ABSTRACT
Maori were not the victims of genocide, although they were certainly the target of concerted efforts to assimilate them into settler society. Successful attempts were also made to severely limit their political power, while stealing much of their ancestral lands. Maori have fared relatively well compared with Australian Aborigines, although their level of cultural destruction exceeds that of other Pacific Islanders – a better regional standard of comparison. Further, Maori adopted many of the trappings of identity politics and civil rights activism from the 1960s, casting their plight as being similar to that of African Americans, American Indians, and Palestinians.
