A few things we know about Joel Polack

Joel Polack was heartily disliked not only by his neighbours, Benjamin Turner, George Russell and John Evans, but also by the British Resident, James Busby, who was annoyed by Polack's persistent criticism and said that Polack was universally detested by the other low settlers”. The Jew, he said, wanted to play the gentleman among them. The missionary Henry Williams didn't have much time for Polack either. This person, he said, is one of those free and independent men full of threats and great boastings. William Colenso, printer, missionary, botanist and inveterate traveller, was intensely jealous of Polack, who first wrote about the Moa. He labelled Polack's discovery a fabrication, and did his best to belittle Polack and besmirch his reputation. Polack in turn had little regard for his fellow colonists. He had only two friends in the colony, he said, John Montefiore and Capt. Powditch. He didn't expect to win the popularity contest. But to understand Polack who played the 'gentleman' we need to look at his library and his collection of artefacts. Among his books there were numerous accounts of voyages in English and French, a collection of twelve Jewish books, a manuscript history of Mauritius and Madagascar, 700 papers, drawings from his own sketches, a portfolio of drawings by his grandfather, father and himself. He also had a portfolio of drawings and etchings by his grandfather, his father and himself, miniatures by his grandfather, and engravings by a number of notable artists. He had numerous charts, maps and engravings within an atlas. This was the kind of surrounding he lived among in pre-colonial New Zealand that was inhabited by Maori tribes and 1000 Europeans scattered across the land. The footnotes in his Manners and Customs of New Zealanders give an indication of the breadth of his interests and the range of his readings. He compares Maori practices to those of the Tahitians, the Malaysians, and others he encountered in his travels. He quotes from travel books by Crozet's "Aux hostilites commises par le vaisseau commande par M. de Surville", Burney's “Chronological History of Discoveries in the South Seas", he quotes Drake, Gonville, Cook, Thevenot on Tasman's voyages. He understands Maori culture and practices in terms of European literature and refers to the Old Testament frequently, but also to classical literature, Ovid, Virgil, Juvenal, Alexander Pope, Shakespeare, and notes similarities to examples from Egypt, ancient Syria, and India. No wonder that he stood out in the wild European settlement of the Bay of Islands, described as the Hell Hole of the Pacific. He was just smarter, knew more, was better educated. That he was also a successful businessman full of original ideas didn't help to endear him to his fellow settlers.