The So Called Invasion of Rangiaowhia The following is how the mainstream media portrays events at Rangiaowhia. -----------------------------Rangiaowhia (or Rangiawhia, or Rangiaohia) was, for over 20 years, a thriving village on a ridge between two streams in the Waikato region, about 4 km (2.5 mi) east of Te Awamutu. From 1841 it was the site of a very productive Māori mission station until the Invasion of the Waikato in 1864. The station served Ngāti Hinetu and Ngāti Apakura. Only a church remains from those days, the second oldest Waikato building. At dawn on 21 February 1864, Rangiaowhia was the site of one of the most horrific war crimes ever per-
petrated by the Crown against Māori in New Zealand’s history. -----------------------------The truth is much different.
Maori TV ran a story on this events which you can view HERE. ---------------------Someone called Menana Johnsen from Newshub did a report on a group of Maori muscians who had produced an album to commemorate invasion of Rangiaowhia. It is soon to be released. Here article was dated 22/11/23 -----------------------One of the most horrific events of the New Zealand Wars, the invasion of Rangiaowhia is still not widely known. A group of accomplished Māori musicians are creating music to change that. Ria Hall, Mara TK, Rākai Whauwhau, and Hawkins have brought their skills as songwriters and composers together for an album project, Rangiaowhia. The project is led by Oceans Before Me Charitable Trust which creates music about traumatic events impacting indigenous people, with the aim of promoting healing through waiata. Rangiaowhia is an 10-track album featuring waiata written about the invasion of Rangiaowhia on 21 February 1864, and the subsequent rebuilding of the identity of the people there, Ngāti Apakura. More than 100 people at the pā - half of the women, children and kaumātua who were living there - were murdered, raped or injured. In preparation for the album, a number of wānanga were held with Rangatira from Ngāti Apakura, Tom Roa, Hazel Wander, Moepātu Borell and Bill Harris, so the artists could learn more about the atrocities from those who’ve lived it. The first single, ‘Ngāti Apakura’, is an uplifting waiata calling for the iwi to stand tall and proud, while the recently released second single, Rangiaowhia is a call for people to return home. “Part of the challenge as a songwriter is trying to find something useful, like a useful message - what’s useful for the iwi from you as a songwriter,” Mara TK said. “Some of [the songs] we want to look back, and others we kind of want to look forward.” The full album is set for release next February at the 160th Commemoration of Rangiaowhia. * * * * * Historian Bruce Moon, one of New Zealand’s most accomplished and most respected, has written a response to
the MSM’s portrayal of these event, and here it is. That’s Bruce on the right. --------------------------One of the filthiest packs of lies about an event in New Zealand’s history is that related by Menana Johnsen in “newshub” for 22 November 2023. It is stated to be about “One of the most horrific events of the New Zealand Wars, the invasion of Rangiaowhia [which] is still not widely known.” Well, I for one can say that I have done my best to get “widely known” the true story of this event for which the term “invasion” is itself a gross falsehood. I wrote a fully referenced article in “New Zealand Voice” for March 2017. I have discussed Rangiaowhia at some length in my own book, drawing on eye-witness accounts and in correspondence with Giselle Byrnes, Provost of Massey University. She blocked my messages when I endeavoured to discuss with her the false material in a master’s theses written by Hazel Wander. I did not do much better with Professor Tom Roa, another of those at a “wananga” “so the artists could learn more about the atrocities.” So much for academic tactics in New Zealand! Stephen Lowe, Roman Catholic Bishop of Auckland and formerly of Hamilton repeated the lies from his cathedral pulpit. I wrote to him. He ignored me. So did his fellow bishops to whom I copied the correspondence. Again, when Leah Bell who had heard these lies as an Ototohanga schoolgirl, repeated them in addressing students from seven schools in Hamilton - many of them bussed in to an event organized by the highly lauded Richard Crawford, Principal of Fairfield College – I wrote to the principals of all the schools concerned to inform them of the false statements Ms Bell had promulgated. Not a single one of them answered me. A conspiracy of silence – “omertà” to the Sicilian Mafia – can be very effective! And so I learn that there exists an outfit which calls itself : “Oceans Before Me Charitable Trust which creates music about traumatic events impacting indigenous people”. Well, I can tell it for another thing that there is nothing “indigenous” about Maoris who were immigrants here like others from over the seas. If this “Charitable Trust” wants to do something useful, it could acknowledge the massive scale of the brutal warfare, with associated cannibalism, slavery and infanticide inflicted by Maoris on the remnants of the truly indigenous people and on themselves only a very few years before the providential cession of sovereignty to the British.
The tale Ms Johnsen relates is about as gross a false statement about an event in our history as anybody might imagine. Get this straight: “There were no “New Zealand Wars” no matter how often certain hostilities have been so described. There were indeed a variety of tribal rebellions, notably in Taranaki and the Waikato in which the great majority of Maori citizens stayed loyal to the Crown. Indeed on some occasions Ngapuhi offered warriors in support of Crown forces. Events at Rangiaowhia are described in some detail by former Padre Frank Glen in his book “Australians at War in New Zealand” . As Glen describes it, the Maori fort of “Paterangi constituted a formidable defence which “Rangiaohai [sic] ... One morning recently this ninety-three-year-old New Zealander, or South Islander to be more precise, woke up feeling angry. It was not his bad heart or bowel cancer which made him feel so. It was the persistent lies about our country and its colonial past and continual racism expressed in too many places within it; the failure to accept that it was colonization which saved Maoris from themselves, which raised them from a state of utmost barbarism; and the continual unearned privileges enjoyed today by many of them at the expense of our other citizens. In particular, he was incensed by an article in “Newshub” for 22 November by one Menana Johnsen entitled “Album to commemorate invasion of Rangiaowhia to be released.” The very title made his lip curl. Rangiaowhia in 1864 was British sovereign territory in the hands of rebels. It is an abuse of words to call legitimate military action to recover it an “invasion”. In Johnsen’s words: “More than 100 people at the pā - half of the women, children and kaumātua who were living there - were murdered, raped or injured.” That, let all beware, perpetuates about the foulest lie about any event in our history. It has been repeated time and time again in one form or another by many people amongst whom I have nominated some elsewhere They include, with sources as referenced: “Tommy Wilson, Eraka in a ‘blog’, JOC Phillips, Susan Devoy, Vincent O’Malley as well as members of Ngati Apakura and deceived children of Otorohanga College. One of these was Leah Bell whom Vincent O’Mallet snapped up to advance is cause. She in turn was invited by Richard Crawford to address youngsters from seven schools in the Hamilton area to retell the same filthy lies. I contacted the principals of all the schools concerned. I did not receive one reply. The sequence was much the same when I contacted Bishop Stephen Lowe now Catholic Bishop of Auckland when he was Bishop of Hamilton, who had repeated the same filthy lies from his pulpit, copying all his fellow bishops. Again, all I received in response was a deadly silence. This is warfare upon the people of New Zealand, fought not with the gun but with words or, on its turn, silence -”omertà” to the Sicilian Mafia.
Again, I contacted Giselle Byrnes, Provost at Massey University and, according to her blurb, “an internationally recognised historian” to point out serious flaws in a Master’s thesis written by Hazel Wander. She replied to the effect that whether there was a church-burning at Rangiaowhia was not as important as whether Ngati Apakura believed it to be so. She then blocked any further communication from me to her. And then again, Professor Tom Roa who had written “in 1864 Crown troops set fire to a whate karakia ... during morning prayers, incinerating non-combatants, including tamariki and kaumatua, an eightyear-old boy ran out of the whare ... and he was shot dead.” This is yet another foul lie. Roa’s “whare karakia” or house of prayer was actually a whare built of slabs of timber and fashioned as a gunpit. When Captain Wilson called for the occupants to surrender, one “big Maori”, his wife and son came out and were not harmed albeit the man was taken prisoner. The boy, Potatau, later told the true story which I have related elsewhere. Then Sergeant McHale, obeying his officer’s order, entered the whare and called for the surrender of its occupants. He was shot dead at point blank range. In the sharp engagement which followed, Colonel Nixon fell mortally wounded, several of the troops were killed and the whare set on fire so that its remaining occupants were smoked out of the building. Now the said Tom Roa and Hazel Wander are amongst “advisers” to a group which, according to Johnsen “is led by Oceans Before Me Charitable Trust” which creates music about traumatic events impacting indigenous people, with the aim of promoting healing through waiata. Well as we have noted, hopefully often enough, they are in a fake position to start with because Maoris are not indigenous to New Zealand, they are immigrants just like all the many other races and their descendants. It is high time for all the bullshit about Maoris being indigenous to be stopped in its tracks once and for all! (Yes, my patience is wearing thin and no doubt my enemies will call me intemperate – or worse. I accept that!) But letting that pass for the moment ... What chance have the singers of learning the truth when their “advisors” include
Roa and Wander? The truth is, as related by the late military chaplain, Frank Glen , that General Cameron, “with commendable humanitarianism” wanted to avoid to avoid a frontal attack on the rebels’ strong fort at Paterangi which would have led to heavy losses on both sides. He planned therefore to cut off the rebels’ food supplies from Rangiaowhia which was thus an active centre of the rebellion, not simply a haven for the old and weak as revisionist sources pretend today. Moreover, to achieve the minimal loss of life he planned a surprise attack early on a Sunday morning. In this he had remarkable initial success, no woman or child being harmed and no more that two armed inhabitants being killed. Had not the armed occupants of the gunpit whare not shot Sergeant McHale, his success would have been almost total. Compare the truth with the filthy lie reported by Ms Johnsen that: “More than 100 people at the pā - half of the women, children and kaumātua who were living there - were murdered, raped or injured. Indeed it takes very little imagination to work out just what sort of songs a “group of accomplished Māori musicians, Ria Hall, Mara TK, Rākai Whauwhau, and Hawkins” will produce if they proceed on the basis Ms Johnsen describes, a filthy tale created soon after the actual events by the rebels furious at being so successfully outwitted by the humane General Cameron. ----------------HERE is the full account of what really happened at Rangiaowhia, written by Bruce Moon.