The origin of species, incited mass murder of the maoris...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maori
...what some saw as a rival to the British system of royalty led to the New Zealand land wars. Although these resulted in relatively few deaths, the colonial government confiscated large tracts of tribal land as punishment for what they called rebellion (although the Crown had initiated the military action against its own citizens)...
...The Native Land Acts of 1862 and 1865 set up the Native Land Court, which had the purpose of breaking down communal ownership and facilitating the alienation of land. As a result, between 1840 and 1890 Maori lost 95 per cent of their land (63,000,000a of 66,000,000 -55,000,000a in 1890).
With the loss of much of their land, Maori went into a period of numerical and cultural decline...In 1840, New Zealand had a Maori population of about 100,000 and only about 2,000 Europeans. By the end of the 19th century, the Maori population had declined to 42,113 (according to the 1896 census) and Europeans numbered more than 700,000.
Looks like land-grabbing douchebags were the ones responsible for the devastation of the Maori people.