PARIHAKA – THE FACTS
For a minority to swindle a majority to the extent that the Treatyists have cheated the rest of us a huge dose of lies, misinformation and indoctrination is necessary to achieve such a fantastic outcome. And, as Hitler and Goebbels so amply proved in the 1930s, the greater the lie, the more likely it is to be believed.
Probably the biggest whopper that the Treatyists have used to justify their false position is the Waitangi Tribunal’s 1996 interim Taranaki report, which stated, “The invasion and sacking of Parihaka must rank with the most heinous actions of any government in the last century” (the 1800s) [including Tsarist Russia’s pogroms and Prussia’s brutal and unprovoked wars against Denmark, Austria and France, not forgetting the slavery that lasted for so long in the United States and Brazil]. The Tribunal called it “the holocaust of Taranaki history.”
This ignorant and gross distortion of the truth has been repeated by several Treatyists, including Tariana Turia M.P., and a language teacher in New Plymouth, who was described as a “Maori academic” (as they all are), Keri Opai, who backed his ridiculous claim of “holocaust” by citing “the pillaging of Parihaka”.
The name of this place is starting to enter the lexicon of the grievance industry in a big way with the Human Rights Commission making the silly statement, “The events that took place in and around Parihaka…..have affected the political, cultural and spiritual dynamics of the entire country.” There have even been calls to have a special national day celebrated as “Parihaka Day” as well as a recent propaganda film called “Tatarakihi”. So, it is time to look at the facts.
Fact No. 1 By the time of the Treaty of Waitangi there were only about a hundred and fifty Maoris left in the whole of the Taranaki. Roughly a third of the population had been massacred by invading tribes from the Waikato, around another third had been taken back to the Waikato as slaves, while the remaining third had fled to the Wellington area.
Nine hundred members of this last third then invaded the Chatham Islands in 1835 where they killed, ate and all but exterminated the peaceful Moriori who lived there. A hundred or more Moriori women were laid out on the beach and stakes were driven through their bodies, the men being treated similarly. They were then eaten by Taranaki
Maori.1 The Moriori population of about 1,600 was reduced to 101 survivors.
These were the Taranaki “holocausts” – Waikato Maori slaughtering Taranaki Maori, and Taranaki tribes butchering the peaceful Moriori.
Fact No. 2 In 1840 the authorities began purchasing land in Taranaki from very willing sellers.
Fact No. 3 With the arrival of settlers at New Plymouth in 1841, coupled with the general peace and ending of slavery that flowed from the Treaty of Waitangi, many of those who had fled Taranaki during the intertribal wars took the opportunity of returning so as to reclaim the lands which, under Maori custom, they had forfeited when conquered by the stronger Waikato tribes.
Fact No. 4 These returning tribesmen quarreled among themselves over who owned the land and who had the right to sell it. This created great confusion with the result that, in some cases, the British paid for the same piece of land four times to satisfy conflicting Maori claims and sharp practices.
Fact No. 5 Wiremu Kingi and some of his fellow Taranaki tribesmen violated the Treaty of Waitangi when they made armed rebellion against the Crown. In the ensuing mayhem numerous settler families were murdered and their houses and barns burned to the ground. In one twelve month period (1860-61) 177 settler farms were destroyed. The mass slaughter and burning of the settlers’ livestock was indeed a “holocaust” of farm animals.2
Fact No. 6 When hostilities ended some Maoris had their lands confiscated by the Crown for having rebelled against the State as they had been warned would be the case and in accordance with their own practice in the Chatham Islands and elsewhere. Confiscations did not cause the rebellion; they were punishments for it. According to the great Maori scholar, Sir Apirana Ngata, these confiscations were not a breach of the Treaty of Waitangi and they were understood as being fair enough under the old Maori law of utu (revenge). Under pre-1840 Maori custom there would have been a far worse fate for the losing Maori side than mere confiscation of some land.
Fact No. 7 In 1864 the self-appointed “prophet” Te Whiti – more accurately a “cult leader” - adopted what he said was a policy of “pacifism”, taking as his symbol the white feather. The white feather was, in fact, a symbol of the genuinely pacifist Moriori of the Chatham
Islands before they were all but exterminated by Te Whiti’s fellow Taranaki tribesmen. In 1867 Te Whiti squatted on some Crown land at Parihaka that had been confiscated as punishment for the rebellion. On this land he proceeded to build a settlement which housed his followers as well as being a haven for Maori fugitives from the law – people like Hiroki, who on 19th September, 1878, murdered John McLean, a cook to the survey party at Moumahaki. In defiance of the law Te Whiti refused all requests to hand him over to the authorities.
In September, 1881, Titokawaru, the apostle of ritual cannibalism, and about two hundred of his fellow Hauhaus left their settlement at Ngawhitiwhiti with their chattels and moved in to Parihaka.3 Such was the company that Te Whiti was keeping.
Fact No. 8 During the next fourteen years the authorities repeatedly warned him that he would pay dearly if he did not give up his illegal occupation. The Premier, Sir John Hall, made several efforts to talk with Te Whiti but, like so many “prophets”, he proved not only evasive but downright obstructive, sending out parties of natives to plough up the lands of European settlers at several places between Hawera and White Cliffs.
These Parihaka people also harassed storekeepers. “Yesterday a party of twelve Maoris, when returning from Parihaka, entered Loveridge’s store at Oakura, commenced pulling the things about, and were very bounceable. The Constabulary had to be called in to eject them,” wrote the Auckland Star on 24th June, 1879.
They also stole horses from settlers’ farms,4 pulled down a newly built stockyard at Ngakumikumi5 and extracted a one pound toll from passing travellers. “Such incidences indicate the belligerent nature behind the façade of passive resistance that the settlers had to long endure,” wrote Dr. Kerry Bolton in his recent work The Parihaka Cult. Far from being a genuine pacifist, Te Whiti’s ploy was to provoke conflict with the government.
Fact No. 9 In this “republic of peace” more than a thousand Maoris were huddled together in most unhygienic conditions. “In Parihaka there are nearly two hundred cases (of measles) and there have been about twelve deaths,” wrote the Auckland Star on 22nd September, 1875.
By early 1881 Parihaka was in a bad way with a scarcity of food that compelled the digging up of half-ripened potatoes and people were deserting the place. On 12th September, 1881, the Taranaki Herald
reported that Parihaka was infected by vermin and “was absolutely filthy through lack of sanitary precautions”.
Fact No. 10 After all diplomatic efforts to resolve the stand-off had failed the government decided that, to dissuade others from taking the law into their own hands, the time had come to end the illegal occupation of this attention seeker who was so publicly thumbing his nose at the government. On 5th November, 1881, fourteen years after the occupation began, 959 members of the Volunteers and 630 of the Armed Constabulary rode in to reclaim Parihaka – which they did without firing a single shot. The death toll was zero and the only injury was to a boy’s foot which was accidentally trodden on by a trooper’s horse. Some Treatyists have claimed that the soldiers “violated” the women but there is not a shred of evidence for this allegation.
During the ensuing occupation there might have been some consensual sex between members of the government forces and the Maori women – as had been going on since the earliest contact with Europeans – but dates, places and names have always been absent from these vague “rape” allegations. In the words of Doctor Bolton, “The Constabulary and Volunteers were under close scrutiny, with the presence of several reporters” while James Cowan, the leading authority on the native wars, wrote that the Armed Constabulary was “officered by a splendid set of frontier soldiers”.6
Among the things discovered in this “republic of peace” was a stockpile of around 250 weapons,7 including breechloaders, Enfields, revolvers and a variety of ammunition. It has been said that the only reason they were not used was the overwhelming numbers (about 1,600 men) in the government’s force.
Conclusions:
There was indeed a “holocaust” in Taranaki during the intertribal fighting in the years before 1840 when the local Maoris were either killed or enslaved by Waikato tribes or fled to Wellington.
Taranaki tribesmen then invaded the Chatham Islands and all but wiped out the peaceful Moriori in what could conceivably be called a “holocaust.
There was also a “holocaust” of settlers’ farm animals, instigated by Wiremu Kingi.
There was no holocaust at Parihaka and nobody was injured except the poor boy whose foot was accidentally stepped on by a horse.
TWISTED MORALITY – THE MATAWHERO MASSACRE
So much for Parihaka, which the Treatyists are trying to elevate into the greatest “injustice” in our history. We shall now go east to Matawhero, a small settlement of hard working pioneer families a few miles inland from the present city of Gisborne.
It was shortly before midnight on Monday, 9th November, 1868, when Te Kooti and about a hundred of his fellow Hauhau savages, all mounted, crossed a ford on the Waipaoa River at Patutahi and rode into Matawhero to slaughter seventy of its sleeping inhabitants – 33 Europeans and 37 friendly Maoris.1
Among those murdered by rifle, bayonet, tomahawk and patu (a sharp-edged stone club) were Major Biggs, his wife and child and their servant, Mrs. Farrell; Lieutenant Wilson, his wife and four children and their servant, John Morren, who was cut into three pieces; two sheepfarmers, Messrs. Dodd and Peppard; James Walsh, his wife and their three week old baby; Mr. Cadell, the Matawhero storekeeper; Mr. and Mrs. McCulloch and their baby who died at its mother’s bloody breast as well as Mary McDonald, the seven year old niece of Mrs. McCulloch; Mr. and Mrs. Newnham and their infant child; Mr. J. Mann, his wife and their one year old child; Maria Goldsmith (a half-caste) and her brother; and Messrs. Padbury, Rathbone and William Brown
Among the friendly natives who were killed on that terrible night were Paora Matuakore and “a staunch and loyal friend of the settlers”, Piripi, as well as his wife and three sons.
In the words of James Cowan, “The place (Matawhero) was ablaze with burning homes, and the blood-maddened Hauhaus were galloping over the country, shooting indiscriminately, looting and destroying……The various raiding parties united at Patutahi, after sweeping out all life from Matawhero, Makaraka, Repongaere, Makauri and other settlements”.2
In the words of Lieutenant Gascoyne, who saw the horrors a few hours after they occurred and while the fires were still burning and the stench of dead flesh filled the air, “Men and women were eagerly enquiring of every newcomer for information of their missing friends, mothers were weeping alone for their children, wives for their husbands, and husbands for their wives.” 3
Pretty gruesome, this worst ever massacre in our post-1840 history. But the Treatyists do their best to ensure that it is kept hidden, yapping
on instead about the so-called “outrage” at Parihaka where, as we have seen, the sole injury was to one boy’s foot and that accidentally.
And what about Mr. Finlayson, that self-appointed crusader whose mission in life seems to be to raid the public purse for the purpose of righting every conceivable wrong in our history? In Finlayson’s eyes this brutal massacre of seventy settlers and friendly Maoris does not seem to have touched any instincts of humanity as, by the Rongowhakaata Claims Settlement Act that he steered through a compliant Parliamernt, he rewarded the descendants/tribe of Te Kooti, the architect of this atrocity, with a Crown “apology” for the “stigmatization of Te Kooti” as well as vesting the Matawhero Reserve in the tribe’s name and giving them $250,000 of taxpayers’ money. We are not making this up!
However, when it is coupled with Finlayson chucking in an extra $10 million of public funds to Ngati Toa for the “loss” of Te Rauparaha’s right to lead his war canoes across Cook Strait to murder and eat the inhabitants of Marlborough, it starts to fit a rather warped pattern.
Finlayson’s “morals” – or lack of them – are his own affair but to use taxpayers’ money a century and a half later to enrich the descendants of these cannibals and murderers is more than most principled New Zealanders can stomach and it is not surprising that questions are being asked whether Finlayson understands right from wrong.
The Crown apology for the “stigmatisation” of Te Kooti is laughable, if not perverted. Peter Sharples, co-leader of the Maori Party, said in Parliament, “This redress is a significant step towards rehabilitating the reputation of Te Kooti”. How can the reputation of such a callous brute be rehabilitated? He has no reputation to rehabilitate. Te Kooti was an evil, bloodthirsty savage who slaughtered and chopped up numerous innocent people, including babies. He is the second worst murderer in our history – after Te Rauparaha.
And Matawhero wasn’t his only massacre in the district. Five months later, on 10th April, 1869, he attacked another Poverty Bay settlement, Mohaka, killing seven Europeans – Mr. and Mrs. Lavin and their three young sons aged from three to eleven, as well as a sheepfarmer, John Cooper, and an elderly man, Richard Wilkinson, who was lame. According to Ben Biddle, a veteran scout in the Armed Constabulary who found the bodies, the two oldest of the Lavin boys
had only bayonet marks on them – from being thrown up in the air to land on the sharp points of the bayonets – a trick of the equally cruel and sadistic Japanese soldiers in the Second World War. “Mr. Lavin’s children were playing by a pond in Mr. Cooper’s garden at the time of the massacre, and the youngest was found with a toy boat in his hand. The two eldest had received several bayonet wounds,” wrote the Nelson Colonist in its issue of 11th May, 1869.4
About forty Maoris were also massacred in the same raid.5 “Those in the small out-settlements who were surprised by the invading force were mercilessly killed. Many were shut up in a wool-shed and, as they were brought out one by one, they were tomahawked and bayoneted,” wrote James Cowan.6
For Finlayson – and the craven, unprincipled National Party that he manipulates – to use our money and a Crown “apology” to reward Te Kooti’s descendants/tribe for the old savage having “a bad name” is an affront to both decency and historical reality. It suggests that this particular minister is either historically ignorant of such things as the Matawhero massacre – possible in view of the Treatyists’ efforts to keep it quiet – or else he is seriously lacking in morality. He seems to regard the bloody slaughter of Te Kooti and the cannibalism of Te Rauparaha as mere details of history that can be ignored if they get in the way of the supreme need of appeasing the corporate iwi interests that are driving the extreme and unjustified treaty settlements.
Of course, Finlayson’s defenders – and he does have one or two of them, notably the New Zealand Herald – would argue that it is Parliament that passed this reward to the Te Kooti mob for the “stigmatisation” of his name and that Finlayson is only one vote in that “Chamber of Chamberlains”. This, however, ignores the reality that in Treaty matters Mr. Finlayson seems to reign supreme. John Key is putty in the hands of Finlayson and the National Party caucus is putty in the hands of John Key. And so, what Mr. Finlayson decides to give to Maori out of the public purse is exactly what they get. And the most repulsive thing of all is that Finlayson, as mentioned elsewhere, has been heavily defeated on all three occasions on which he has stood for Parliament in an electorate. The voters of Wellington have consistently rejected him and yet he seems to have the powers of a virtual dictatorpowers that, as we shall see in the later chapters, he is using (or “abusing”) to steal vast resources from the public so as to enrich his iwi friends and to undermine the sovereignty of the nation.
And as for Sharples – by him taking up the cudgels for Te Kooti he has stuck the knife into the respected memory of those thirty-seven Maoris whom Te Kooti butchered on that terrible night as well as all those who were so brutally executed at Mohaka. But, of course, the Maori Party is not about standing up for the ordinary Maori – people like the murdered Paora Matuakore and Piripi – but about enriching the tribal elite which seems to be the Maori Party’s sole reason for existence.