Sir George Grey led Aotearoa into some of the worst conflicts of the New Zealand Wars. But at the beginning of his career many saw him as a defender of indigenous rights - including some Māori! So... What happened?

RNZ's Black Sheep Podcast presents a two-part episode on Sir George Grey, the colonial governor who led Aotearoa into many of the worst conflicts of the New Zealand Wars in the 1840s, 50s and 60s.

In this first episode, we look at how Grey gained a reputation with the British Colonial Office as an effective administrator with supposedly "progressive" attitudes towards indigenous people (at least by their standards). Some Māori also embrace Grey as a potential ally against the settlers' hunger for land and power. However, Grey's "progressive" reputation is undermined through unfair land deals and unjust wars in his first governorship.

In the second episode, Grey becomes governor of Cape Colony, South Africa, where his ruthless, authoritarian streak grows wider. By the time he returns for his second governorship of New Zealand he is a changed man who leads Aotearoa into the largest conflict of the New Zealand Wars, the Waikato War.

At 27 years old, George Grey was an ambitious young officer in the British Army who had survived two brushes with death in the past two years.

The first came when he was put in command of an expedition to explore Western Australia. He was seriously wounded in a skirmish with local aboriginal people (probably members of the Worrorra, part of the Wanjina Wunggurr cultural bloc).

Grey's expedition trespassed on sacred land and ignored multiple warnings to turn back. This ended with a violent confrontation where Grey was hit by two spears, one lodged deep in his hip and left him with a lifelong limp. He responded by shooting and killing an aboriginal leader.

The next year he led a second disastrous expedition. He and his men were marooned by a storm and forced to trek 700 kilometres overland to Perth. One man died in the process.

A lot of the failings of these expeditions should have fallen on Grey's shoulders. However, he managed to spin the story as a rip-roaring adventure rather than a chaotic disaster. He published his version of this story in what became a best-selling book.

" was compared to Robinson Crusoe!" says historian Edmund Bohan, author of To Be A Hero: A Biography of Sir George Grey. "That sort of set him off as the coming young man who was strong, physically brave and all the rest of it."

Grey's book took some heavy liberties with the truth, but it won him friends in high places. Its influence helped get him a job as Resident Magistrate of Albany, a town in southwestern Australia. …

Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details

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