NEW ZEALAND HISTORY has been in the news of late. It will soon become a compulsory component of our children’s education. The British High Commissioner has expressed her regret for the bloodshed occasioned by the arrival of Captain James Cook almost exactly 250 years ago. Whether we like it or not, and many don’t, our history has become deeply politicised. It will be left to the historians of the future to determine whether that was a good thing or a bad thing.
For the present, however, let us examine two historical events and the political uses to which they have been – or might be – put. The first of these events: the arrival of Captain Cook near what is now the city of Gisborne; is currently occupying the minds of many New Zealanders. The second, took place at Akaroa, on Banks Peninsular, 61 years later.
The first Europeans to set foot on these islands, on 8 October 1769, had only the vaguest notion of what to expect. Cook and his crew had encountered Polynesian societies already and, perhaps, anticipated meeting something very similar here: large populations of proud and warlike people.
Cook’s officers and the scientists accompanying them aboard the Endeavour were well briefed on the expectations of those sponsoring the voyage. Native peoples were, as far as practicable, to be treated with respect. Their expedition was one of exploration and discovery – not conquest.
The rest of Cook’s crew, by contrast, had only rumour and wild surmise to guide them. Tales of savagery and cannibalism were rife among the seafarers who ventured even a small distance into the vast Pacific Ocean. The officers and gentleman who sipped brandy with the Captain in his cabin might be well disposed to these native peoples, but the ordinary seamen who lived below decks were much more disposed to put their faith in a musket than in the fine words and phrases of their betters.
It is, therefore, extremely difficult to see how that first encounter could have ended any differently. A handful of ordinary seaman are left to guard the longboats while the captain and his interpreter make for the source of the smoke drifting inland on the sea breeze. Suddenly, out of the trees, a small party of armed warriors appear. They approach the intruders in much the same way as Maori ceremony still requires: warily, taiaha upraised, grimacing horribly. It is easy to imagine the fear now gripping the sailors as these terrifying figures approach. Automatically, they raise their muskets to their shoulders. The leading warrior, observing this gesture, but utterly unaware that what the men in front of him are presenting are anything other than curiously wrought clubs, dances forward to challenge them, his polished taiaha flashing in the sunlight. Entirely understandably, the terrified sailors discharge their weapons. The first communication between Maori and Pakeha is written in blood.
The descendants of the 5-9 Maori killed in violent encounters with Cook and his crew in October 1769 have branded the loss of life an “atrocity”. That these deaths were not intended and bitterly regretted by Cook and his chief scientist, Joseph Banks, has not persuaded their critics to employ more moderate language. Terms like “murderer” and “white supremacist” are bandied about (and dutifully repeated in the news media). All that Cook brought to New Zealand’s indigenous inhabitants, we are told, was colonialism – and death.
There is, however, an enormous difference between 5-9 deaths inflicted during a number of confused and confusing incidents, in which the perpetrators believed themselves to be acting in self-defence, and death delivered intentionally, brutally, and on a mass scale.
In November 1830, 61 years after Cook’s first landing, the brig Elizabeth dropped anchor in Akaroa harbour. On this trip, the vessel’s hold wasn’t filled with its usual cargo of flax, but with the fearsome warriors of the Ngati Toa chieftain, Te Rauparaha. This war party was not armed with taiaha, but with the same weapon as Cook’s sailors – muskets. Caught unawares, the prosperous Ngai Tahu settlement at Akaroa was razed to the ground. Several hundred villagers were killed by Te Rauparaha’s men: some in the unequal contest between taiaha and musket, others immediately prior to being roasted in the raiding party’s triumphal hangi. The Ngai Tahu chieftain, Tamaiharanui, his wife and daughter, having being lured on board the Elizabeth by its treacherous captain, John Stewart, were subsequently transported to Te Rauparaha’s base of operations on Kapiti Island, where Tamaiharanui was publicly tortured to death.
If you want to know what a New Zealand atrocity looks like – then look no further.
Was Te Rauparaha filled with bitter regret on account of his atrocious activities in Akaroa? If he was, then he and his followers neglected to record it. His descendants, far from branding their forebear a war criminal, continue to celebrate his exploits: proudly recalling the title bestowed upon him by his overawed Pakeha contemporaries: “The Maori Napoleon”.
The next time the All Blacks perform Te Rauparaha’s famous haka “Ka Mate”, we should all, perhaps, pause for a moment in remembrance of the hundreds of innocent men, women and children brutally slaughtered to satisfy the composer’s insatiable thirst for vengeance on one horrific summer’s night in Akaroa, 189 years ago.
Oh, I know, Dame Anne Salmond and her ilk will accuse me of being “unhelpful”. They will insist that the atrocity committed at Akaroa was simply a reflection of Maori cultural practice at the time. Tamaiharanui had killed a Ngati Toa chieftain: somebody had to die.
Strange, though, how this defence is not available to that “murderer” and “white supremacist” James Cook, or the terrified sailors of the Endeavor. They were Europeans and, as such, cannot, like Te Rauparaha and his warriors, be granted immunity from anachronistic moral condemnation. Somebody has to pay, you see: for the colonisation of these islands; for putting an end to a culture that sanctioned the brutal slaughter of hundreds for the assassination of a single (albeit aristocratic) individual. And that “somebody”, it would appear, is Pakeha New Zealand.
Which is why “history” is back in the news. So that future generations are able to grasp why somebody has to pay; and why it has to be them.
Something tells me that it will not be quite that easy. Not when, as we have seen, there are two sides to every history – and not all of them are pretty. A wiser nation would, accordingly, come to terms with its past. A wiser nation would understand that the Pakeha are not – and never will be – “Europeans”. Just as contemporary Maori are not – and can never be again – the Maori who inhabited these islands before Cook’s arrival. A wiser nation would grasp that both peoples are victims of historical forces too vast for blame, too permanent for guilt.
Here’s hoping that wiser nation arrives soon!