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Topic: Donald McLean Papers
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Diaries, correspondence and memos and reports from the papers of Donald McLean relating to people and events in Taranaki, Waikanae, Wellington, Te Tau Ihu and the Chatham Islands.
This collection includes digitised copies from the papers of Donald McLean held at the Alexander Turnbull Library relating to Taranaki, Waikanae, Wellington, the top of the South Island and the Chatham Islands. The original collection includes almost 3000 letters from Māori correspondents, which are the largest surviving series of nineteenth-century Māori letters. These papers provide a record of interactions between Government and Māori of the time. Many of the Native Department's records from the 19th century were destroyed when Parliament Buildings burnt down in 1907. McLean's papers at the Turnbull Library help fill some of the gaps left by this loss.
Born in Scotland in 1820, Donald McLean arrived at the Bay of Islands soon after the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi in 1840. By 1844 he was working as a sub-protector in Taranaki in the Protectorate Department. Later McLean drove the Government's land purchase activities, as Chief Native Land Purchase Commissioner. By 1856 he was the head of the Native Affairs Department: his support of the disputed Waitara purchase lead to the outbreak of war in Taranaki in the early 1860s.
In 1861 McLean temporarily retreated from central government to concentrate on building up his large and profitable estates in Hawke's Bay, and indulge in local politics. He was elected Superintendant of the Hawke's Bay Province in 1863 and returned to Wellington as an elected politician in 1866. Through the later 1860s McLean was in charge of the campaign against Te Kooti on the East Coast and from 1869 until just before his death in early 1877 he was the Minister in charge of Native Affairs. He married in 1851 but his wife died the following year, while giving birth to their only son. Donald McLean died in 1877.
Source: http://mp.natlib.govt.nz/static/introduction-mclean-scope?l=en
