Trotter on Tuhoe
August 7th, 2010 at 12:00 pm by David FarrarChris Trotter writes:
An armed band of about 150 terrorists enters an isolated village in a country torn by civil war.
The men defending the village, accepting the terrorist leader’s assurances that they will not be harmed, surrender their weapons.
One man refuses, telling the terrorist leader: “If I hand over my gun, you will kill me.”
Shots are exchanged, the man falls.
The terrorists then start slaughtering the defenceless villagers – mostly women and children. Forty are killed – many hacked to death with bayonets and axes.
Meanwhile, outside the village, local farming families are also being attacked and killed.
About a dozen men, women and children are murdered: some bayoneted; some shot in the back as they fled. Their homesteads are looted and set alight.
Having completed their grisly raid, the terrorists take refuge in the nearby mountains.
What would be your best guess as to what happens next?
If you said a small army made up of professional soldiers and local volunteers headed into the mountains in pursuit of the terrorists, you would, of course, be correct.
And if the commanders of that small army discovered that the local inhabitants of the mountainous region into which the terrorists had fled were providing them with food, shelter, ammunition and new recruits?
What would your best guess be as to their next move? If you said they’d probably “unleash hell” on the local inhabitants, then, once again, you’d be quite right.
Now, when and where did this terrorist raid take place? Last week in the mountainous border region separating Afghanistan from Pakistan? Not even close.
The incidents I’ve just described took place in and around what is now Te Urewera National Park in April, 1869.
The “terrorists” were Te Kooti’s “Hauhaus”. The village was Mohaka. The local tribe which gave Te Kooti and his men shelter was Tuhoe.
THE Waitangi Tribunal has so far released more than a thousand pages of historical research into the Tuhoe people’s claim to Te Urewera.
But you’ll not find anything on those thousand pages remotely resembling the Mohaka massacre as I have described it.
There is a peculiar reticence on the part of the tribunal’s historians to acknowledge that the war which spilled over into the Tuhoe people’s territory in the 1860s and 70s was a civil war.
Chris, as I understand it, is not saying Tuhoe did not suffer grievous wrongs, and is not saying there should not be a settlement as compensation.
His issue is that the professional historians are not providing the full historical context for what happened.
Tags: Chris Trotter, Tuhoe
August 7th, 2010 at 12:38 pm
Goodness me – Chris Trotter is becoming more and more sensible as he matures.
The thing about grievances from long ago is just about everybody can drag them up – some would be just yesterday in comparison to how long ago the Maori grievances occurred.
And the reality is, of course, the sequence of events proceeding from those long ago issues are necessarily the ones that lead to our own individual conceptions – that is each one of us only exists because those things happened.
Vote:August 7th, 2010 at 1:03 pm
When I read this the other day I just about fell out of my seat. Mr Trotts isn’t all bad. I’m picking a piece like this would be like a kick in the arse for some of his PC mates in their ivory towers. The Waitangi Tribunal and it’s highly paid “historians” are in the same league as the IPCC and it’s “concerned scientists”, if the facts are unpalatable just don’t mention them or better still just portray those facts to suit the outcome desired. Sadly Trott’s article will be like water off a ducks back to the tribunal’s historians. It’s hard to back out when your arse is firmly stuck in the trough.
Vote:August 7th, 2010 at 1:21 pm
And the other one those highly paid historians deify is Kate Sheppard. She does not even rate a mention in Miles Fairburn’s insightful books, nor in William Pember Reeves books; both on 19th century N.Z. history.
Vote:August 7th, 2010 at 1:45 pm
Trotter is right. It was civil war. It wasn’t just white v brown. Many of those fighting for the Crown were Ngati Porou, for example. In some Maori skirmishing pakeha-Maori, whites adopted into tribes, fought on the brown side.
The PC revisionist historians of the last three or four decades have given us a distorted view of NZ colonial days. Their views are fed to our children and young people from primary school on.
Tauhei Notts is also right about Kate Sheppard. A descendant of William Sidney Lovell-Smith, her second husband, wrote an interesting article her a year or two ago in the Christchurch Press.
Vote:From memory she moved into the large Lovell-Smith family and usurped the mother. The article showed a different side to Sheppard’s character, one that parallels extreme feminism’s general attitude towards families.
August 7th, 2010 at 2:29 pm
For an account of the vent, see http://www.nzetc.org/tm/scholarly/tei-Cow02NewZ-c31.html
Vote:August 7th, 2010 at 2:31 pm
Now, now chaps. We can’t let the facts stand in the way of a perfectly good Treaty claim.
Vote:August 7th, 2010 at 2:42 pm
I’ve been telling this to my children for a long time,modern history lessons in all the white Anglo Saxon democracies consists of the following simple lesson:
white man bad,black man good. That can get you a BA.
The same thing applies where the nasty white man used to rule,South Africa,India etc;
white man bad,black man good. That gets you an MA.
A variation on the theme is within the broader white race where for example you can show;
English bad,and Irish ,Scots or Welsh good.So that gets you the PhD.
History 101 in a nutshell. Simple, and bound to go down well on the liberal dinner party circuit.
Vote:August 7th, 2010 at 2:58 pm
Meanwhile, in deepest, darkest Hutt, the river is to be renamed!
What a fucken surprise!
Vote:August 7th, 2010 at 3:28 pm
Fair enough I guess, lefties do think they have the sole right to re-write history so it’s understandable Trotter is aghast.
Vote:August 7th, 2010 at 4:04 pm
Dreadful events from the birth of a Nation.
I just simply wonder how money cures the guilt and the wrongdoings.
Always about the money. Isn’t it?
Vote:August 7th, 2010 at 4:40 pm
I haven’t read the report in question, but I’m afraid I’m going to have to differ with some of the generalisations about historians here. Of course the New Zealand Wars were in part Maori civil wars. Which historian of the period has ever denied that? Take a look at Belich’s docos on the NZ Wars, and you’ll find him talking to the descendants of kupapa and acknowledging their contribution. Read Judith Binney’s Redemption Songs and you’ll find chapter after chapter about the war inside Ngati Porou between hauhau and proto-kupapa. It’s actually impossible to tell the story of Te Kooti without acknowledging the civil war within Ngati Porou for the simple reason that, even though he was himself from the Rongowhakaata iwi rather than from Ngati Porou, Te Kooti fought on the side of the pro-government forces in the conflict amongst Ngati Porou. He only changed sides after he was convicted without trial and sent off to the Chathams.
I’d be interested to know who the contemporary historians are that people in this thread are complaining about. I think the great achievement of some of our best historians over the past thirty years (amongst whom I certainly number Miles Fairburn) has been to transcend the black and white approach to history that Chris and others are complaining about, and create a multi-perspectival view of the past. Its silly to suggest that there is some sort of left-wing orthodoxy amongst Kiwi historians. Miles Fairburn is deliberately apolitical, and has never even voted; Ranginui Walker is a famous Maori nationalist but quite cool to the left (he argues that the Maori alliance with Labour was an historical mistake, for instance); Peter Munz was no leftist, and caused controversy in his last years by savaging the ‘subjectivity’ with which he felt Maori history was presented at Te Papa, and there are high-profile historians like Bassett and Gustaffson with explicit links to National and Act. I’m a dyed in the wool lefty but I prefer a good right-wing historian to a bad left-wing historian any day.
The real change over the past fifty years or so, with the development of history as a professional discipline in NZ, is the disappearance of the completely one-sided views of the past which cast Maori as naturally inferior to Pakeha and presented Te Kooti, Te Whiti, and other rebels as nothing but fanatical terrorists with no legitimate grievances. If there’s anyone here who seriously believes that there was some sort of golden age of history-writing back in the middle of last century, I recommend that they read HM Ross’ biography of Te Kooti, and then read Binney’s Redemption Songs. Ross uses a tiny range of sources, the vast majority of them pro-government, and explains all of Te Kooti’s rebellious actions with reference to Maori savagery, religious fanaticism, and mental illness. Binney, by contrast, uses an almost unbelievably large range of sources, including the oral traditions of iwi who were victims of Te Kooti and remain hostile to him, and presents her subject as a highly complex, multi-sided man. Going from Ross to Binney is like going from night to day. I tried to sum up Binney’s methodological innovations, which have made her an important intellectual figure internationally as well as in New Zealand, here:
http://readingthemaps.blogspot.com/2009/12/why-we-need-judith-binney.html
In any case, I hope folks here will actually read people like Binney before they criticise them. The great thing about a subject like history is that it presumes an endless argument, rather than a single set of conclusions about the past.
Vote:August 7th, 2010 at 4:59 pm
Similar to the cloud of misinformation surrounding Moutoa Gardens in Wanganui. Back in 1995 Maori were claiming Pakeha ripped them off, Pakeha were claiming Maori legitimately traded it away. The land was occupied and Tau Henare manged to get his picture taken laughing alongside one of the moko-wearing occupiers.
So I decided it was time to find out what actually happened. Turned out both sides were right. Pakeha arrived there when the acknowledged owners were away hunting. A few canoes from an upsteam tribe happened to be passing down the Whanganui River, saw their chance, pulled up and said “Hey, wanna buy this?”.
The Pakeha were suckered in, the up-river Maori paddled off laughing their heads off, and the owners came back to find what they legitimately thought were squatters on their land. Because the settlers evidently didn’t understand (or didn’t believe) the sellers were a completely different iwi, the feud went on for a century or so.
Ironically, it was a professional historian to whom I turned – the truth was sitting amongst papers in the office of a military historian (whose name I must apologise for forgetting) and it took him about a day to sort it out when I asked him. We sent out what is probably the longest press release in history (about half an inch thick) proving Tau was both right and wrong in his support for one side over the other.
The truth is out there… we just need to cut through the interwoven agendas that obscure it. Good on Chris Trotter for acknowledging this.
Vote:August 7th, 2010 at 5:03 pm
This issue has been well covered by Not PC over at his blog in the last few years. I bet that Chris Trotter learnt about this Te Kooti from Not PC blog. Here is one of the many blog posts that Not PC had touched on this very subject.
Never mind the National Parks
Not PC blog is the best source of knowledge (economics, history, philosophy, arts, science) out there for any blog-reader who wants to widen their knowledge nuggets in other subjects. This is how I first stumbled upon this Te Kooti terrorist.
Vote:August 7th, 2010 at 5:10 pm
“The Pākehā sailors were allowed to live and set sail for the coast of New Zealand with help from the Māori. The sailors attempted to sail towards Wellington, but with Te Kooti’s expertise at sailing were caught and told they would be thrown overboard if they did not keep a course for the East Coast. On the fourth day at sea, the ship was becalmed and Te Kooti declared that a sacrifice was needed. Te Kooti had his sceptical uncle thrown overboard and soon afterwards the ship made headway again.”
From Scott Hamilton: “and presents her subject as a highly complex, multi-sided man. ”
Yep. Guess Uncle was not quite so impressed!
Vote:August 7th, 2010 at 5:42 pm
Johnboy:
Phil Goff, are you listening? Sceptical… overboard… headway… ringing any bells?
Vote:August 7th, 2010 at 5:43 pm
Kowtow said…
white man bad,black man good. That can get you a BA.
The same thing applies where the nasty white man used to rule,South Africa,India etc;
white man bad,black man good. That gets you an MA.
Kowtow, unfortunately, there are commentators on this blog who hold that view. White man bad, black man good. Look no further than Luc Hansen. He/she laments the wealth of the white culture and at the same time enjoying the very wealth of the culture that he/she is lamenting. What I mean by this? Well, if you walk in to his/her house I can guarantee that you will find a fridge there. Who made the fridge? Obviously, not by a black man. I am talking here about the invention of it rather than talking about the black man who assembles the fridge in the factory floor. See, Luc uses a fridge invented by a white man, and at the same time hates the culture that made that white man invented the fridge in the first place. The fridge is just one example. I bet Luc is using electricity, computer, cell phone and so forth in his house. These were invented by the very white culture that he and his likes (leftists) hate or laments.
If you ask these idiots, if they want to switch place with people from 3rd world countries, i.e., these black apologists would move into those 3rd world countries and some desperate people from those 3rd world countries take their place in NZ (I am sure that those immigrants will work hard and be good contributor to kiwi society), I bet that black apologists such as Luc Hansen, Sue Bradford and their ilk’s wouldn’t want to do that. Why? Such move would be a culture shock to them. They had to adjust to living in a house with no electricity, no computer, no phone, long drop toilet, no water, etc,… I grew up in such a condition in the island before I moved to NZ to find a better life. Even myself I wouldn’t want to live my life again in that horrible condition. So, I say that these black apologists are hypocrites. They are hinder to society with their views. In their twisted world view, they prefer that white culture be brought down to be equal with 3rd world cultures, because their socialist views are inline with their hatred of (white man’s culture’s) wealth in which they’re supportive of the poor (black man). They think that the poor is being poor because the white man exploited them.
The sooner are these black apologists are given a one way ticket to a 3rd world country, the better for the society.
Vote:August 7th, 2010 at 5:48 pm
“Why? Such move would be a culture shock to them. They had to adjust to living in a house with no electricity, no computer, no phone, long drop toilet, no water, etc,”
Shit oh dear Fala. I pay serious money to people like Helisika to take me to places just like that.
Do you think I am trying to seek out my ethnic roots??
Vote:August 7th, 2010 at 5:54 pm
Trotter is increasingly coming out of the closet as a good old fashioned racist, white supremacist imperialist, reinventing history to justify his world view that western European colonialism was good and Godly.
He appears to be endorsing the view that Tuhoe civilians deserved to be massacred as the price of their “support” for Te Kooti, yet what else could the village do? Refuse and be wiped out like Mohaka? This is exactly the dilemma facing villagers in Afghanistan right now as the resurgent Taliban takes revenge on those who cooperate with the enemy (ISAF), yet we condemn their attacks – oh, but of course, they are just wogs and they don’t have God and light skin on their side.
Furthermore, even if Tuhoe voluntarily supplied Te Kooti, it’s simply an illustration of the time honoured philosophy of “the enemy of my enemy is my friend.” So there were possibly two entirely understandable motivations for Tuhoe to give humanitarian aid to Te Kooti’s band. A third, of course, is simply that, humanitarian.
And I think Trotter’s deliberate choice of words (Civil War) to Europeanise probably an ages old tribal conflict (although I would have to study this aspect) subverts reality to again suit his previously expressed view that western colonialism was a noble cause. A civil war denotes a recognised, unitary society – tribes engage in tribal warfare.
I get pretty sick and tired of this continual demonisation of indigenous peoples forcibly colonised by the west – as though somehow they should always be angels. They weren’t, but that doesn’t take away from our responsibility to remedy our wrongs. And their internecine warfare has nothing to do with Treaty of Waitangi settlements.
Finally, is Trotter really saying that one massacre begets another? Two wrongs make a right? I guess he applauds all those civilian deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan as justifiable retribution for a few relatively inconsequential terrorist attacks – attacks that can more accurately be described as “blowback”.
Guy, you show much ignorance. Study the settlements and see how there are many other aspects to the redress we supply.
Just for free, here is my view on the treaty process. It will finish forever when Maori accept that the time is right end returns of land; when Maori are at least equal to their conquerors in the socio-economic tables (income, education, health etc); AND Maori are happy with their level of representation in parliament and other institutions of government.
So you all should dig in for the long haul ‘cos we ain’t going to give that away easily!
Vote:August 7th, 2010 at 5:59 pm
“‘So you all should dig in for the long haul ‘cos we ain’t going to give that away easily!”
We, we.—- Luc Hansen is a Maori!!!!
Shit Johnny Hatfield talks some sense after all!!
Vote:August 7th, 2010 at 6:01 pm
Hey Falu…right on cue, huh?
Vote:August 7th, 2010 at 6:02 pm
Johnboy, the “we” is us honkys!
Vote:August 7th, 2010 at 6:08 pm
Thank God for that Luc. For just a moment I thought you may have been Johnny Hatfields son in law.
I was just about to ask how big his front lawn really was.
Vote:August 7th, 2010 at 7:01 pm
Scott Hamilton at 4.40 p.m. It is comments like yours that make this a great blog.
Vote:Luc Hansen, it is comments like yours that me fret for the future of our country. Luc, I think your time would be better spent masturbating, over there in the corner, rather than contributing to this blog. Luc, if you have read Portnoy’s Complaint, don’t worry about going blind. You are already blind to reason.
August 7th, 2010 at 7:08 pm
Tauhei Notts:
TeHeeHeeHee!!
Vote:August 7th, 2010 at 7:12 pm
Falafulu: I’ve often thought that Te Kooti and Tupou I resemble each other. Both were capable of great violence and compassion, both were charismatic yet remote leaders, both were brilliant warriors, both tried to fuse Christianity with the traditional culture of their people, and both were prepared to spread their brand of the faith with the sword, or rather with the musket. As a Tongan what do you think of the comparison?
Johnboy: that’s an extraordinary and rather frightening story you quote, isn’t it? Like Gilbert Mair, his great Pakeha nemesis and eventual friend, Te Kooti was capable of appalling brutality towards his errant followers as well as his enemies. But does that make him incapable of complexity? Like Mair, he saved much Maori culture from destruction, and won the loyalty of many Maori, and like Mair he ended up renouncing violence. I would say both Te Kooti and Mair deserve to be portrayed as more than one-dimensional figures. And surely the fact that Judith Binney tells the story of the execution of Warihi off the Chathams, and of numerous other ruthless acts by Te Kooti, shows that she is committed to telling a complex story? If she were part of some grand and sinister conspiracy to distort history, then she would surely have repressed stories like the killing of Warihi, rather than giving them places in her narrative.
Here’s a site associated with Te Kooti that is well worth visiting, for anyone passing near Taupo:
Vote:http://readingthemaps.blogspot.com/2009/03/marathons.html
You might feel the man’s ghost there…
August 7th, 2010 at 7:26 pm
“Main article: Te Kooti’s War
On November 10, 1868, Te Kooti and his followers attacked the township of Matawhero on the outskirts of Gisborne. Some 54 people were slaughtered, including women and children. The dead included 22 local Māori as well as European settlers. This was probably a revenge attack, motivated by Te Kooti’s false imprisonment as a spy.”
He was really just a piece of shit Scott and under any other occupying power he would have been given his just desserts at the end of a rope or worse.
Vote:August 7th, 2010 at 7:28 pm
“Pardon and later life
In 1883, Te Kooti was pardoned by the government and began to travel New Zealand. His followers grew and he decided to return to his old home. However, his past deeds had not been forgotten and the local magistrate arrested him and imprisoned him, citing an anticipatory breach of the peace. Te Kooti was released on the condition that he never again try to return to his old home. Te Kooti appealed this decision, and was initially successful, but in 1890 the Court of Appeal ruled that the terror and alarm that Te Kooti’s reappearance would have entailed justified the magistrate’s decision. No doubt the Court was influenced by Te Kooti’s preferred mode of transport, a white charger, and his large entourage.”
Dumb Pakeha’s eh Bro??
Vote:August 7th, 2010 at 7:38 pm
I enjoyed both Scott Hamilton & Luc Hansen’s Blog reasoned & logical, not that I agreed with all of it. Pity Tauhei Notts can’t cope!
For Luc though, given your argument that “They weren’t, but that doesn’t take away from our responsibility to remedy our wrongs. And their internecine warfare has nothing to do with Treaty of Waitangi settlements.”
I’ve always struggled to understand ” our wrongs” Who is “our”. Help me please?
I’m just a dumb Kiwi! that has paid tax for the best part of 45 years. Am I paying for British Colonialists and other adventurers mistakes. Seems to me that the rise and fall of nations throughout time follows the same pattern. Why should I pay?
Vote:August 7th, 2010 at 7:43 pm
Are you the long haired chubby Fiona from Point Howard that I took to Arnouts party in Karori in 1968 and never dated again?
Vote:August 7th, 2010 at 8:17 pm
Belich is a killer.
In that series of his;
if only the dumb white arses had learned trench warfare off the Maoris ,WW1 would have been so different! So here we have a white historian elevating the natives to world class warrior status and who would have been relevant on the world stage. Bollocks.
I must say I had been wondering who would come out to attack Trotsky on this one ,and Luc has surpassed himself,racism,imperialism blah blah.
Vote:August 7th, 2010 at 8:26 pm
In Australia the Aborigine owns a lot of land over here in Austrlaia, Farrar,
Vote:many people say it useless land, but it has minerals.
peterquixote
August 7th, 2010 at 8:30 pm
. Johnboy posted at 5.59:
Luc Hansen posted at 6.02:
Bit of a typo there, Luc Hansen. Didn’t you mean “us donkeys”, referring to the lefties whose opinions you usually champion?
2. Re Kowtow at 8.17. Yes Belich showed lack of knowledge of the history of war. The Romans were skilled in trench warfare more than 1500 years before the Maori. I wouldn’t be surprised if the Greeks were fighting that way even before the Romans. Certainly the Greeks’ fighting triremes of 2300 years ago would have cut Maori war canoes to pieces.
3. Scott Hamilton’s 4.40 and 7.12 posts are thought provoking for laymen like me. Thank you Scott.
On Scott’s comment:
Does history also reflect current intellectual trends and vogues, with a two-way flow between these and intellectuals such as historians?
If it’s absolute balance that’s sought between a Western and non-Western view, can this ever be achieved in the discipline of history, which is definitely from and within the West’s intellectual traditions?
A minor point Scott. Do you feel uneasy about the frequent reliance on oral history by some NZ contemporary historians. A bit like Thucydides relying on Homer?
For most people, without the time, the resources, or the inclination to peruse contemporary historian’s sources, perhaps the best course is to regard their work as crafted work rather than pillars handed down from God. Historians certainly aren’t infallible. Remember the great Hugh Trevor-Roper and the Hitler diaries.
I like the Voltaire quote:
Regardless, perhaps our great-great-great grandchildren may think Maori-settler clashes of no more importance than the current British put on battles between Saxons and Normans.
If only we could be around to find out. Perhaps it’s a good thing we won’t be around, for perhaps only those who read Mandarin will be able to follow what the new contemporary historians are on about.
Vote:August 7th, 2010 at 8:36 pm
Johnboy – Arnout as in “Groeneveld?”
Vote:August 7th, 2010 at 8:43 pm
Yep. Tell me more.
Vote:August 7th, 2010 at 9:04 pm
Johnboy argues that Te Kooti deserved to die because of his army’s killings of civilians, and says that the fact Te Kooti was eventually pardoned and allowed to settle at Ohiwa was a sign of British/colonial magnaminity. The contrast between the evil Te Kooti and the righteous colonial government is of course the essence of the biography of Te Kooti by WH Ross I mentioned earlier, and of other early studies of Maori rebels by amateur colonial historians. Johnboy seems to want to go back to this early, black and white version of history, rather than to try the more complex approach professionals have developed over the last forty years or so.
There are some obvious problems with Johnboy’s attempt to contrast an irredeemably evil Te Kooti with a righteous colonial government. If Te Kooti deserved capital punishment for the executions his army carried out at Matawhero, then shouldn’t the leaders of government forces deserve the same fate for the executions of civilians they carried out during the New Zealand Wars? The killings at Matawhero were followed by the cold-blooded massacre of prisoners of war and civilians by government forces at Ngatapa, in the rugged hill country of the Hawkes Bay interior. It is hard for me to see how one massacre is less of a crime than the other. If the colonial state was so righteous, why did it never investigate, let alone charge, the perpetrators of the Ngatapa massacre?
I’ve used Ngatapa as an example of a war crime by colonial forces, but there are many others I could mention – the torching of a church at Rangiaowhia, in the sothern Waikato, which had been advertised as a place where Maori civilians could take refuge from fighting, and the consequent deaths of women and children and old men; the invasion of Tuhoe Country led by Colonel Whitmore, whose men ripped up crops and torched villages to ensure the starvation of the people they encountered; and the execution of wounded prisoners of war in the aftermath of the last big battle with Te Kooti at Te Porere, near the end of 1869.
It’s important to note that none of these massacres can be reduced to Pakeha violence toward Maori, or to Maori violence toward Pakeha. The massacres at Ngatapa and Te Porere were carried out by Maori kupapa, under the watchful eyes of a handful of Pakeha commanders; at Matawhero Te Kooti picked on Maori, as well as Pakeha, as he murderously settled a series of old scores involving land disputes and his banishment to the Chathams. It seems to me that both the colonial government and Te Kooti’s army committed major crimes, and I don’t think either had any right to stand as some sort of arbiter of morality. Te Kooti was no Te Whiti or Gandhi, but Gilbert Mair and the other Pakeha war leaders were hardly saints either. I don’t see how Johnboy can present the colonial government as just without ignoring the many massacres and many smaller crimes it carried out. He seems to want a history that focuses only on the sins of one side of the war.
What about the pardon Te Kooti received in the 1880s, though? Isn’t this evidence of the good-heartedness of the colonial government, as John claims? If John takes the trouble to read about the background to the pardon, he’ll see that it was dictated not by foregiveness but by realpolitik. In 1872 Te Kooti ended his war and took refuge in the King Country, which was then an independent state ruled by King Tawhiao, the exiled leder of Waikato, and his host Rewi Maniapoto. Te Kooti was safe in the King Country because Pakeha were barred from the area. The government in Wellington became keen to open up the King Country as the 1870s went on, largely because they wanted to put a railway through the area. After long negotations the frontier was opened in the early 1880s, and King Tawhiao returned to the Waikato with great fanfare. One of Tawhiao’s conditions for opening the frontier was the pardoning of Te Kooti. By the 1880s Te Kooti had long-since abandoned war and begun to preach peace, and so Tawhiao had little trouble brokering a deal whereby he promised not to resume his war in exchange for a pardon. Tawhiao and Te Kooti were able to strike deals with the government in Wellington because they were never defeated outright by that government.
kowtow,
where do you disagree with Belich’s analysis of the evolution of the pre-contact pa to the gunfighter pa, and with his argument that the latter could have deployed to some value in European wars in places like Crimea? Do you realise that some of his opinions aout the quality of Maori military architecture were first aired by Cowan, in his classic two-volume study of the New Zealand Wars? I hope you’re not going to tell that good old Cowan was in on the conspiracy to distort history a hundred years ago?
Vote:August 7th, 2010 at 9:17 pm
Scott. I don’t argue any of those things you have said at all. I just think that us Honkies should have shot Te Kooti out of hand as soon as we caught him.
My policy regarding Te Kooti is exactly the same as my current policy regarding all murdering, raping, home invading assholes of whatever skin colour.
My policy is put the bastards up against the nearest wall and shoot them.
Trust this clears up any confusion you may be suffering from.
Vote:August 7th, 2010 at 9:18 pm
Hi Jack5,
missed your questions earlier. I agree with you about how difficult it is to reconcile Western and traditional Polynesian approaches to history, and about how tricky it is to handle oral sources. I think there is always the danger either of imposing Western approaches on non-Western material, and trying to make oral history into the equivalent of written records, or throwing away notions of objectivity and simply saying that history is whatever anybody or any oral tradition says it is. The Great Fleet Myth created by Percy Smithy and Elsdon Best in the late nineteenth century is a good example of the former error. Best and Smith took a pile of Maori oral traditions and tried to synthesise them into a factual narrative full of precise dates. This is a bit like trying to take Homer’s Odyssey and treat it as a literal history of the early Greek world.
Vote:An example of the latter approach is the work of extreme postmodernists, who deny that there is any one version of the past which is truer than another. In the piece I posted earlier about Judith Binney I discussed both these errors at length and explained why I think Binney has discovered a way of combining European and Maori, written and oral approaches to history. http://readingthemaps.blogspot.com/2009/12/why-we-need-judith-binney.html
August 7th, 2010 at 9:22 pm
So Johnboy, would you have shot Gilbert Mair, too? He was certainly a murderer in the Te Kooti mould. But who would you have gotten to shoot him, given that he representd the state? Maybe we needed a UN intervention?
I prefer to remember the meeting that Mair and Te Kooti had as old men, which Kendrick Smithyman describes in this poem:
MEETING AT MATATA
After the amnesty it happened:
Gilbert Mair had business at Matata.
Te Kooti rode in – a couple of wives,
thirty men in his bodyguard – to visit
at the village with the local faithful,
to do some healing if needed. All those years,
only once they’d met up face to face.
Captain Mair was praised for his shooting.
All those years! but never managed
to hit Te Kooti. People still think it strange.
Te Kooti heard Mair was at the Horseshoe Inn.
He marched his men across with borrowed weapons,
one or two rifles, some shotguns.
He paraded them. Mair was invited out
to inspect the guard of honour.
Such as had arms presented.
Te Kooti came to Mair. He hung a fine cloak
on him: ” . . . my token of regard for you.
Wear this in memory of me. If it’s not
big enough, let me clothe you with my love.”
He ordered his force Teihana! Pai te rewhi!,
quickmarched them back to their quarters.
Make love not war. Make peace, make friends.
These dim fond bromides, how they cling together
like album leaves, commonplace, a bit foxed,
yet what a sweet tune you can finger from them
on some old honey-brown Blüthner upright
in a shadowy bar parlour.
Later that day a message from the kainga:
Would the Captain be good enough to send over
a bottle of rum? Perhaps two?
28. 10. 88
Vote:August 7th, 2010 at 9:26 pm
Well now Scott. If the good Captain was able to send over a bottle of Rum or two I may have been obliged to postpone the firing squad.
Vote:August 7th, 2010 at 9:45 pm
… then 138 years later, the Tuhoe caught in those same Ureweras training up their own (terrorist?) group before being raided by police…
Vote:August 7th, 2010 at 10:15 pm
Falafulu Fisi
You need to read “Guns, Germs and Steel” by Jarred Diamond. You will find that your cultural inferiority complex is unfounded.
I grew up in a village deep in rural New Zealand, probably the poorest European family in the hamlet. I did have shoes, sometimes, and stuck cardboard in the soles in winter to keep the water out on the way to school. I didn’t even know what a fridge was until I was about 10. We kept our food in a safe, probably much like you, until I was in my teens. We didn’t have a phone until I was in my teens, as well. And I didn’t have a home computer until I was in my forties. So don’t give me “you rich honky” shit. (Do excuse the pun)
Most European “inventions” had their antecedents in the inventions of the “others.” Guess who invented the wheel. Writing. Arithmetic. Scientific enquiry. The Humanities. It wasn’t the white folk. You need to get over yourself.
Vote:August 7th, 2010 at 10:43 pm
Shit happens.
Vote:August 7th, 2010 at 10:52 pm
And just to be clear for Mr Trotter: the “professional soldiers” he mentions are obviously British. Their actions were racist, as they all were in those days, if not still, and Maori to them would be like Palestinians to Zionists – sub-human, vermin, expendable. As were Muslims, Jews and non-mainstream Christians to the original Crusaders. Intolerant, nasty, and brutish. That’s our heritage.
Fiona, the answer to your question is that times and sensibilities have changed.
Vote:August 7th, 2010 at 11:26 pm
“And just to be clear for Mr Trotter: the “professional soldiers” he mentions are obviously British”
Unfortunately for you, most soldiers in the pay of the crown were not British. Many were Hanoverians, or Protestant Dutch.
Many were ‘mercenary’ units from already imperialised lands. Take the Gurkhas as one prime example.
Your stark opinions are often flawed, and frankly riddled with self righteous guff. Before you ask we lived in an unheated caravan for 3 years. Shoes would have been a luxury, and every day we got up 3 hours before we went to bed, and went to work and paid for the privilege, and then just for fun we licked all the roads clean ‘wit tongue!
Vote:August 7th, 2010 at 11:38 pm
Anyone read the Shadbolt land wars trilogy?
Vote:August 8th, 2010 at 1:21 am
So from what Chris Trotter is saying…
During a civil war, the government attacked Tuhoe for harbouring a group of terrorists who had massacred 54 men, women and children.
They asked Tuhoe to give them up. Tuhoe refused.
So the government ratcheted up the punishment and confiscated some of their land.
Well what were they supposed to do – slap them over the hand with a wet bus ticket? What would the Romans or the Japanese have done? What would Tuhoe have done if they’d held the upper hand – put up wanted posters and waited patiently at the border?
After all, this was the nineteenth century. Punishing enemies was what warring parties did – to the victor, the spoils. It’s not, as far as I’m aware, standard etiquette to compensate the punished several generations later for overreacting.
Did the Allies compensate the families of German and Japanese POWs who were executed for defying orders not to escape?
If we must now, 142 years later, compensate Tuhoe for land impounded as a wartime punishment, it’s only fair that the many iwi who conquered other iwi should hand back their ill-gotten lands as well.
In fact, I guess we should compensate offenders of every kind for the inconvenience their punishment caused them.
Now I’m happy to be put right if this distillation is flagrantly one-sided, but this does appear to be what Mr Trotter is saying.
Vote:August 8th, 2010 at 8:17 am
Guy Fawkes at 11.26.
Vote:The soldiers were predominantly English.
There is a memorial in the York Minster Cathedral to the members of the 65th regiment who fell at places like Rangiriri, Te Rore, Orakau and Gate Pa. When you go in the main entrance, it is over to your right.
August 8th, 2010 at 9:19 am
Tauhei Notts: “Guy Fawkes at 11.26. The soldiers were predominantly English.”
Sorry, but that isn’t correct. The British units that served her from 1845 to 1866 included large numbers of Scots, Welsh and Irish, as well as a handful of others. The Armed Constabulary (which replaced the British regular units, and fought alongside the kupapa units for the rest of the NZ Wars), included large numbers of British soldiers who had reired in NZ, plus Maori, plus settlers, plus Americans, Indians, Australians, and at least on Prussian (von Tempsky).
It is correct to note that a number of the local wars that made up what we now call the NZ wars were actually civil wars amongst Maori. the Northern War of 1845-6 (which was essentially a power stuggle between Hone Heke and Tamati Waaka Nene) and the Hutt War of 1846 (which was essentially an attempt by Te Rangihaeata to establish himself as the heir apparent to Te Rauparaha as paramount chief of Ngati Toa) are examples of this.
Vote:August 8th, 2010 at 9:21 am
expat: “Anyone read the Shadbolt land wars trilogy?”
Yes, I have. They are loose interpretations of history, and nothing more.
Vote:August 8th, 2010 at 10:07 am
“The force that accomplished so much was mainly composed of loyal natives, and was assisted by a handful of Europeans (120), who were enthusiastic in the cause whilst directed by Mr M’Lean. Between July and October, 1865, that force had routed the enemy at every encounter; ……….. ” James Hawthorn, a survivor of the Poverty Bay massacre writing in 1869.
Vote:August 8th, 2010 at 10:12 am
if we were to find that almost everyone on the planet was racist in 1800 or so I would be rather unsurprised. And if a white man shot a maori partly because he viewed maori like the north island maori might have viewed south island maori or if a maori stabbed a european because he viewed europeans like the europeans often viewed jews well that is all just a fact of history.
The good news is that as the general population has gotten more educated and we have got more advanced we have tended to get less racist (aside from a little blip in 1940 or so). Aside from that we would all be beating up anyone who had a different nose shape because they belong to another tribe or whatever.
Vote:August 8th, 2010 at 10:18 am
Johnboy, unlikely unless it was that unmemorable!
Vote:August 8th, 2010 at 11:21 am
Chris is right. The treaty office is a biased against the truth or fairness. His description of the Te Kooti terrorism and haven from Tuhoe is brief and accurate.
Scott Hamilton has argued with me before on Kiwiblog about Tuhoes actions, and even when I gave hims incidents and dates, he still wouldn’t alter his view, so I wouldn’t waste my time arguing with him again. He’s a Belich lover and even when Belich has been pointed out wrong, his followers still wont listen.
Some years ago, Micheal Bassett was on the waitangi tribunal, for the report for the Tauranga area. He alone had filed a dissenting opinion from the main report. Essentially he said that the actions by Ngati rangi were right to lead to confiscation of land, but the confiscations fell on some Hapu disproportionaly. The main report essentially said it was wrong to have confiscations. Again and again when I read the treaty reports, I don’t feel that they balanced at all.
Vote:August 8th, 2010 at 11:32 am
re Scott Hamilton @904 pm.
It would have been very difficult for the white ,racist,imperialist miltarists to retrospectively apply knowledge garnered from wars in 1860-61 ,’63-66 and ’68-70 to the campaign in the Crimea which occurred in 1854 .
Vote:As to the quality of pa, Cook remarked on them in his day.
Many of the troops were actually Irish. The 2nd Battalion 18th Regiment of Foot(Royal Irish)was the last of 14 Imperial battalions to serve in NZ and left in 1870.After that all the fighting was left to what was considered to be NZ forces.
There are many memorials around the country to these imperial forces ,some in a sad state of repair or poorly signposted as we are no longer proud of our colonial heritage ,that has been revised by historians such as Belich to now be a racist issue.
August 8th, 2010 at 12:51 pm
Re Luc Hansen at 10.15 last night:
Yep Luc Hansen, the wheel predates Europe. Writing comes from the fertile crescent in the Middle East, that is Iraq. But try telling Iraqis they aren’t white! The Humanities and science go back chiefly from Ancient Greece, the foundation stone of Western civilisation. Try telling Greeks they aren’t white, and that their ancient predecessors weren’t white. Arithmetic – probably pre-Europe and wide origins simultaneously, but algebra probably from India then preserved and enhanced by Arabs.
The “white” description is suspect. It’s just pigmentation for the right dose of Vitamin D from the relevant distance from the equator. Northern Chinese and many Japanese give the lie to the common linking of “white” and Europe in a racial sense. Many of these Chinese and Japanese are almost porcelain white, whiter than 90 per cent of Europeans. Skin colour as a classification of humans and the whole concept of race is a crock, IMHO.
However, if you take the words “West” or “Western civilisation” instead of “white”, it’s a different matter. What counts is culture, and Western culture still stands out as by far the most progressive and enduring of civilisations. Compare it today with Muslim Wahhabism, which has fundamentalists in Saudi Arabia opposed to the King’s head on coins and any photographs, let alone TV and the Internet. Compare it with modern China, which is picking its way out of Marxism, an ideology of Western civilisation, despite political attempts to portray it as non-Western.
Western civilisation has given the world by far its greatest scientific, industrial, and general progress. It was built on the intellect of Ancient Greece, preserved in the Dark Ages chiefly in Byzantium with secondary support from the Arab world and tiny enclaves such as Irish monasteries. The Muslim sacking of Byzantium sent the scholars fleeing into Europe and, the West was up and roaring.
As Needham claimed, China was a highly innovative and progressive civilisation, pioneering movable type printing gunpowder and many other developments. But then it froze up under its imperial bureaucracy oversteeped in Confucianism.
The internet, developed from America’s defence system, through the web, envisaged and pioneered by a European scientist, is the latest innovation of the West to stir the world. It’s irrelevant that most of the internet pioneers were pale skinned, but Luc Hansen may dispute that. What is indisputable is that the internet is a development of Western science and technology.
Vote:August 8th, 2010 at 1:09 pm
kowtow, the gunfighter pa emerged in the first half of the nineteenth century, not the second. It was used during the Northern War in the 1840s, when Hone Heke sheltered from a British bombardment in one. Can you cite a passage in any of Belich’s books where he says that the colonial and imperial forces which fought Maori in the nineteenth were a bunch of racists who shouldn’t be memorialsied? I think Belich has done a huge amount to raise consciousness of the wars. We need more memorials to both sides of the conflict.
Vote:August 8th, 2010 at 2:33 pm
Michael King says:
“The Maori historian Buddy Mikaere has referred to a tendency on the part of Pakeha historians to depict Maori as, invariably, deeply spiritual beings who only ever act on the basis of high-minded principles; and Pakeha as unprincipled rogues or fools whose behaviour is always motivated by racial arrogance, greed and self-interest.
Mikaere made these comments with specific reference to The Story of New Zealand by Judith Bassett, Keith Sinclair and Marcia Stenson. But the imprint of the approach to history he identifies can be found in Anne Salmond’s book Two Worlds, First Meetings Between Maori aud Europeans 1642-1772 (though interestingly enough not in its sequel, Between Two Worlds). It rests heavily on James Belich’s series of television documentaries on the New Zealand Wars. And it is there in Fergus Clunie’s recent writings on missionary activity in and around the Bay of Islands.
In the first instance, that of Anne Salmond, it is revealed in a determrnation to expose the more brutal features of seventeenth and eighteenth century European society without acknowledging comparable behaviour by Maori; and to judge every aspect of European activity in New Zealand in the harshest light, and every manifestation of Maori behaviour in the most benevolent and positive way.
Belich’s documentaries highlight behaviour of the nincompoop variety, whilst potraying Maori as almost always making decisions that were admirable and strategically sound. And Fergus Clunie sees early missionary actions as being designed, not to give Maori the benefit of European technology in such areas as food production and house construction, but solely to make Maori dependent on the technology with a view to advancing the process of colonisation and parting them from their land.
It is true, as Belich remarks, that all the encounters referred to in each of these books result from European intrusions into a previously discreet indigenous culture; and that consequently, from a post-colonial perspective, Maori in the eighteenth and nineteenth century can be seen as always occupying the moral high ground, just as Moriori do in the context of their experience of colonisation. But it is also true, as Mikaere points out, that Maori too sometimes acted precipitately, unwisely, injudiciously; and that Maori historical narratives about themselves are as replete with fools and clowns and villains as they are with heroes and heroines.
http://sof.org.nz/origins.htm
Vote:August 8th, 2010 at 6:19 pm
See D Morris Amazon review of Belich’s NZ wars. He puts it very well.
At no point did I say B said anything about racist memorials ,you seek to distort what I said,and by so doing you discredit yourself.
Vote:August 8th, 2010 at 11:06 pm
Hj 2.33pm:excellent link, thank you.
Jack5: so keen to find conflict with me that he rather desperately (despairingly?) pounces on one word and uses that to hive off on his own tangent, the crux of which is the superiority, in his view, of western culture (usually casually known as white man’s culture, except to Jack). With hat tip to Hj, here’s what Michael King had to say about that:
This extract reflects my own views very, very well. I do not advocate generous settlement for Maori claimants as washing away some sort of guilt over acts I had nothing to do with, as I wasn’t even a gleam in my Daddy’s eyes, but because Maori have been systematically discriminated against and oppressed by Pakehas from day one of our colonisation project.
Jack5 should click on the aforementioned link. And another good read for Jack5 would be the book I have mentioned previously on Kiwiblog, “Guns, Germs and Steel” by Jarred Diamond.
Now I see the term civil war still being bandied about as applicable to inter-tribal warfare as practised by Maori. This is from Wikipedia:
and this:
It’s quite clear that the local Maori conflicts were tribal in nature, generally rather petty in extent, and do not meet the standards of civil war.
I may be guilty of belabouring a minor point, but as I said earlier, trying to reduce our culpability for the consequences to Maori of our conquest (I being of English/Irish extraction) is reprehensible. It is a common tactic of racists to demonise their victims, and Trotter appears to be a fan of that approach.
And to not acknowledge that the attack on the Tuhoe and land confiscation was both unjustified and wrong is also reprehensible.
Vote:August 9th, 2010 at 6:48 am
Thanks kowtow. My Amazon review (written under my name, RJ Taylor) of James Belich’s ‘The New Zealand Wars’ says much the same.
Check it out on:
http://www.amazon.com/Zealand-Victorian-Interpretation-Racial-Conflict/product-reviews/0196480558/ref=dp_db_cm_cr_acr_txt?ie=UTF8&showViewpoints=1
Vote:August 9th, 2010 at 9:17 am
Duxton,very interesting. The point about false references is fascinating and puts me in mind of Keith Windschuttle and the whole culture wars thing.
Vote:I hadn’t realised that our Jamie was that bad!
http://www.sydneyline.com/Home.htm
August 9th, 2010 at 2:29 pm
***Most European “inventions” had their antecedents in the inventions of the “others.” Guess who invented the wheel. Writing. Arithmetic. Scientific enquiry. The Humanities. It wasn’t the white folk. You need to get over yourself.***
Luc Hansen,
As you are a fan of Guns Germs & Steel, I’d recommend that you try reading some books that also address recent human evolution. Like ‘Before the Dawn’ by NY Times Nicholas Wade, or ‘The 10,000 Year Explosion: How Civilization Accelerated Human Evolution’. There is an interesting paper here about how selection for some traits enabled some societies to develop into modern economies.
http://infoproc.blogspot.com/2010/07/social-darwinism-21st-century-edition.html
Vote:August 9th, 2010 at 6:24 pm
Thanks kowtow. I’ve been studying the NZ Wars for the past 25 years, and teaching courses on the Wars at Waikato and Massey Universities for the past 20. It always amuses me how many students start the each new course as Belich accolytes, and then turn completely against him after the shortcomings of his thesis are revealed.
Belich’s arguments are actually quite easy to refute, if you know anything about the NZ Wars and military thinking (tactics, strategy, etc). My PhD thesis destroyed two of his main arguments: that the British never understood the pa strategy, and therefore couldn’t counter it; and that the British only won because there were more of them. One day I might get it published…..
Vote: