However, in just doing a quick search on the Maori, I’ve discovered more instances of Maori people being kidnapped/massacred by whites than the reverse. I get that The Wives Of Henry Oades is historical-fiction and based on a real life court-trial. Personally, I think we need to get past the dark-skinned other stereotype. I understand that maybe this was for the purpose of the story, we needed Margaret Oades and kin to disappear somehow, so why not borrow some native peoples for this purpose. They do not show compassion and are clearly evil. The Maori retaliate against some offense by kidnapping Margaret Oades and her children.
These are people painted to be savage compared to their counterparts, the civilized English settler. I mean, isn’t it ingrained in us to just accept what authors write as fact, especially when writing a book “based on a true story.” The treatment of the Maori, the native people who abducted one of Henry Oades’ wives in the novel definitely bothered me. (Mar.I feel as though it’s quite easy to take some tribe most Americans, myself included, have never heard of and turn them into savage captors. But it's Margaret surviving the wilderness, Nancy overcoming grief and the two women bonding that give the book its heart and should make this a book group winner. Moran presents Henry's story as if making a case in court, facts methodically revealed with just enough detail for the reader to form an independent opinion.
When Margaret and the children escape, eventually making their way to California and Henry's doorstep, he does the decent thing by being a husband to both wives and father to all their offspring, a situation deemed indecent by the Berkeley Daughters of Decency. Convinced his family is dead, Henry relocates to California and marries Nancy, a sad 20-year-old pregnant widow. But during a Maori uprising, Margaret and her four children are kidnapped and the Oades's house is torched. A loving husband and attentive father, Henry Oades assures his wife, Margaret, that his posting to New Zealand will be temporary and the family makes the difficult journey. An English accountant and his two wives are the subject of this intriguing and evocative debut novel based on a real-life 19th-century California bigamy case.
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