Debating racial hierarchy and the exclusion of Māori from the 1928 All Blacks Rugby tour to South Africa

Abstract

The announcement by the New Zealand Rugby Football Union in 1927 that no Māori players would be selected for the following year’s All Blacks tour to South Africa, prompted heated debate within New Zealand. While some insisted that the Union should not send a team unless it was fully representative of a country in which Māori and Pākehā apparently enjoyed very harmonious relations, others argued that the exclusion was necessary to protect Māori from the endemic race problems and white prejudice of South Africa. This debate points to a much longer, and more nuanced, history of disputes over sporting contacts with South Africa than has been generally recognised. It also reveals much about New Zealand perceptions of race and racial hierarchies in the inter-war British Empire and the role of certain Māori leaders in shaping and reinforcing these attitudes.