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Historian embarks on first New-Zealand study of slavery

Auckland historian Hazel Petrie is mounting the first in-depth study of slavery in New Zealand.

Dr Petrie said today that war captives or "slaves" made up as much as 50 percent of the Maori population in the early nineteenth century but had been given little attention by academics.

She is taking up a $300,000 Marsden Fund grant, over three years, to investigate the purpose and function of war captives in Maori society.
Read entire article at http://www.3news.co.nz