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Wednesday, 20 April 2011
Monday, 11 April 2011
Happy Birthday Welly High
The 13th of April 2011 is the 125th anniversary of the school.125 years since a young (25) Artur Dewhurst Riley opened a new school offering subjects not available in the traditional schools... some things just never change.
Latin and Greek designed to send young men to University were replaced with a new curriculum offering classes in Art and training in more useful subjects allowed students to consider other careers.
Even more importantly classes were offered to young women and co-educational classes were introduced.
Incident, Affray or Massacre?
New 2011. I don;t know why I haven't written this entry before.
After the Treaty signing Hobson quickly made two announcements. The first was used to forestall the claims of the New Zealand Company. Recently arrived in Wellington and busy negotiating their purchase there, the Company represented a threat to the Crown. If their purchases went through then this would present a threat to the Crowns ability to dominate the trade in land.
Using the treaty as a validation of British authority he claimed the North Island by right of cessation. Basically he was claiming Rangatiratanga over the whole island based on the 35 Nga Puhi signatories.
Secondly he chose to beat any potential French claims to with the new settlement at Akaroa. He claimed the South Island by right of 'discovery'... conveniently ignoring the fact that Tasman had beaten Cook by over a century.
From about this point Hobson and the Settlers simply assumed that New Zealand was now a British possession. By the start of 1841, 500 chiefs had signed and seemed to confirm this view. Unfortunately someone forgot to tell everyone about the new state of affiars.
Meanwhile almost every few weeks a new ship arrived from Britain with even more new settlers.
By 1843 settlements like Nelson and New Plymouth were bursting. The available land was allocated and there was a serious shortage of the promised farms. To make things worse the Government was proving a tough negotiator. After the treaty all previous land claims had to be confirmed. Its representative Spain was quite generous allowing the New Plymouth settlement to claim several tens of thousands of acres, which the Governor promptly cut down to 4500 acres.
The New Zealand Company claims in the south island were even more tenuous. This left the Nelson settlers nervous. They still retained a claim to the fertile Wairau valley. When they pushed through with this claim the local Maori appealed to their protector, Te Rauparaha. He in turn called upon the Governor to setle the dispute and a promise was made to send Commissioner Spain. In an effort to force their claim the Settlers sent surveyors to the Wairau to start the process. Te Rauparaha, now resident in the area authorised the pulling of their pegs and when this did not deter them the burning of their whare.
Enraged the settlers demanded the arrest of the culprit, and Magistrate Thompson issued an arrest warrant for arson. The ill prepared and armed posse arrived and in an incident described at different times as a massacre, and affray and later an incident 22 Europeans died. 17 were executed by Te Rauparaha's ally Rangihaeata. ( in utu for the death of his wife Rongo).
Settlers were angry and demanded retaliation. Fitzroy's inquiry chose to blame the settlers including the dead Arthur Wakefield and Magistrate Thompson for the incident. The Settler claim to the Wairau was considered to be false thus the charge of arson was wrong. Maori had simply been defending their lands and themselves.
That was the legal reality. What is important is that even if Fitroy had wanted to he did not have the means to attack the Ngati Toa and their allies. There were thousands of heavily armed warriors in the country and he lacked the military ability to deal with them. For the moment New Zealand was still a Maori country with numerous European enclaves.
After the Treaty signing Hobson quickly made two announcements. The first was used to forestall the claims of the New Zealand Company. Recently arrived in Wellington and busy negotiating their purchase there, the Company represented a threat to the Crown. If their purchases went through then this would present a threat to the Crowns ability to dominate the trade in land.
Using the treaty as a validation of British authority he claimed the North Island by right of cessation. Basically he was claiming Rangatiratanga over the whole island based on the 35 Nga Puhi signatories.
Secondly he chose to beat any potential French claims to with the new settlement at Akaroa. He claimed the South Island by right of 'discovery'... conveniently ignoring the fact that Tasman had beaten Cook by over a century.
From about this point Hobson and the Settlers simply assumed that New Zealand was now a British possession. By the start of 1841, 500 chiefs had signed and seemed to confirm this view. Unfortunately someone forgot to tell everyone about the new state of affiars.
Meanwhile almost every few weeks a new ship arrived from Britain with even more new settlers.
By 1843 settlements like Nelson and New Plymouth were bursting. The available land was allocated and there was a serious shortage of the promised farms. To make things worse the Government was proving a tough negotiator. After the treaty all previous land claims had to be confirmed. Its representative Spain was quite generous allowing the New Plymouth settlement to claim several tens of thousands of acres, which the Governor promptly cut down to 4500 acres.The New Zealand Company claims in the south island were even more tenuous. This left the Nelson settlers nervous. They still retained a claim to the fertile Wairau valley. When they pushed through with this claim the local Maori appealed to their protector, Te Rauparaha. He in turn called upon the Governor to setle the dispute and a promise was made to send Commissioner Spain. In an effort to force their claim the Settlers sent surveyors to the Wairau to start the process. Te Rauparaha, now resident in the area authorised the pulling of their pegs and when this did not deter them the burning of their whare.
Enraged the settlers demanded the arrest of the culprit, and Magistrate Thompson issued an arrest warrant for arson. The ill prepared and armed posse arrived and in an incident described at different times as a massacre, and affray and later an incident 22 Europeans died. 17 were executed by Te Rauparaha's ally Rangihaeata. ( in utu for the death of his wife Rongo).
Settlers were angry and demanded retaliation. Fitzroy's inquiry chose to blame the settlers including the dead Arthur Wakefield and Magistrate Thompson for the incident. The Settler claim to the Wairau was considered to be false thus the charge of arson was wrong. Maori had simply been defending their lands and themselves. That was the legal reality. What is important is that even if Fitroy had wanted to he did not have the means to attack the Ngati Toa and their allies. There were thousands of heavily armed warriors in the country and he lacked the military ability to deal with them. For the moment New Zealand was still a Maori country with numerous European enclaves.
Tuesday, 5 April 2011
Ringing the Changes
One of the chiefs at Waitangi shook hands with Hobson and commented that he was sick and would die soon. Hobson did in deed suffer a stroke and was effectively laid up for several months until he died.He did manage to make some crucial decisions. He annexed the South Island by ‘right of discovery’ which conveniently allowed Britain to claim the South Island before the expected French settlers could and before his emissaries could drag copies down there.
We’ve discussed the fact that it may also have been easy to do because there were so few Ngai Tahu around to negotiate with. Despite this annexation the treaty was still taken south and was signed at three sites in the South Island.
The other decision was to move the capital south to Auckland. As I mentioned in class this was prompted by the political necessity of placing the European capital between the two largets concentrations of Maori in the country….Nga Puhi in the north (today still the largest individual Iwi) and the various Waikato Iwi (Waikato, Tainui etc.).This was at the invitation of Ngati Whatua who conveniently acquired Pakeha who would allow them to trade giving them economic security and ensured their safety from the encroachments of other Iwi.
NZ Company settlers in Wellington saw ££££ and wanted the Capital moved there but this would have legitimised the NZ Co. claims to the lands they claimed. Hobson was unwilling to do this.
At first the relationship with Maori was relatively quiet. Various Iwi sought out the Pakeha to sell land, seeking the same advantages that Ngati Whatua had acquired. Crown pre-emption meant land could only be transferred to the Government. Auckland isthmus was sold for about £200 but local Maori were horrified when they saw it auctioned for thousands of pounds. This meant Maori preferred the offers made by settlers not the pittance offered by Government officials.
Maori reluctance to sell to Hobson or his replacement Shortland, left the Government short of cash. Great Britain expected their colonies to be self funding. Shortland and later his replacement Fitzroy found it difficult to finance Government activities, and were forced to issue Government Bonds(Loans) which they were not authorised to do.
In other parts of the Colony the New Zealand Company sites were also struggling as disputes over what their agents had actually purchased limited their expansionist ambitions.
Wellington could not convince Maori to give up the Hutt Valley and quietly fumed at the Maori refusal to give up this 'Waste' land.
Petre (Wanganui) and New Plymouth were also struggling as Maori who had left these areas returned because ironically the presence of Pakeha made the areas safe for them to re-establish Ahi Kaa over these lands.
At Nelson settler became increasingly unhappy about the lack of land. They claimed the nearby Wairau Plains. This was claimed by right of conquest by Ngati Toa.
When Company surveyors had their pegs removed and their Raupo huts destroyed the settler decided to establish the ‘rule of law’ and a Magistrate issued an arrest warrant for Te Rauparaha. I’ve already described the tragically comic events that followed and the utu that saw 17 settlers executed by Te Rangihaeata.
On the 18th June, 1843, Capt. Richards, of the Government brig, “Victoria,” wrote as follows to Mr. A. E. McDonogh:—
“I have the honour to report that at the repeated request of the Chief Magistrate of Nelson, I consented, on his representation of the urgency of the case, to depart so far from the strict letter of my instructions as to convey that officer and a Justice of the Peace, together with 35 men, to the Wairau, to apprehend on a warrant, two native chiefs. That expedition having terminated disastrously with loss of life and total dispersion of the party. I deemed it proper to proceed here for the purpose of procuring medical assistance for any who might be wounded....
...“The bodies of Captain Wakefield, Mr. Thompson, Captain England, Mr. Richardson, Mr. Howard, Bumforth, Cropper, Gardiner and Coster, were found near the spot where the last of those who escaped left them alive, lying within 20 yards of each other, in their clothes as they fell. Captain Wakefield's coat and waist-coat alone had been stripped off, and under his head was found a piece of bread, and a pistol across his throat.”
Settlers called Fitzroys decision pusillanimous, we would probably see it as realistic or pragmatic. A more traditional approach to the death of so many white settlers (think Boyd or Du Fresne) would normally have seen the might of Britain descend upon the Ngati Toa Iwi. Warriors would have died, Pa and Kainga and fields destroyed, and the natural order restored (ie the Chain of Being).
Fitzroy didn’t because the original warrant was illegal, you can’t be arrested for destroying something that belongs to you. beside Ngati Toa cold call upon hundreds of heavily armed warriors and their allies.....
Fitzroy didn’t because the original warrant was illegal, you can’t be arrested for destroying something that belongs to you. beside Ngati Toa cold call upon hundreds of heavily armed warriors and their allies.....
It was a tacit acknowledegement that outside the areas of settlement, New Zealand remained Maori.
Sunday, 3 April 2011
The Treaty Discussions
Again using some clips from the show "Waitangi - What really happened."
It is worth watching and taking note of the reasons they use to either support or condemn the Treaty....
While this may not be entirely accurate it does seem to show the Chiefs attitudes towards the Treaty and the British. The older Chiefs like Kawiti who was in his 70's are opposed, seeing little to be gained and much to be lost in this negotiation. Others like Nene and Patuone are prepared to entrust the Missionaries and their view...(children..) while Heke is portrayed as scheming to ensure his own position in the future particularly in relation to controlling Maori access to Europeans and their trade.
It is worth watching and taking note of the reasons they use to either support or condemn the Treaty....
First the Chiefs before the 5th of Feb
First Rewa
Then Waka Nene
Then Patuone.
Then Kawiti.
Finally Heke
Finally the Chiefs discussion from the night of the 5th.
While this may not be entirely accurate it does seem to show the Chiefs attitudes towards the Treaty and the British. The older Chiefs like Kawiti who was in his 70's are opposed, seeing little to be gained and much to be lost in this negotiation. Others like Nene and Patuone are prepared to entrust the Missionaries and their view...(children..) while Heke is portrayed as scheming to ensure his own position in the future particularly in relation to controlling Maori access to Europeans and their trade.
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