrupt British colonial rule in Kenya and South Africa?
• Why did the South African Scout Association force African boys to become Pathfinders instead of regular scouts? How did the segregated South African scout movement reflect the larger racial divisions in South African society? Why did Africans find the movement appealing despite its official ties to the apartheid regime?

Lesson Plan: ".. . And a Brother to Every Scout."

by Elizabeth Ten Dyke

Time Estimated: three 50-minute classes

Objectives

1. Discuss the influence of colonial experience on Baden Powell's decision to found the Boy Scouts
2. Describe activities related to scouting in Africa
3. Explain how a cultural tradition (scouting) can express social conflict and political struggle in a particular time and place.

Materials

• Five sheets of chart paper
• Markers
• Copies of the "Introduction" to this module for all students, plus one extra
• Tape/glue
• Copies of each primary source, sufficient for all students
• Copies of "Fact or Fib" worksheet, sufficient for all students
• Blank paper
• Colored pencils

Preparation

Take the "Introduction" to this module and cut it into five sections—two paragraphs per section. Attach each section to a sheet of chart paper. Label the charts A through E. Post the chart paper around the room, or set each on a different desk or table.

Day One

Hook
Introduce the lesson by asking the students, "What do you think of when you think of the Boy Scouts?" Students may think of the uniforms of scouting, the rules and traditions, loyalty, activities such as camping, and awards including Eagle Scouts. They may mention Christian and anti-gay aspects of the scouting movement. Particularly if these subjects come up, ask students to speculate about how or why scouting has become an activity mired in disagreements about moral issues in our society today.

Instruct
Explain to students that they will learn about the history of the Boy Scouts (when, where, and why it was founded). They will study primary sources that illustrate some of the tensions and conflicts that occurred when scouting expanded into colonial Africa. This lesson will help students see how cultural traditions can reflect complicated social situations in which different groups of people express disagreement and exercise competing interests.

Activity
Give each student a complete copy of the introduction. Break the students into five groups, one at or near each poster. Assign each group the two paragraphs of reading that correspond to their poster. After they have completed their reading, they should make a bulleted list on the chart paper in which they outline the main ideas of the assigned passage. Have each group present their summary in turn. Students who are listening as others speak should take notes on the material.

Discussion Questions

• Chart A (paragraphs 1, 2): What tribal peoples served as inspiration for the scouting movement? What was scouting supposed to teach the young people who participated in it?
• Chart B (paragraphs 3, 4): What concerned Baden Powell about his nation’s youth? What values did he hope the Scouts would learn through their participation? Explain the Fourth Scout Law "A Scout is a Brother to every other Scout."
• Chart C (paragraphs 5, 6): Explain how scouting became an international movement. How was scouting supposed to help British colonial authorities maintain their power in places like Africa?
• Chart D (paragraphs 7, 8): Which young people were targeted for the African scouting movement? Why them? Give two examples of how "Africans . . . used scouting to claim the rights of full citizenship."
• Chart E (paragraphs 9, 10): How did scouting become involved in the 1950 Mau Mau rebellion in Kenya? Explain what happened to African scouting after British colonial rule came to an end. Did scouting come to an end as well? Why or why not?

Homework
Working from their class notes, students should summarize information about how the basic values and goals were part of the Boy Scout movement early on. They should describe the goals of British colonial authorities as scouting was brought into Africa, and they should give one example of the way in which the Scouts went against British power.

Day Two

Activity #1

• Distribute copies of primary source: The Scouts' War Dance--Baden Powell's adaptation of a Zulu chant, c. 1910
• Distribute blank paper, colored pencils

Have students look at the introduction to this primary source. Point out that Tim Parsons writes, the "odd ritual" of the war dance "was just the sort of thing that Edwardian schoolboys loved for it allowed them to play at being Africans in a thoroughly modern context." Ask students to speculate about what the author means by this statement.

Have the whole class carefully read the description of the dance. Working in pairs, students should:

• Restate the different steps and parts of the dance in their own words.
• Draw or sketch an image of the scouts participating in this dance.
• Discuss what elements of the dance incorporate stereotypes about African culture.
• Discuss what elements of the dance incorporate scouting traditions.

As a whole class: share sketches and discuss "How would this dance help Baden Powell achieve some of his goals for scouting?"

Activity #2

• Distribute copies of primary source: "Appeal for African Scouts: Canon William Palmer to Imperial Scout Headquarters May 5, 1923."

Using a pen, pencil, or highlighter, underline passages in the letter that answer the following questions:

• Who is the author of the letter? To whom is it addressed?
• Where in Africa (what territory) was the author of this letter and his students?
• Why were the students not allowed to call themselves Scouts?
• What were they allowed to do?
• What are three points the author makes to demonstrate that this is unfair?

Homework
Respond in writing to the following question: "What does this conflict (over who may be a Scout) reveal or show about society in the Transvaal at this time?" Support your response with evidence from the document.

Day Three

• Discuss the previous day's homework, focusing on the ways students used documentary evidence to support their point of view.
• Distribute primary source: "Legal Protection for Scout Uniform 1935: Tanganyika Government Ordinance."
• Distribute copies of the "Fact or Fib?" worksheet.

Have students read the legislation with the worksheet in front of them. For each question on the worksheet, they should write a correct response (fact) and an incorrect response (fib).

The entire class should address each question in turn. The student who answers may give the correct response, or the student may give an incorrect response. The other students should listen carefully. If the response is correct they should call out "Fact!" If the answer is false, they should call out "Fib!" Then, when asked, a student who identified a fib may give the correct information.

Discussion
Based on your reading of this legislation, infer some of the problems that were occurring with Scouts in this time and place. In other words, what may have been going on that that government felt it was necessary to create this ordinance?

Distribute copies of primary source: "Organization of British Imperial Scouting" (table, 1951)/

As a whole class discuss:

• What are the four groups of troops at the bottom of the chart?
• How many levels of authority were above them?
• What was the highest level?
• What was the second highest level?
• What does this chart show about the relationship between the British Empire and Africa?

Day Four

DBQ Essay

The Adoption History Project is a superb resource for scholars and students alike. Not only does it offer a broad and consistently high-quality range of historical information, the site itself was designed with user accessibility in mind—it is easy to navigate and welcoming for students.

The home page introduces the five major categories. Of these, one that might appeal most immediately to students is the Timeline, which gives a concise, one-page overview of major developments in adoption history from 1851 to 2000. Other categories include: major people and organizations; explanations of adoption studies and adoption science; general topics in adoption history; and a rich collection of primary-source documents that, in itself, offers hours of compelling reading. See, for example, the illustrated excerpts from The Dangerous Classes of New York and Twenty Years' Work Among Them [1872] by Charles Loring Brace, a leading figure in 19th century social reform and child-rescue.

Shorter primary sources appear in full-text form; longer ones are efficiently excerpted for easy reading, with full citations provided. Further Reading offers references to many useful texts. One of the site's nicest design features is that much of this information is cross-indexed, so that visitors can find the same pages easily through a variety of different paths. To make navigation even simpler, a Site Index provides a clear and cogent list of topics.

Written in a clear and engaging style, the site offers quick access to major issues that shape the field of adoption history. For example, Adoption Studies/Adoption Science leads to a paragraph that neatly explains: "Adoption has been the subject of four major types of empirical research: field studies, outcome studies, nature-nurture studies, and psychopathology studies." Each term is hyperlinked to chronological lists of studies in the relevant area. The page also provides descriptions of particular studies and excerpts, making it relatively simple for someone new to the field to quickly grasp the general shape of the discourse of adoption history.

The overall content reflects the impact of Cultural Studies and multiculturalism on the field of adoption history. Pages on transracial adoptions, African-American adoptions, and the Indian Adoption Project complement those devoted to the more traditionally visible history of white orphans, white social workers, and white adoptive parents.

One small critique of the biographies of major figures: the pages devoted to female figures (such as Pearl S. Buck and Anna Freud) mention their marital and/or parental status, often in the very first paragraph, presenting the impression that a woman's personal relationships are the most necessary and relevant facts of her life. Meanwhile, the male figures are discussed solely for their professional importance, with little or no mention of their family life.

Feminist historians will find this irritating, especially in the case of Anna Freud, who is described reductively as an apparent victim of an Elektra complex: "She made her father's profession her own . . . . Anna Freud never married or had children. She was her father's constant companion, his colleague, and his nurse during the final years of his life." Especially because it appears in the first paragraph, this is an inappropriately condescending description of someone who deserves to have her professional accomplishments foregrounded. That flaw, however, could easily be turned into a good teaching opportunity with students who are old enough to grasp the concept of gender bias in historiography.

Overall, the Adoption History Project is among the best-designed and most succinctly comprehensive historical websites currently available. It is useful for students and scholars at all levels of academic proficiency.

1. Ihimaera, Witi, ed. Growing Up Maori. Auckland: Tandem Press, 1998.
   This collection of 37 personal accounts covers a wide spectrum of experiences and provides the best single introduction to Maori childhoods, rural and urban, throughout the 20th century.
2. Gifkins, Michael, ed. Through the Looking Glass: Recollections of Childhood from 20 Prominent New Zealanders. Auckland: Century Hutchinson, 1988.
   In seeking a common theme from the variety of childhood experience reflected in this collection, Gifkins concludes (p. viii) that "the anarchy of childhood" predominates. Each of the contributors attained prominence in his or her chosen field; the majority are writers or poets. Most of the childhoods outlined are set in the 1940s and 1950s.
3. O'Regan, Pauline. Aunts & Windmills: Stories from My Past. Wellington: Bridget Williams Books, 1991.
   A Catholic nun and social activist, O'Regan recounts childhood episodes of the 1920s and 1930s, set in the small West Coast farming community of Cronadun. School, church, and community activities are complemented by evocative memories of sounds, smells, and tastes.
4. Langkilde Christie, Poula. Candles and Canvas; A Danish Family in New Zealand. Auckland: New Women's Press, 1987.
   Emigrating as a child to New Zealand in 1907, Poula Christie and her sister encountered intolerance, hostility, and suspicion as "foreigners" in a British-dominated society. Her autobiography highlights the cultural difficulties of young "aliens" who sought to be accepted by their peers despite parental anxieties that they should not ignore their cultural heritage.
5. Archie, Carol. Skin to Skin: Intimate True Stories of Maori-Pakeha Relationships. Auckland: Penguin Books, 2005.
   A highly respected Pakeha journalist, Archie has had extensive experience covering Maori/Pakeha issues. This book is based upon her interviews with the members of ten New Zealand families of mixed ethnicity. Particular emphasis is given to the recollections of the (now adult) children. Some 70,000 New Zealand couples were in Maori/non-Maori relationships at the beginning of the 21st century.

by Ryba L. Epstein
(Suggested writing time: 50 minutes)

Societies try to pass on their basic beliefs and values to their children through both official and unofficial channels. The ideals about what children should be taught, how they should be raised, and how they should behave vary greatly from one group to another and over time.

Analyze the documents below and determine the changing attitudes toward children in 19th- and 20th-century New Zealand, as well as the official and unofficial ways those values are shaped.

Your essay should:

• have a clear thesis,
• use all of the documents to support your thesis,
• show analysis by grouping the documents into at least two groups,
• analyze the point of view of the documents, and
• recognize the limitation of the documents before you by suggesting an additional type of document or source to make your discussion more complete or valid.

Documents

1. S. Locke, Annual Report on Native Affairs [Government Document], 1874.
   
   The Maoris in this part of the country are in that position where they find the balance of power turned in favour of the European. They feel the old mana and customs and power of their chiefs are gone: at the same time they have only acquired that amount of knowledge that makes them jealous of the change going on around them, without having, for the altered position in which they are placed, learnt those habits of steady industry and application of general principles for their guidance, to allow their participating freely in the general progress. . . . [There] is a party of industrious Natives in the district who cultivate extensively, paying attention to improving their properties and educating the rising generation. . . . There are two schools established in the district, under the provisions of the Native Schools Act, . . . both of which are conducted in a most satisfactory manner, and the children show a great deal of progress in their knowledge of the English language, considering the short time they have been learning; so much so that it is time to consider some way of providing for some of them by apprenticing them to useful trades. . . .
2. "Shocking Disaster at Cambridge: Three Children Burn to Death." Newspaper article. 1884.
   
   Mrs. Osborne, having some shopping to do in the town, put her infant child to be, and locked it up by itself in the bedroom, so that it would not be disturbed by the other two children [aged 2 and 4 years]. Seeing that everything was safe, there being no fire in the house since breakfast time, she shut up the boy and the girl in the kitchen, and then proceeded to town on her business. I was the usual thing for Mrs. Osborne to shut up her children, believing that did she not do so they would find their way to the river, only a few chains distant. . . . The Coroner . . . referred to the boys’ habit of using matches as described by the mother, and he had no doubt but that the fire originated by the boy getting hold of the matches on this occasion, and in some way setting fire to their clothes or some paper that may have been lying about. . . . He though that the children might have been left with some neighbor.
   
   A juryman informed the coroner that there were no neighbors in the vicinity, and the unfortunate people were not in a position to employ a girl to look after the house in their absence.
   
   A verdict of accidental death by burning was returned.
3. Parliamentary debate over the "Juvenile Depravity Suppression Bill." 1896.
   
   "Mr. W. Hutchinson: There were a number of young children amongst us painfully demoralised – so young, some of them, that the policeman could not think of interfering with them – children suffering from a so-called liberty run unto utter license and lawlessness; and all this arising largely from parental carelessness or positive neglect. . . . These mere children got together at the street-corner or under a dark verandah; they talked, or they listened to talk, not the sweet babble of childhood, mixed with its laugh of innocence, but talk that need not be described; they got into temptations of all kinds before they understood the disastrous results which certainly followed. He ventured to suggest that these young children should be dealt with before they come to those of more advanced age. The Bill before them took no note of this incipiency in vice, yet it was here the mischief began. The Bill was a police Bill, pure and simple; but they needed more. It was an out-worn but still perfectly true axiom that prevention was better than cure."
4. W. E. Spencer, Inspector of Schools, Taranaki Education Office, 1898.
   
   "The causes of bad attendance, exclusive of bad roads and inclement weather, may be classed under two heads - (1) The home circumstances of the pupils, and (2) the school and its authorities. Under the first head I may mention parental indifference or neglect and excessive work required from children of very tender years. I know that during the milking season some children have to milk as many as ten cows every morning, and, if they come to school at all, arrive late, and are so fatigued as to be unfit for the work of the day. . . . Under the second of the above heads there is ample scope for attraction. When a school building is ill-lighted, gloomy, and depressing one cannot wonder at children preferring to stay away more than at their preferring sunshine to dulness [sic]. Then by all means let our schools be cheerful, bright, and attractive, and let the walls be covered with interesting and instructive charts and pictures such as will arouse and sustain curiosity. . . . Let the first impressions of the school-day be pleasant ones. Let us have means by which the children may amuse themselves during the recesses and before school opens, and they will, if possible, come early and regularly for a brief interval of companionship and amusement. . . . Again, the personality of the teacher is a well-known factor in producing good or bad attendance. Lack of sympathy, harshness, carelessness, and incompetency will inevitably lower the attendance. . . ."
5. Female Interviewee (born 1897). Interview by Colonial Childhoods Oral History Project.
   
   "When my brother was born I was just on 12 and the night before he was born, my mother said: "Would you like to go round and stay with Mrs Andrews?" So I stayed the night and I came home in the morning. Mrs Andrews said "Oh, you can go home now." So I went home. It wasn't far from where we were living in Petone. And when I got into the side I saw a most beautiful baby in a basket, on a chair, in the dining room and then I saw somebody rushing round in a starched apron with a cap on her head and I thought, "Well, who are you?" And I said to her, "Who's this in the basket?" She said, "That's your little brother." "Oh," I said, "Well then, I'll go and tell my mother." She said, "Don't you dare open that door. Your mother is very ill." Well, I was nearly 12 and I had no idea in the wild world where my brother had come from or how he got there or anything else – and I think that was quite wrong. I should have been told but I must have been very naïve or an idiot or something, I don't know what, but I never noticed that my mother was any different or having a baby."
6. Code of Honour from The New Zealand Boys' Diary. 1936.
   
   QUALITIES OF A REAL MAN OR WOMAN
   Are you one or only an overgrown baby? Are you faithful in your duties to God? Are you pure in thought, word and action? Do you study to imitate the greatest men or women of the world? Have you the strength of will to eat, drink and play in moderation and such forms of each as will make you better morally, intellectually and physically? Are you determined to work for the betterment of your fellow men?
   
   As a New Zealander, proud of the privilege, yet humble in the enjoyment of it:
   
   You will scorn all dishonesty, of whatsoever form or degree, as petty and mean and altogether unworthy of your family and the high traditions of your school and your Empire.
   
   In all things you will be temperate – in eating, in play, in rest, in work, exercising always the one true discipline – discipline of self. . . .
   
   You will regard coarseness in thought, language, or action, as belittling and degrading, and always and altogether beneath the dignity of a future citizen of this fair Dominion.
   
   You will cheerfully yield reasonable and prompt obedience to your elders, particularly your parents; and you will show a like respect for the rules of your school, the by-laws of your town, and the laws of your country, since you know that rules and laws are not needlessly made. . . .
   
   You will be punctual and orderly and cheerful. You will keep your promises. You will grudge no effort, no matter how small or how great the task, remembering that only your best is good enough.
   
   . . .
   
   You will ever be pure and true, for there are those who daily trust you. You will remember that in the hands of the Children of To-day is the World of To-morrow and you will strive to be not unworthy of the sacred trust.
7. New Zealand School Photographs 1950 and 1964.
8. Sanitarium Weet-Bix Packet [Advertisement], 1990s.

Grateful acknowledgment is made to the following institutions for primary sources:

• Australasian Conference Association Ltd.
• Colonial Childhoods Oral History Project (CCOHP),
• Statistics New Zealand, and
• Whitcombe and Tombs.

About the Author

Jeanine Graham recently retired from teaching history at the University of Waikato (New Zealand). Her investigations into New Zealand childhood history have combined extensive use of oral history as well as documentary, material and visual sources. She also brings to her research the insights gained from some three decades of teaching at Waikato University, where papers on the history of Aotearoa/New Zealand are delivered jointly with colleagues from the School of Maori and Pacific Development. In addition to working in the fields of social history, cultural encounters and childhood history, Graham maintains an active interest in the scholarship of teaching and learning in History.

About the Lesson Plan Author

Ryba Epstein teaches World History, Advanced Placement World History, Advanced Placement European History, Humanities, and Advanced Placement English Literature at Rich East High School in Park Forest, Illinois. She is a consultant and table leader for AP World History and has also read for AP European History. Her M.A. and Ph.D. are from the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign, and she received her A.B. from UCLA. Her dissertation was on African oral epic poetry.

The impact of colonization on childhood experiences in New Zealand was diverse and enduring. Although there was never any formal apartheid system, biculturalism continues to be more commonly a characteristic of Maori (of indigenous ancestry) than Pakeha (non-Maori, generally of European descent). Until very recently most Pakeha children grew up with little knowledge of, or familiarity with, Maori language or custom.

Conversely, most of the children who identified as Maori had little option but to engage with the language, practices, and values of the colonial regime. Many of the urban-raised lost access to their own cultural heritage in the process. Only in the late 20th century, under the combined influences of a Maori cultural renaissance and debates over the nature of a post-colonial New Zealand identity, have Anglo-Saxon assumptions of an inherent cultural superiority been challenged.

Culture and circumstance, location, time period, and family support structures all shaped the nature of antipodean childhoods. Formal colonization began in 1840, when Great Britain declared sovereignty over the islands and their inhabitants. The involvement of some 500 tribal leaders in discussions over the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi that year reflected several decades of encounters. In the preceding half-century, coastal tribes had interacted with seamen, sealers, whalers, traders, or missionaries who introduced their language, food, material culture, values, and diseases. European men who had sexual relations with indigenous women also contributed their gene pool.

The children of these liaisons were normally brought up within their mother's community. Apart from the occasional trader or shore-based whaler who lived long-term with a local woman, European fathers were generally unknown to their progeny. Their offspring were not necessarily disadvantaged. Tribal identification, traced through whakapapa (family trees), incorporated the ancestry of both parents, providing indigenous children with an extensive network of relations, allegiances, and obligations. Few immigrant children grew up with comparable family support. Theirs had to be created over two or three generations of living here.

Traditional lifestyles had evolved over the seven or so centuries during which descendants of Eastern Polynesian voyagers adapted to New Zealand's temperate climate. The changes caused by European values, policies, and diseases were abrupt. By the end of the 1850s, the settler and indigenous populations were roughly equal, at some 59,000 and 56,000 respectively. A rapid influx of Europeans over the next two decades, largely in response to gold discoveries, public works schemes, and assisted immigration policies changed the demographic balance. At the same time, rapid land alienation in both islands and conflict in the North over land sales and sovereignty issues destroyed the economic independence and potential prosperity of many tribes.

Children of both cultures were affected by the upheavals of this era. Some measure of charitable or government aid was normally available to the "deserving"—Victorian distinctions between worthy and unworthy recipients of assistance were well-entrenched in colonial thinking. Maori communities adversely affected by the confiscation or sale of productive land were much less likely to receive assistance in the event of crop failure, poverty, or disease. Even the Native School system, established in 1867, required village communities to contribute land and a portion of the costs for each institution. State-funded secular elementary schools, open to all children between 7 and 13 years of age, with compulsory attendance enforced for both Maori and Pakeha at the turn of the century, concentrated on numeracy, literacy, and physical fitness. These schools also served as powerful agencies of socialization through which contemporary values of citizenship, imperialism, and loyalty to the British Crown were imparted.

Childhoods in New Zealand have long reflected the consequences of external as well as internal events. Lacking immunity against introduced infections, the indigenous population declined steadily, reaching its lowest number (42,000 out of a total New Zealand population of 743,000) in the mid-1890s. An eventual demise was widely predicted. Yet a gradual recovery occurred, despite a disproportionately high Maori death rate during the 1918 influenza epidemic. The children of both cultures lost relatives and friends in the carnage of World War I – and lived with those who returned physically or emotionally impaired.

Many youngsters also experienced economic hardship during the years of the Great Depression. State welfare, social security, and education policies of the late 1930s and following World War II sought to establish equal access to services for all children, although government agencies were initially slow to recognize, and respond to, the major population shift that was occurring, as young adults and Maori families moved en masse from rural to urban areas in search of better employment, lifestyles, and living conditions. A demand for unskilled labor also encouraged many Polynesian people to leave their Pacific Island homes for work opportunities in New Zealand.

Schools in the main cities, Auckland and Wellington especially, soon reflected the greater cultural diversity brought to urban communities by Maori and Pasifika families (Tongan, Samoan, Nuiean and Cook Islanders, for instance), a trend that would accelerate in the latter decades of the 20th century as Asian migrants became a significant minority group in the total population. While the insidious inequalities of colonialism are yet to be fully redressed, a more inclusive educational curriculum now provides New Zealand's children with a much richer understanding of its influence than was available to earlier generations of the colonial-born.

Source 1: The Ancient History of the Maori

Although an aged Horeta Te Taniwha recounted his boyhood experience several times for different Pakeha researchers, there was little inconsistency in his accounts. This excerpt can therefore be explored for the ways in which a child responded to a people whose arrival was completely unexpected and whose appearance was different from anything in his life experience so far. The story unfolds as a narrative of the event, with the commentary on each phase reflecting the means by which god-like figures were revealed to be human.

The points of comparison provide evidence of what was "normal" in an indigenous context. Maori used waka (canoes) constantly: the paddlers always looked to the front. All manner of rituals surrounded the partaking of food, which would not be touched personally by a person of high rank. The response of the "strange beings" when offered kumara, fish, and shellfish was not consistent with tribal notions of how an atua (god) would behave. The physical features of the strangers, with their skin and eye color, indicates that brown was the norm in Te Taniwha's world. His was also a society in which there were clear differences of rank, such as rangatira (chief) and tohunga (skilled person, often in spiritual matters). Hence Te Taniwha recognised Captain Cook's standing amongst his men and found it remarkable that Cook should pay attention to youngsters. His gentle touch was significant, given the tapu (sacred) nature of the adult male head in Maori custom, that of a chief or tribal leader especially. Children could be so caressed without causing offence: Te Taniwha and his companions may well have felt honoured by the gesture of this leader of strange men. Sensory perceptions, sound particularly, feature in this account. (In a section not included here but available electronically, Te Taniwha also refers to a dislike of the salted meat which he was given to taste.) The strangers' curiosity about objects of material culture as well as local flora and rocks also made a lasting impression on the indigenous youngster.

Discussion Questions

• What understanding of the lifestyle of an indigenous child can be gleaned from this extract?
  
  A discussion could note the roles played by various groups—elders, warriors, women and children—within this extended family community (hapu). The sequence by which the strangers were deemed to be human, not supernatural, also reflects traditional beliefs. Thirdly, there is information concerning food, adornment and clothing.
• What questions might arise concerning the authenticity of this account, and how might those issues be addressed?
  
  Questions raised might involve discussion of the reliability of memory, amongst older informants especially, and particularly when the stories are repeated frequently. Cross referencing with the published journal entries and artist images from the Endeavour voyage would provide a European perspective on the same encounter, and verify some of the recollections. Comparisons can also be made between the various printed versions of Te Taniwha's account: these show remarkable consistency. It would be important to emphasise the lack of literacy within Maori society at that time. Knowledge was transmitted through song, chant and oratory. Accuracy was essential and mistakes would be challenged in public.

Source 2: Adventure in New Zealand, from 1839 to 1844

Early cultural encounters in New Zealand's history are a story of active engagement by coastal tribes with the practices, foods, belief structures, and material culture of Europeans. Disease excepted, the interaction was selective, with muskets proving to be one of the more disruptive of the new acquisitions, and literacy, disseminated mostly by missionaries, a more beneficial adaptation.

Imbued as they were with their own sense of superiority, European arrivals did not always recognize their dependence upon Maori goodwill, generosity, and assistance. Shore-based whalers, however, were generally aware of the importance of developing good relationships with local iwi (sub-tribes). Moreover, to have a "resident" European was also a status symbol in a highly competitive tribal society. Hence a settlement such as Te Awaiti represented a situation of mutual advantage, and, with the presence of the children, the beginnings of mixed-race founding families.

Discussion of this extract might develop beyond exploring the social attitudes expressed here concerning the "improved" lifestyle of the Maori women and their children. The references to Barrett and Love indicate a ready acceptance of their progeny by Maori relatives: what difficulties might arise later if such children sought a future in a Pakeha-dominated world? Such youngsters could be cultural intermediaries if they were fluent in both languages, yet not all fathers encouraged this, as was the case with trader John Lees Faulkner who objected to his children observing their mother's customs and speaking her language. Essays in the freely accessible online Dictionary of New Zealand Biography provide additional case studies. Students might also consider what particular blend of circumstances ensured that there has never been legislative discrimination against mixed-race relationships (though the personal case studies cited in Carol Archie's work certainly show episodes of intolerance and hostility expressed towards children).

Discussion Questions

• Did children serve as the vanguard of biculturalism?
  
  This question encourages students to think of the ways in which children are often the intermediaries in situations of cultural adjustment (as in cases of migration, for instance). New Zealand's compulsory schooling system taught Maori children English but it did not provide an opportunity for Pakeha children to learn Maori. Colonial assumptions and policies therefore tended to inhibit the development of biculturalism among both populations. Students may wish to clarify what they mean by the terms, vanguard and biculturalism, and to consider whether there are particular "windows of opportunity" in a colony's history when such a concept might apply.
• How might issues of identity have affected 'half-caste' children throughout the colonial era?
  
  This question is prompted in part by the recollections of Mihi Edwards, whose autobiography, Mihipeka: Early Years (Auckland, Penguin, 1990) relates the extent to which she endeavored to disguise and deny her Maori ancestry when she moved, as a young woman, to seek employment in a Pakeha-dominated environment – at a time when eminent Maori politician and scholar, Sir Apirana Ngata (whose mother had a Scottish father), was widely respected in both societies. Students might like to consider the range of circumstances that can influence a sense of identity. The American civil rights movements of the 1960s, for example, had a profound impact in New Zealand, coinciding as it did with the advent of television, the massive migration of Maori to the cities, and the emergence of a significant group of university-educated young urban Maori leaders.

Source 3: Annual report on Native Affairs, 1874

This regional overview formed part of the annual Department of Native Affairs reporting to Parliament. The various Officers in Native Districts (of whom Locke was one) addressed their reports to the Native Minister since he was the politician who had responsibility for that Department. All government department annual reports were tabled in the Lower House of Parliament and "ordered to be printed," which is how they end up in the Appendices to the Journals of the House of Representatives each year. The overall heading for the collected entries under G-2 would be "Reports from Officers in Native Districts."

This extract could be used for emphasizing the importance of historical context when considering the situation of indigenous children in a colonial environment. There might also be discussion of the extent to which children have agency.

In this particular East Coast region, one well suited to the sheep-rearing which was already a mainstay of the colonial economy, there were also intra- and inter-tribal divisions as a consequence of some involvement alongside government troops during the armed conflicts of the 1860s. The comments by Samuel Locke, a Crown Land Purchase Officer on the East Coast of the North Island, suggest a clear distinction in his mind between those who are proving to be cooperative and those who are not: the future prospects for the children of the two groups are similarly distinguished. According to Locke, Maori youth will not play a dominant role in the developing economy, though. Just as the first group of adults must "turn again to labour," so the best-educated of the younger generation will be encouraged to take up trades. There is no suggestion that young Maori might aspire to academic careers or to be the employers of Pakeha labourers. Yet, as the outstanding achievements of a local boy, the later Sir Apirana Ngata 1 would demonstrate, such a future was possible.

In compiling his regional overview for the annual report on "Native Affairs," subsequently tabled in the lower house of the colonial parliament, Locke identifies some negative consequences of colonial legislation to change the nature of tribal land tenure, but never questions the validity of the measures. Yet, notwithstanding the impact of conflict and confiscation on tribes affected by the events of the previous decade, government land policies were already proving to be the single most disruptive and divisive influence on indigenous communities. Children growing up in these environments lost an entire cultural heritage, not just a pecuniary asset, when their tribal lands were sold into European ownership. A tribe's history was known and named in relation to territory. Why were colonial authorities so oblivious to this?

Discussion Questions

• Although formal schooling provided indigenous children with access to the values and language of the colonial regime, what factors might affect their educational prowess?
  
  This question aims to encourage students to think about the home environment of Maori pupils, not just what was happening in the classroom and school playground. Circumstances could vary from one village to another, even within the same tribal rohe (territory). Maori as a language was not to be used at school: this prohibition, and the corporal punishment usually associated with flouting it, could make adjustment to the classroom very difficult. Loss of land also meant loss of traditional food resources. In the later decades of the 19th century, for instance, many tribal communities were affected by the mobility of those whanau (family) groups. Seasonal employment in the sheep-shearing or gum-digging industries, for example, generally affected the school attendance pattern of the children who moved with their whanau. There could also be intergenerational tensions as elders feared a loss of contact with their mokopuna (grandchildren) who became reluctant to speak Maori at home, given the harsh strictures against doing so when at school.
• How did government policies to promote the individualization of Maori land tenure reflect Colonialism?
  
  Discussion might also draw on comparisons with other colonial regimes run by other European powers. The Treaty of Waitangi accorded Maori the status of British subjects. With the passing of the New Zealand Constitution Act in 1852, male suffrage was linked with property ownership. (Universal suffrage by 1893 was not.) Viewpoints vary as to whether the individualization of Maori land tenure represented a genuine effort to expand eligibility for the franchise amongst Maori men; or a desire to overturn the land purchase policies that prevailed prior to the 1860s, in which the right of the chief to speak on behalf of his people was widely recognized. Individualization of title led to increased fragmentation of land, which in turn came to mean multiple ownership of small blocks that were uneconomic to farm and almost impossible to administer productively. (See the online Treaty of Waitangi booklets).

Source 4: "Shocking Disaster at Cambridge" [1884]

The report highlights a key difference between Maori and Pakeha childhoods, in the nineteenth century especially: the availability of whanau (family) support. "No other family members and no neighbours"—the difficulties confronting Mrs. Osborne were not ones that a Maori mother would have shared. Ironically, Maori parents would experience a similar isolation in the middle of the 20th century, when urban migration caused many indigenous children to grow up in nuclear families, away from their traditional extended networks of relatives.

The 1880s was a decade of widespread depression in the colonial economy. Falling prices for export staples, such as wool and wheat, had serious consequences for those who had bought land on capital borrowed during the speculative boom of the 1870s. For small-scale farmers, endeavoring to establish a viable unit with very limited financial resources, older children could be advantageous as a labor force. A young family was quite the reverse. The relative isolation noted by the juryman could be set alongside Mrs. Osborne's comment that she was normally absent for one to two hours when she went to town. Students could estimate average walking speed to ascertain the likely distances involved.

Some indication of the living space and conditions in the house can also be gleaned from the report. Only one bedroom is mentioned, along with the kitchen. Washing facilities were usually in a lean-to at the back of such dwellings; the toilet would be a long-drop at some distance from the house. The house would have been built of timber, with the paper lining on the interior walls adding to the flammable nature of the dwelling. An analysis of settler housing images available through the Alexander Turnbull Library Timeframes website would enable students to gain an impression of the range of living conditions at this time. Comparable investigations could be undertaken for other regions and years, using the online newspapers collection.

Discussion Questions

• How can reports of accidents provide insight into the nature of late-19th-century colonial children's lives?
  
  Discussion might focus on the close relationship between children and their physical environment, since playing outdoors was the norm. Such play was often supervised by older siblings, particularly when child-bearing spread over two decades and mothers had little paid assistance with domestic tasks. Although the New Zealand environment contained no snakes or poisonous insects, trees, rivers, creeks, and horses were generally present in country children's lives, while urban youngsters had street traffic to contend with, usually in the form of tramcars and horse-drawn drays and carts. Comparisons between the activities of children in New Zealand with the lifestyles of youngsters in other colonies or "frontier" communities might also be pursued.
• How do the types of accidents reported here differ from the risks confronting children throughout the 20th century?
  
  This invites consideration of changing technology – from carts to cars, bicycles rather than horses, household bleach or dishwasher chemicals instead of phosphorus heads on matches, for instance. There is also the wider context of the increased supervision of children's lives and the reduction in family size that affects the influence of siblings. Household tasks have also changed. Youngsters used to chop wood and kindling for the kitchen stove or the weekday boiling of water in the copper: few 21st-century children would have occasion to use a tomahawk or axe. The advent of electricity has reduced the risks associated with fire, but introduced the risk of electrocution. The likelihood of drowning in a well has diminished only to be replaced by the incidence of childhood deaths in domestic swimming pools. Safety measures have increased, as with artificial surfaces at public playgrounds, for example, yet obesity is now a major lifestyle risk for children and youth, suggesting that a lack of physical activity may be a greater problem than sports-related injuries. Ipod users face hearing loss; constant text messaging and computer use can result in tendonitis. The relationship between child lifestyles and risks can be explored in a variety of contexts.

Source 5: Juvenile Depravity Suppression Bill [1896]

Using this 1896 statement as the starting point, students could explore the changing relationship between children and the state through use of resources on the Ministry of Youth Development website and that of the Commissioner for Children. The emphasis on children's rights that has characterized policy and discussion in recent decades reflects support for the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989), which New Zealand ratified in 1993.

Students might also seek to define anti-social behavior and aim to set their definition within the wider context of social changes in the 20th century. Youths loitering on street corners in the 1890s were unlikely to be armed (the ubiquitous pocket knife and shanghai were not normally viewed as weapons for use against other people). Late 20th-century youth, "hanging out" on the streets, are more likely to possess a knife or other weapon, and have their outlook impaired by alcohol, drug use, peer pressure, or gang membership, actual or in prospect. Students could explore the two websites above for analyses of the social changes that have contributed to a significant level of gang affiliation amongst Maori and Pacific Islanders. Comparisons between the New Zealand situation and that of "delinquent" youth in other western societies could highlight similarities, for indigenous people especially.

Underpinning the ongoing concerns about child and youth well-being has been a gradual shift in the relationship between families and the state. In the founding decades of the colony, only criminal, neglected, and destitute children were committed to government care, mostly in industrial schools and orphanages. Such interventions were very unlikely to affect Maori children, whose extended family networks provided support and sustenance. The geographical distribution of the two populations, predominantly rural Maori and urban Pakeha, meant that relatively few politicians were aware of the difficult socio-economic circumstances of many Maori communities. By the late 19th century, however, government policies in New Zealand began to reflect trends elsewhere, in Britain and the United States, for instance, concerning the need for state investment in children. As the future income-earners of the country, youth represented a substantial social capital. The Infant Life Protection Act (1896), the Juvenile Smoking Suppression Act (1903), and the 1925 Child Welfare Act all reflect this increased level of state intervention. Late 20th-century interventions are more explicit in acknowledging the citizenship rights of young New Zealanders – as epitomized with the establishment of the Office of the Commissioner for Children in 1989.

Discussion Questions

• How does the work of the New Zealand Commissioner for Children and the Ministry for Youth Development reflect a serious official commitment to the principle of children's rights?
  
  The answer will involve exploration of the Commission and Ministry websites, including the many links to similar agencies elsewhere. The UN Convention is available through the Ministry website. A recent publication by John Barrington, A Voice for Children: The Office of the Commissioner for Children in New Zealand, 1989 -2003 (Dunmore Press, Palmerston North, 2004) contains a useful summary overview of achievements during that period (pp. 117-20).
• What arguments can be advanced for and against the proposition that a sense of social alienation is the principal cause of youth offending?
  
  This question aims to encourage students to take an international perspective, rather than a narrowly local or national one. Just as the issue of street larrikins was being debated in Britain, the United States, the Australian colonies and New Zealand in the 1890s, so the problems associated with youth offending, criminal and petty, may well be found in much of the developed world. Students should be able to contest the basic proposition by reference to all the other contributory factors that they can identify. They might also consider what influences or encourages the majority of young people to stay out of trouble with the law.

Source 6: Taranaki Education Office Report [1898]

Some students may find themselves surprised by the child-friendly nature of this official report. It could therefore be used in a context of exploring the assumptions that readers can bring to a document, and how preconceptions can affect the reading of text or image.

The connection between child experience and family circumstance is obvious here. In new farming areas (and there are ready parallels with North American examples), younger siblings had a very different educational path than their older brothers and sisters whose labor was often crucial in the establishment years. Parents could find this situation difficult because they also wanted the best for their children. There might be significant parental differences, with (usually) mothers endeavoring to find a balance between the demands of education and income. Older children, too, might have mixed feelings about the divergent home/school workloads. A sense of pride or achievement could be greater out of the classroom than within it.

Regional and cultural differences might be explored. The national curriculum was mandatory: access to resources varied enormously. A universal school system could not guarantee a universal standard of education, no matter how diligent the teachers or the inspectors. Students might expand on Spencer's analysis to consider a wider range of factors that could affect student attendance and learning – such as urban and rural differences, religion, housing, and gender. The importance placed upon compulsory schooling at this time also merits close analysis. By the late 1930s, all New Zealand children were required to have at least two years of secondary education and the leaving age was raised to 15. Yet the numbers of teachers in training had been reduced during major periods of economic recessions (1880s and 1930s) and men were lost to the profession during and after World War I. Adult recollections of schooling in the first half of the 20th century frequently refer to corporal punishment, authoritarianism, and feelings of fear. Spencer's vision emphasizes enjoyment. How might the different perspectives been reconciled? And can children's voices be heard?

Discussion Questions

• Why did formal schooling become such an integral part of New Zealand (and other Western European) children's lives by the end of the 19th century?
  
  Discussion should encourage students to think about international trends in the spread of elementary education. Within the British Empire, for example, similar curricula and resources could be found throughout all the settler colonies. There are also parallels between North American and British systems at this time. Industrialization and child labor form part of the background, while notions of children as "social capital" are also influential. The broad trends can be sketched from essays in the three-volume Children and Childhood in History and Society. 2
• What perspectives need consideration when trying to ascertain the nature of childhood experiences of schooling?
  
  Much of the published material on childhood experience draws upon adult recollections, written or oral. Students might be invited to write and then analyze their own memories of elementary school before being challenged to identify a range of other factors which may have affected the nature of their school experience. (Examples might include the physical environment of the school; its financial resources; the age, ethnicity, and gender range of the staff; prevailing philosophies of education and of the particular school itself; levels of parental and community support; levels of student representation in school affairs.) Comparisons across culture and time could be developed.

Source 7: Children's letters, Otago Witness [1918]

Children's own voices might be described as an elusive and problematic resource in childhood history. Taking these letters as an example, do the sentences and ideas reflect childhood priorities or can adult influence be detected? Most letters are likely to have been written at the family table, with some degree of supervision or checking of spelling and grammar. Both "Dot" and "Uncle Ned" insisted on high levels of presentation. Formulaic aspects can also observed, particularly in the endings of all three letters given here. (Additional examples from the Otago Witness up to 1909 available here.)

Age, gender, and language differences can be explored in some detail if students access full pages from the digitized collection. Generally, correspondents were under the age of 18, with the majority under 14. A regular Older Writers Week was always well subscribed and younger writers would sometimes refer to the style or content of those letters or try to emulate them. Occasionally, "Dot" would set a topic for correspondence but the general guidelines can be discerned since children were encouraged to write about animals, events of interest in their local area, holidays, school, and home life. The DLF motto was always printed: "We write for the benefit of others, not ourselves."

Analysis of the pseudonyms as well as the letter content gives some insight into the impact of World War I on these children's lives.

Discussion Questions

• How useful are these letters as a source for accessing children's own voices?
  
  This invites consideration of the various filters that may affect the content and style of these letters. The 350-word limit was rarely a problem (save for some of the older writers). Knowing that parents and peers would be reading the published letter could be a constraint on spontaneity. Social conventions, such as not discussing family affairs outside of the home, would also have been observed. There could also have been some apprehension about editorial feedback. Noted children's author, Ruth Park, for example, long remembered a critical response by the editor of the New Zealand Herald's children's page. 3
• What do Children's Pages reveal about the daily lives of youthful correspondents?
  
  Students might consider the extent to which children wrote about normal routines or focused on exceptional happenings. Since approximately 50 DLF letters on average were reproduced with each issue of the Otago Witness, general impressions concerning school, modes of transport, health issues, and contemporary events can usually be discerned - and consistencies or inconsistencies noted.

Source 8: Oral history, Colonial Childhoods Oral History Project

Changing contexts could be explored, using sexuality as the focus. Contemporary students might consider the range of ways in which knowledge of human reproduction, puberty, and homosexuality is disseminated before contrasting the present-day position with the dearth of printed or visual information suitable for children at the beginning of the 20th century. Social conventions also need investigation. Many of the interviewees in the CCOHP gleaned a basic understanding from an older sibling; others gathered a great deal of misinformation from the school playground. What were the dominant constraints affecting public school education on the subject; or parent/child frankness? Was ignorance regarded as a form of protection or were there underlying moral codes that emphasized innocence? Some basic assumptions might also be discussed. Was sexuality a topic that aroused childhood curiosity to any great extent at this time? Analysis of all of the CCOHP comments suggests that, for those under 15, it was not important – yet could this impression result from interviewees making instinctive comparisons with the present as they commented on the past?

The use of oral histories as a source in childhood history might also be investigated, with particular reference to any issues (such as deafness, fatigue, memory loss) associated with interviewing the elderly (defined as over 80 years). How much reliance can be placed upon such recollections? Without necessarily delving into debates over the nature of memory, students could be encouraged to reflect on their own childhoods. Are their memories predominantly of factual detail or of episodes to which they had some degree of emotional reaction, be that fear, curiosity, anger, pleasure, or pain? Questions about the "construction of the past" in an oral interview could also be raised, especially when comparing the relatively unstructured "life narrative" approach with that of the more structured questionnaire style of interviewing.

Discussion Questions

• Why might parents choose not to tell their children about a mother's pregnancy?
  
  Discussion could include some reference to the incidence of maternal mortality, since the risks associated with child-bearing and childbirth, among working class families particularly, were considerable. The registration of midwives (1904) and the establishment of free maternity care for women (1905) made a significant impact in lowering those rates. Concealment was also a way of avoiding awkward questions about reproduction and sex. Moreover, pregnancy was a private, not a public, matter which might be mentioned in a school playground, for example. Women's dress styles assisted with the strategy, as did the usual convention that children did not enter their parents' bedroom spontaneously. Maori children were less likely to be in ignorance than Pakeha, since sleeping and living arrangements were generally more communal.
• Evidence gathered during the CCOHP suggested that there was relatively little openness in dealing with other facets of Pakeha children's lives, especially where alcoholism, violence, or death were concerned. Does such adult reticence reflect contemporary views on child-rearing?
  
  Several of the CCOHP interviewees lost a sibling, friend, or parent during childhood. Generally, though, Pakeha youngsters did not attend funerals, whereas Maori children were present, and older ones involved with food preparation, during any tangihanga (a farewell that was held over several days) in their community. Cultural experiences also differed in terms of remembrance of the dead, with Pakeha generally choosing silence. Maori did not. Alcoholism was a source of shame within a family, quite apart from its disruptive and damaging effects on relationships and children's well-being. Concealment tended to be the preferred option. Essentially, child rearing was seen as a domestic and private matter, and the family was not a realm in which the state should interfere. Gradually, schools became agencies whereby some level of protection for children could be initiated, if necessary.

Source 9: Code of Honour [1936]

After some initial—probably adverse—reactions to the language and content of the Code, students might be encouraged to work in groups, to analyze a selection of the objectives much more closely. Culture and context could be stressed. The Dominion was slowly beginning to emerge from the Great Depression, the impact of which had been severe on a people who had lost so many young men during World War I. The notion of service for Empire had been well instilled prior to 1914, and a heavy price had been paid. It is noticeable that the emphasis within the Code is much more on a sense of identity as a New Zealand citizen, rather than as the citizen of Empire that had been so prominent a theme in School Journal poems, stories, and articles earlier in previous decades. Yet fundamental values persist - of fair play, honesty, integrity, respect for authority, for instance. Students may benefit from some discussion about English public schools, the class background from which pupils were generally drawn, and the ethos that imbued such institutions. They might also be prompted to consider how and why these values became disseminated so widely during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Responses to these questions could include reference to some of the Empire-wide organizations for young people, the Boy Scout and the Girl Guide movements, for instance.

Further analysis of the Code suggests that its focus was on encouraging youth to develop a sense of civic and community responsibility. Improvement of self is vital, but the individual's growth in principle and awareness is intended to enhance social interaction, not individualism.

Lively debates should develop if students are challenged to consider whether there is anything inherently wrong with such a set of personal values. Do these ideals pertain to any one social class or culture? Within the New Zealand context, Maori children growing up in closely-knit rural communities would have had an additional set of guiding principles, those pertaining to their own cultural beliefs and practices (tikanga).

Discussion Questions

• How do these behavioral objectives for young New Zealanders, Maori and Pakeha, reflect social values of the 1930s?
  
  Discussion would draw on student analysis of the key values identified in the Code. They might also note the order in which points are made. The reference to care of property, for instance, comes some way down the list and alludes more to public, than private, property. Students could be invited to consider other "Codes" that would have been well known at the time, such as the Ten Commandments.
• Develop a 21st-century "Code of Honour" that would be relevant for children growing up in contemporary society.
  
  This would involve some preliminary discussions about relating the Code to any particular group of children. Group work would be valuable here, particularly if students were encouraged to identify specific clubs or societies which aim to instill some common principles amongst their members. New Codes could be analyzed to see if they reflect any contemporary attitudes concerning child rearing.

Source 10: School photographs [1950, 1964]

Class photographs are so common in personal collections that they merit analysis to see how useful they may be as a source for childhood history. At one level, they can be explored for evidence of material culture, in terms of clothing, footwear, and hairstyles, for example. There is no sign of "brand" or "label" clothing in the 1950 image, save for the six gymslips that provide some impression of uniformity. Fabric, style, pattern, and color vary considerably. Cardigans and jerseys are hand-knitted; and the varying shapes of the girls' collars reflect the prevalence of home-sewn garments. In both photographs, the girls are all wearing skirts or dresses: only the boys wore shorts. It was still not "proper" for females to wear trousers (though wartime exigencies had made it acceptable then for women in the workforce to do so).

The ethnic composition of both classroom groups reflect population movements of the post-war period and suggest something of the relative isolation which young Maori – and their parents – could feel within the urban school environment. From a roughly equal mix of Maori and Pakeha in the small rural town environment of Kaitaia (15 Pakeha/13 Maori), Maori children in the suburban Auckland classroom were in the minority (29 Pakeha/5 Maori). Discussion could focus on the impact of likely disparities. New urban migrants who came as family units tended to experience difficulties in meeting the costs of city living, so very different from the communal and subsistence patterns of the country. Overcrowded housing and low wages from unskilled work meant that children in these environments had little access to resources or space when doing homework, for instance. Students might also consider how school could also be the principal means by which young Maori could begin to develop networks in their new communities. Church and voluntary organizations, such as clubs for urban Maori, also helped. 4

Discussion Questions

• How would the lives of urban migrant Maori children have differed from those of their peers growing up in rural areas?
  
  Discussion will be aided by a reading of the essays on Maori New Zealanders on the Te Ara website. While the urban-raised had better access to education and employment, many lost contact with their language and culture and were embarrassed to show their ignorance of customary practices. Rural youngsters generally retained much closer links with elders and took part in activities on the marae (meeting place). There was also far more opportunity for rural youngsters to develop traditional subsistence lifestyle skills (hunting, fishing, gardening). Yet these skills could not always be applied in the cities. Underpinning discussion of this question would be an awareness that urban migration was a necessity, given the steady growth of the Maori population and their very limited resource base in country areas.
• How influential was technology in changing children's educational experience in the second half of the 20th century?
  
  Exploration of this question invites students to consider the importance of technology in their own education (within and outside of the classroom) as a preliminary to exploring such changes over the previous half century. Within the New Zealand context, public radio was widely used after WWII, with broadcasts to schools supplementing the universally distributed School Journal. Within vocational courses particular equipment would be used, such as manual typewriters and electric ovens for typing and home economics classes respectively. Going to the Saturday matinee was a popular leisure pastime: newsreels, played before the main feature, normally covered world events. Most families would also listen to the BBC World News, broadcast every evening through the national radio network. The educational impact of television from the 1960s was undermined by commercialization and largely surpassed by access to computers and the Internet.

Source 11: Advertisement

Outdoor activities have long been seen as an integral part of a Kiwi upbringing. The official website of SPARC, Sport and Recreation New Zealand, for instance, describes a (somewhat idyllic) pattern of being on the beach in the morning, the (sports) field after lunch, and on the hills in the evening. In terms of topography, such a routine would certainly be possible throughout much of the country. "Going bush," camping, tramping, mountain bike riding, kayaking: the notion of being close to nature in the "Great Outdoors" is an important element in discussions of national identity. Yet the demonstrable late 20th-century onset of child obesity and related health issues have prompted major government initiatives to encourage more Kiwis, of all ages and ethnicities, to live up to that vision and "get active." (See New Zealand Sport and Physical Activity Surveys and examples of the range of programmes.)

Organized sport in the New Zealand school curriculum stemmed mostly from Britain, as with cricket, rugby football, tennis and hockey. Athletics and swimming also involved large numbers of children, particularly on school sports days. During the 1960s and 1970s, for instance, thousands of children participated weekly in Saturday sporting fixtures, able to do so because of the commitment of teachers, parents, or caregivers, and volunteers. Family financial difficulties, changing workplace patterns, the advent of weekend shopping (and working), and increased workloads on teachers as a consequence of changes within school administration and curricula, are some of the factors affecting children's participation in organized sport outside of normal school hours. Students could be encouraged to consider the influences on their own youthful participation in sport and to consider how these may reflect social or economic patterns.

Discussion Questions

• Food and activity are normally two dominant preoccupations of childhood. What have been the major influences contributing to a reduction in the amount of physical activity undertaken by late 20th-century children and youth?
  
  Discussion could involve modes of transport to and from school and much greater reliance on cars generally; the reduction in childhood autonomy at play as a consequence of urbanization, for instance, more indoor living; and the influence of television and personal computers and other popular pursuits that involve hours of sitting rather than movement. Smaller families mean fewer siblings or relatives to play with, though Maori and Pacific Island youth are frequently active in team sports, such as rugby league, netball, and softball. Students might also consider the costs involved with purchasing equipment.
• Myth or reality? Does sport really contribute to a sense of national identity?
  
  Students could be encouraged to distinguish between amateur and professional sport. The inclusiveness normally associated with the concept of national identity seems to be contrary to the exclusiveness of the professional player. In debating the cultural role of sport, students would need to be mindful of socio-economic differences, gender, and religious or other cultural constraints affecting participation or support. And what might the negative aspects be if sport and identity are closely aligned? What happens to the national psyche when a national team loses?
  
  The SPARC website could be helpful when answering either question.

Source 12: Statistical tables

Risk-taking behavior is a major factor affecting the health and well-being of young New Zealanders. Drug-taking, smoking, alcohol abuse, and unprotected sex are four obvious contributors to low self-esteem, and significant resources have been channeled into remedial and preventative programs for young people. Some focus specifically on Maori for, as the Ministry of Youth Development's 2003 survey, 12 -24: Young People in New Zealand notes, young Maori are more prone to smoke and drink heavily than non-Maori. Students could explore the reports available through this Ministry website and that of Statistics New Zealand with a view to comparing results from the 1996 and 2001 census data. The rate of youth suicide, for example, declined in that period.

Since motor vehicle accidents have consistently been the biggest cause of youth fatalities, students might compare the New Zealand rates with those in other western societies. The particular situation in New Zealand might also be discussed in the context of the age at which youth can drive; the nature of the existing fleet (since air bags are not found in the older cars that young people are more likely to be using); the rapid growth in the number of cars per head of population; the limited public transport systems which contribute to greater personal dependency on cars; the nature of most New Zealand roads (two-lane with barriers only on some motorways and expressways); and the high number of fatal accidents in which both speed and alcohol are factors despite major road safety campaigns against drunk driving. The wearing of seatbelts is compulsory as is using approved child restraints for children travelling in cars. The law is not always observed. The teaching objective would be one of setting the statistical evidence within a wider context to emphasize how external conditions can affect the consequences of personal choices.

Discussion Questions:

• How have the hazards of life changed for young New Zealanders throughout the 20th century?
  
  Discussion would involve some definition and categorization, both of the types of hazards and the age groups involved. Since an earlier source focused on dangers for children earlier in the century, the intention here would be to concentrate on the 15+ group. The influence of consumer advertising, peer group pressure, and transport preferences (cars not bicycles) would be relevant. Socio-economic and family circumstances are important, given the prevalence of alcoholism and domestic violence in affecting young people's lives, with Maori over-represented in those statistics.
• What are the major impediments affecting the employment of 15-19 year-olds and how might these be best addressed by young job seekers?
  
  This question might enable students to draw on their own experiences while also considering the situation facing young people in other countries. Different perspectives to consider include those of employers as well as prospective employees. Minimum wage rates, literacy levels, an increasingly casual youth workforce that encourages part-time employment as a cheaper option, lack of mentoring by older or experienced staff might all be relevant, as are questions of adequate guidance in the preparation of resumes, letters of application, or how to respond in an interview. The issues raised are unlikely to be peculiar to the New Zealand context.

Lesson Plan: Constructing an Author’s Attitude from Tone Words

by Ryba L. Epstein

Time Estimated: one 50-minute class

Grade Level: 10th through 12th grades

Objectives

Students will learn to:

1. Identify tone words and connotations;
2. Detect speaker's/author's attitude using tone and connotation.

Materials

• Projection of online images, if possible (if not available, make transparencies of two photos listed below in Hook activity)
• Copies of primary source documents for each student in the class:
  
  1. Adventure in New Zealand from 1839 to 1844 (document 72)
  2. Annual Report on Native Affairs, 1874 (document 91)
• Paper, pencils/pens

Strategies

Hook
Project image of Apache children as they arrived at Carlisle Indian Industrial School and image after they had become acculturated.

Ask students to quickly brainstorm descriptive words for the first picture and then the second picture.

Ask students to categorize their impressions, looking for the specific words they have used that describe positive or negative attributes, and attempt to determine what factors might underlie their perceptions.

Discuss the meaning of "tone," "connotation," and "attitude."

Group Activity
Next, divide class into small groups (three to five students) and pass out copies of the two primary sources from New Zealand. Each group should choose a recorder to write down the group's responses.

Students should go through the documents, underlining all words that reflect tone or connotation.

Next, students should make two lists from the words they have underlined: one of positive and one of negative tone words.

Then students should analyze their lists to determine what factors generally determined what the authors of the sources considered as positive or negative. (Usually, students will decide that behavior that indicated increased acceptance of Western culture and life-styles was seen as positive by the authors.)

Finally, each group should write one or two sentences explaining the attitude of each author, supporting their opinion by reference to their lists of tone words. Students should also try to identify underlying assumptions that led each author to his attitude.

• Example: Wakefield implies that Maoris who were married to or children of Westerners were superior to those who were not—as supported by his use of words such as "very superior," "strikingly comely," and "remarkable . . . cleanliness and order." His word choice indicates an attitude that assumes the superiority of Western standards of beauty and cleanliness over those of indigenous people.

The recorders for each group should write their group's final statements on the board.

Have the class discuss the similarities and differences between the statements, checking for validity and for appropriate support for each statement's opinion from the tone words cited.

Homework:
Students will write a paragraph trying to identify underlying reasons for the attitudes expressed by the authors by relating those attitudes to broader 19th-century European social and cultural beliefs.

Differentiation

Advanced Students
For more able students, direct them to the website of the Carlisle Indian Industrial School at http://home.epix.net/~landis/histry.html.

List examples of tone words from the primary source documents embedded in the site. How are these similar to the words used in the primary sources from New Zealand?

What similarities can be inferred between the two educational systems' attitudes toward indigenous children and their future roles in "modern" society?

Ask students to write a letter from Mr. Locke (document 91) describing the Carlisle School's successes to the New Zealand Minister for Native Affairs.

Dear Dot,-My teacher took us all over to Glenorchy on the 11th to get us used to the children before the examination. I saw Soldier Boy, Soldier Boy's Mate, Mountain Lily, and Forget-Me-Not. It was very rough coming back in the launch, and I got soaking wet with the spray. Our examination has been put off. I am wearing glasses now. The steamer Ben Lomond began to whistle coming up the lake when the news of peace came through. Mum got the cowbell and I got the school bell, and we made a great noise with them. My brother Harry has a hen sitting on 12 eggs. Postman Henry and all the other D.F.L. will be able to come home now, won't they, Dot? We have two nice little bay foals named Peace and Victor. They were both born about the day peace was declared. Peace has a white star on her forehead and a white nose. Victor has a white star also, and a white hind foot. They are such dear wee things. We also have two little puppies. Their names at Tot and Vaux. They carry away anything they can get. The paradise ducks have wee ones out in our lagoon at present. We have a hen with one chicken out of 10 eggs. Christmas is not very far away now. I will close now. Love to Mother's Little Helper, Daddie's Right Hand, Shepherd Lad, Mother's Mate, Beverly, Mountain Maid, and Soldier Boy, not forgetting your own dear self.-Yours truly,
MOUNTAIN GENTIAN (Kinloch)

Dear Dot,- I hope you and all L.F. are free from this dreadful influenza. I received the badge that you sent me, and I hope I won't lose it like the other. The news of the armistice with Germany was very good, but owing to this terrible epidemic, we really cannot rejoice when many people are suffering and in distress. We have had some nice fine days lately, so I hope they will continue, as I think it helps to kill the influenza. Love to all the L.F., also yourself.- Yours truly,
TUI (Papatoetoe)

Dear Dot,-I have read the D.L.F page every week for a long time, so I thought I would like to write too. I am 13 years old, and have left school. We have a pony to ride. This season has been a backward one, but the grass is nice and green now. Ocean Pearl, Golden Daffodil, and Tweedle-dee are my cousins. There are a good many men gone from here to the war. I am so glad that peace has been declared, and I think everyone is. Love to the D.L.F. and yourself.-Yours truly,
LILY OAK (Catlins)
(I am glad you have decided to write to the page, Lily Oak, and hope to hear from you again.-DOT.)

"It has been considered desirable, in the light of what has taken place in Bombay and elsewhere in reference to the Age of Consent Bill . . . that public expression should be given to the views of those who support the measure. . . .

It has been vehemently maintained that in the first instance, such a law will be a direct interference with the rights and duties of the Hindoos [sic], and will so far be a departure from the policy of non-interference laid down in Her Majesty’s Proclamation. . . .

I find that while scholars on both sides are agreed that the Garbhadhan ceremony must follow the appearance of the well-known physical condition [menstruation], there is a difference of opinion among them as to the exact period the Shastras prescribe for consummation. One view is that consummation must immediately follow the wife’s arrival at puberty. The other view is that no text of the Shastras expressly enjoins the performance of the ceremony immediately after the first course, that the precepts of the Shastras leave the matter indefinite, and that its performance is optional and not obligatory as maintained by the opposite side. . . .

I ask you to pause for a moment and calmly consider what object Government can possibly have in view proposing to enact this measure than that of using its influence to arrest the physical and moral deterioration of our people – deterioration due, as you all know, to a practice which the most sensible among us must reprobate. . . . [A]s time rolls on and the benefits of the measure . . . are seen and felt in developing a manlier race of Hindoos [sic], the unborn generations of our race will bless the noble Lord at the head of the Government of India for a measure enacted in the interest of humanity."

The arguments against raising the age higher than thirteen or fourteen were:

1. 1. Girls often mature physically at twelve or fourteen years of age. Mexican girls were often mothers at twelve; being developed, the girl could consent.


2. 2. Working girls, especially typewriters, would blackmail their employers, "urged on by designing mothers."


3. 3. We have a degraded race among us – negro.


4. 4. It will send youths to the gallows and fill our penitentiaries with immature boys.


5. 5. Southern chivalry was a sufficient protection to womanhood.


6. 6. Seduction laws cover the case.

To the Senate and House of Representatives

The increasing and alarming frequency of assaults upon women, and the frightful indignities to which even little girls are subject, have become the shame of our boasted civilization.

A study of the Statutes has revealed their utter failure to meet the demands of the newly awakened public sentiment which requires better legal protection for womanhood and girlhood.

Therefore we, men and women of ____, State of _____ do most earnestly appeal to you to enact such statutes as shall provide for the adequate punishment of crimes against women and girls. We also urge that the age at which a girl can legally consent to her own ruin be raised to at least eighteen years; and we call attention to the disgraceful fact that protection of the person is not placed by our laws upon so high a plane as protection of the purse.

. . . It is, however, a fact that there is in full operation among us a system of which the violation of virgins is one of the ordinary incidents; that these virgins are mostly of tender age, being too young in fact to understand the nature of the crime of which they are the unwilling victims; that these outrages are constantly perpetrated with almost absolute impunity; and that the arrangements for procuring, certifying, violating, repairing, and disposing of these ruined victims of the lust of London are made with a simplicity and efficiency incredible to all who have not made actual demonstration of the facility with which the crime can be accomplished.

. . . Before beginning this inquiry I had a confidential interview with one of the most experienced officers who for many years was in a position to possess an intimate acquaintance with all phases of London crime. I asked him, "Is it or is it not a fact that, at this moment, if I were to go to the proper houses, well introduced, the keeper would, in return for money down, supply me in due time with a maid—a genuine article, I mean, not a mere prostitute tricked out as a virgin, but a girl who had never been seduced?" "Certainly," he replied without a moment's hesitation. . . ."Are these maids willing or unwilling parties to the transaction—that is, are they really maiden, not merely in being each a virgo intacta in the physical sense, but as being chaste girls who are not consenting parties to their seduction?" He looked surprised at my question, and then replied emphatically: "Of course they are rarely willing, and as a rule they do not know what they are coming for." "But," I said in amazement, "then do you mean to tell me that in very truth actual rapes, in the legal sense of the word, are constantly being perpetrated in London on unwilling virgins, purveyed and procured to rich men at so much a head by keepers of brothels?" "Certainly," said he, "there is not a doubt of it." "Why," I exclaimed, "the very thought is enough to raise hell.". . .

The Atlantic Slave Trade and Slave Life in the Americas: A Visual Record amasses over 1,200 images documenting the history of the Atlantic slave trade and the lives of slaves and former slaves in the Americas. The images document the history of enslavement in West and West Central Africa, the English and French Caribbean, Brazil, and the United States. Most of the images are watercolors, sketches, and prints from 18th and 19th century European and American texts, although a few pieces predate this era, or are digitalized versions of previously unpublished archival material. Finally, the site also contains a few newspaper advertisements for runaway slaves, such as this 1763 "Fugitive Slave Advertisement" publicizing the escape of four slaves, including one 15-year-old boy.

Viewers can search for images of children within this site by browsing the 18 broad subject categories by which the database is organized. Two categories that include many images of children are Pre-Colonial Africa: Society, Polity, Culture and Family Life, Child Care, Schools. Larger numbers of images involving children can be located by doing a keyword search from the general database for children (97 images), girl (26 images) and boy (33 images).

While the types of sources contained in this site pose some challenges to effective classroom use, instructors who think carefully about how to have students use these images will be rewarded with rich results. Both full bibliographic references and a clear indication of the geographic and temporal setting depicted are provided for each image. Also included are any relevant textual passages that might have accompanied an image in its original publication. However, as the site makes clear, its authors have made little effort to interpret the images or establish the historical authenticity or accuracy of what they depict, so much is required in this area by viewers.

There are several ways to approach this material. Instructors might point out to students that the images do not necessarily document slavery's history in a straight-forward and unmediated fashion, and in this case, they might design exercises for students that called for them to consider how the context and objective of an image's creator shaped the content of the image generated. This approach could be done by either restricting students to the use of material contained at the site, or by requiring them to do further research on the images’ creators.

Another option would be to explore the ways in which children are ubiquitous in images on this site, for example, as infants, strapped to the backs of women – presumably their mothers. Yet this depiction seems at odds with what we know to have been the extremely high rates of infant and childhood mortality that children experienced across the Americas under slavery. Young children in these images are also most often shown playing near, or sitting on the laps of their mothers, yet again, we know that it was common for slave children to be sold to others separately from their mothers. Instructors might therefore ask their students: Have these artists exaggerated the predominance of children's proximity to their mothers in these images? If so, why?

Instructors might start by encouraging students to formulate interpretations involving childhood and children in slavery from the images, and then moving to secondary source material to learn more. Or an assignment could begin with historical context and then look for patterns mentioned in the literature or for images that counter a historical narrative. A few secondary sources that would work well with this collection of images include: Digital History's entry on African American Voices and Annie L. Burton's 19th century slave chronicle, Memories of Childhood's Slavery Days.

One fascinating theme to explore would be inter-racial relations that childcare arrangements between slave and slave-owning families entailed. See, for example, Enslaved House Servants and White Children, South Carolina, 1863 and Black Nursemaid, New Orleans, 1873-74. Instructors might have students study these and other such images to consider how the relations they depict suggest ties of emotional intimacy and social proximity that contradict the more brutal relations between slaves and slave owners portrayed in so many other images at the site.

Instructors could also use images in this collection to examine the issue of gender, encouraging students to consider, for example, how the slave experience differently affected boys and girls. Students could analyze such images as George Cruikshank's pro-abolitionist drawing, "Punishment Aboard a Slave Ship, 1792" which depicts a 15-year-old girl who was tortured to death for her "virgin modesty" (she had refused to dance naked on the deck of a British slaving ship) or the similar scene illustrated in "Whipping a Slave in Surinam, 1770s". Such illustrations allow students to examine how slave owners and captors projected notions of heightened sexuality, or presumptions of sexual availability on female slaves, and contrast these with the experience of males.