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Historical: Parihaka
The worst action ever taken against Maori is undoubtedly the action taken against the settlement of Parihaka in Taranaki. More so because there was no violent resistance, everything done by Maori there was in a pacifist manner and the prophets had a lot to do with that. Even so, the way they were treated was appalling.
Parihaka is a small community in the reputed to be the largest Māori village in New Zealand in the 1870’s. The village was founded about 1866 on land already seized by during the post-war confiscations. The village attracted other Maori who had been forced of their lands due to confiscation. European visitors to this village noted it as clean and industrious with extensive cultivations producing cash crops as well as food sufficient to feed all its inhabitants. There was a distinct lack of disease due to excellent management of the village by Maori. Then came a demand for more farmland by European settlers the government moved to provide title to land taken but not settled. From 1876 some Māori in Taranaki accepted "no fault" payments called takoha compensation, while some hapu, or sub-tribal groups, outside the confiscation zone took the government's payments to allow surveying and settlement. Māori near Parihaka and the Waimate Plains rejected the payments, however, and the government responded by drawing up plans to take the land by force.
In 1878 the government began surveying the land and offering it for sale. Maori responded by ploughing the land and erecting fences because the government had not provided the reserves they had promised. armed constabulary began arresting the ploughmen. Large squads pounced on the ploughing parties, who offered no resistance. Dozens a day were arrested, but their places were immediately taken by others who had travelled from as far away as Waikanae. These ‘protests’ resulted in up to 400 Maori being jailed in Dunedin in the South Island, far from home, where many died. In effect these innocents were jailed and died for nothing more than ploughing the ground.
When journalists visited Parihaka in October 1881, a month before the brutal government raid that destroyed it, they found "square miles of potato, melon and cabbage fields around Parihaka; they stretched on every side, and acres and acres of the land show the results of great industry and care". The village was described as "an enormous native town of quiet and imposing character" with "regular streets of houses". In spite of the fact that Europeans were openly welcomed into Parihaka, many settlers believed the actions were a prelude to armed conflict so the government planned a military assault at Parihaka to close it down.
THE INVASION OF THE PACIFIST SETTLEMENT OF PARIHAKA
5th November 1881
Led by Native Minister John Bryce, on horseback, 1600 troops and cavalry entered the village at dawn on 5 November 1881. The soldiers were greeted with hundreds of skipping and singing children offering them food. Te Whiti and Tohu were arrested and jailed for 16 months, 1600 Parihaka inhabitants were expelled and dispersed throughout Taranaki without food or shelter and the remaining 600 residents were issued with government passes to control their movement. Soldiers looted and destroyed most of the buildings at Parihaka. Land that had been promised as reserves by a commission of inquiry into land confiscations was later seized and sold to cover the cost of crushing Te Whiti's resistance, while others were leased to European settlers, shutting Māori out of involvement in the decisions over land use. Despite the absence of its leaders, Parihaka was rebuilt. Ploughing campaigns − and arrests without trial of protestors − continued into the 1890s. Bryce remained Native Minister until 1884. He later defended his actions at Parihaka, attributing the blame to Maori cultural or moral defects. Bryce had a the nickname Bryce kohuru (Bryce the murderer).
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One historian has noted that Bryce's views were 'hopelessly at variance with Maori aspirations'. But although he was keen to speed the purchase of Maori land and the spread of European settlement, and severely reduced spending on Native Affairs, he also tried to cut back on wastefulness and fraud in the acquisition of land. His Native Land Sales Bill of 1880 embodied the idea that the Crown, acting as a trustee, should auction land publicly on behalf of its Maori owners. Many of Bryce's parliamentary colleagues did not support this, fearing that it would slow land sales. His Native Land Laws Act 1883 was designed to remove another source of fraud and sharp practice - it banned people from making any land dealings before the Native Land Court had determined title.
For the governor, though, the contested land sale at Waitara was only partially about property; it was also about power. If he had not gone ahead with the purchase, he said, he would have been acknowledging the “virtual sovereignty” of Wiremu Kingi, the rangatira who had vetoed the sale. That he would never do. It was his duty to “repel this assumption of authority”. Māori autonomy had to be destroyed, and Māori pretensions to sovereignty crushed. This was colonialism stripped to its bigoted essence: my culture is better than yours, therefore my will must prevail. Let’s call it for what it was: white supremacy.
Te Whiti and Tohu founded Parihaka, on the pillars of nonviolence, empowerment of people who are disempowered by society, working together as a community, self-sufficiency, and equality. It wasn’t a spiritual cult, as the settler government tried to make out at the time. yet people came there from around the country with a lot of different backgrounds and beliefs, and Tohu and Te Whiti never expected them to conform to their own views. The only thing they insisted on is that you have to renounce all violence and status divisions—you can’t have rangatira over here and lowly slaves over there. - and by that he was referring to Maori's cultural practice of keeping slaves. To the founders, race was irrelevant. They might be appalled at the racial overtones on both sides of the Waitangi Tribunal today.
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On 9th June 2017, at people openly wept as an apology was read out by Treaty Negotiations Minister Chris Finlayson. He apologised for the wrongful arrests and imprisonment of Parihaka men and their leaders Te Whiti-o-Rongomai and Tohu Kākahi. Mr Finlayson also apologised for the rape and molestation of the women and girls who were left behind when the men were imprisoned in the South Island. He said it was a shameful part of New Zealand's history, which both Māori and Pākehā found hard talking about, for different reasons. The package includes the apology, a legacy statement and a payment of $9 million, as well as deals for development services from 10 Crown agencies and three local councils. The Parihaka Papakāinga Trust has bold plans to create a multi-purpose cultural centre at the settlement, designed to secure the legacy of Te Whiti-o-Rongomai and Tohu Kākahi.
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This event was unlike any other. The Maori Wars were an armed conflict between British and Maori. Putting aside the legitimacy of Maori's complaints (others deal with those), there was armed war by two armed sides. However, the 'Musket' Wars were Maori killing Maori with a superior means of weapon and numbers. On a death analysis only that war was more devastating to Maori than the Land Wars. To be fair Europeans can never understand why land is more important to Maori than loss of life, but land is a unifying point to any generation, long after others have long since died. The Musket wars were not over land though, they were simply murderous campaigns of death by a superior and well armed Maori tribe against other inferior and unarmed Maori tribes. And that is the unfortunate fact of the matter. And it need talking about a lot more and not pushed under the whāriki.
But this event at Parihaka, by the government of the day, almost mirrors Nga Puhi's actions. The events at Parihaka were with a well armed superior British force against a pacifist group of loving and welcoming Maori people. Parihaka was a blight on this nation. We say 'was' because the apologies have been made and rebuilding of trust is returning. It is history, and it also needs to be talked about just as much as the Maori Wars and the Musket Wars. It occurred because a powerful group were bullying, raping and and killing a weaker defenseless group.
Alongside the Musket Wars, Parihaka should be remembered as one of the saddest conflicts that has ever occurred in Aotearoa's history and defiately the worst by a British led government.
