Thursday, August 21, 2008
Monday, August 18, 2008
Te Paina to Mercer... Backgrounder.
In 2007 I came across a website created by an enthusiastic group who were committed to restoring the historical site of the Queens Redoubt at Pokeno. I was very curious. To begin with I didnt know what a redoubt was or that such land war sites were still intact with the man-made marks of history. This led me to looking for the battle sites of Koheroa and discovering the Pakeha soldier monument at Mercer and connecting with some very generous and trusting locals who have shared their knowledge and stories with me.
I visited the Mercer primary school and the school assistant, Tuija Glass, has been very helpful allowing access to the school history collections, that consist of photographic images and scrap-books dating from the 1930’s.
Her husband Terry, a local historian, has taken me to the different battle sites which are now horse, turkey and cattle farming paddocks, indistinguishable from any other.
I have had long conversations with Wilfred Waller who is tangata whenua. His mother, who is 94, is the last person alive who lived with Te Puea before she moved the hapu and marae to Ngaruawahia.
I have also spoken with the manager of the Rangiriri museum who is very keen to gather more information on Koheroa.
My project has centered on historical and contemporary narrative and sites that connect back to the historic military stone wall that crosses the University of Auckland city campus.
This stone fortification ties in with other important sites including the memorial at the corner of Wakefield St. and Symond St. that commemorates the settlers and friendly Maori who fought to protect the city of Auckland, the sacred Totara (protected by the white picket fence ) planted by Te Puea to remind us that this was where the first Maori King PÅtatau Te Wherowhero held meetings in the grounds of the Domain , the Queens Redoubts at Pukekohe and Pokeno and the British and Maori trenches of the site of the first battle of the invasion of the Waikato by Imperial Troops at Koheroa ( Mercer)
Some historical background.
In 1835 The Declaration of Independence of New Zealand and the 1840 Treaty of Waitangi upheld Maori rule (Tino Rangatiratanga), land, sea and resource ownership and indigenous and human rights.
The stone wall that traverses the space between the Clock Tower and the southern end of the Choral Hall was constructed by the settler Government (consisting solely of Pakeha members who were predominantly land dealers and capitalist traders) in the 1860’s to protect the (Pakeha) settlers of the emerging city of Auckland against the (constructed) rumored threat of Maori attack from the Kingites of the south. The Stone wall was considerably longer than that which remains today and on the northern side several army barracks were erected (both in the university and Albert Park grounds). So this northern side, the side that Commerce B is on, was the safe side, and the southern side was where the ‘Maori threat’ was believed to be.
Previously, the minority white Settler government had wanted to create an infrastructure to support their fledgling new nation. Building this infrastructure was hugely expensive as expertise, resources and machinery had to be imported from the UK. As the Treasurers report printed in the 1863 NZ Herald informs us, a large sum (3, 000,000 Pound) was to be borrowed from England. The report explained that this loan was to be repaid by firstly confiscating land off the so-called “rebels” in the south, the Maori of the Waikato, Taranaki, and the East Coast. The plan was to repay the bulk of the loan from the the profits gained from selling that free ‘confiscated’ Maori land to settlers who were yet to come.
All Maori who refused to gift or sell any of their land to Pakeha formed a united land protection organisation known as the Kingitanga.
They declared that
“These land will not be given by us into the Governors and your hands, lest we resemble the sea-birds which perch upon a rock: when the tide flows the rock is covered by the sea, and the birds take flight, for they have no resting place.” (Sinclair P.112)
The settlers were putting immense pressure on the Governor to secure them Maori land, so order to legalise their actions, the Settler Government constructed a law that required Maori to sign allegiance to the British Queen. If they refused they would automatically be ‘in rebellion’ and their lands could be taken as punishment. This law was passed but Maori were not told about it and neither were they given the opportunity to sign the allegiance, and from then on any resistance to military invasion on their part was judged as treachery and punishable as such. The Settler Government ordered the invasion of Maori regions using aggressive Imperial military force, knowing that Maori would fight back to protect their families and lands and could thus be proven to be in 'rebellion'.
They also constructed and spread rumors of a so-called Maori threat to invade Auckland, so that local and military support was given with armed troops being sent from Australia and Britain, and the Albert Barracks and stone wall were built.
Further British support was gained for the invasion of the Waikato and the destruction of the King movement and some 10,000 Imperial troops and 8 gunboats were assigned to the invasion of Kingitanga, initially against the Tainui peoples, the boundary of which was the Mangatawhiri River which joins the Waikato at what is now known as Mercer. The Imperial Forces, under the direction of Cameron, invaded by crossing the Tainui boundary of the Mangatawhiri river on July 1863 and the first battle took place on Koheroa Hill, to the east of the Mercer train station. As only 1 Imperial soldier was killed this battle has historically and presently been referred to as a ‘skirmish’, however the Quarter Master's report of the battle records that between 30 to 40 Maori were killed by repeated bayonet charges.
The remainder of this hapu withdrew southwards to Meremere, and then on to Rangiriri where a major battle was fought.
The Declaration of Independence of NZ and the Tiriti o Waitangi agreements have neither been upheld nor constitutionalised within Pakeha governmental or settlement processes to this day. Nor has there been formal recognition of, or inclusion in memorial/s or monuments built by the nation, to Maori who sacrificed their lives in defense of their people and their land during the so-called Land wars and subsequent ‘legal’ processes of colonisation.
I believe that as a consequence there has been a collective settler/immigrant amnesia or manufactured ignorance and a distortion of the facts and impact of colonisation on Maori and ourselves and our relationship, coupled with a sanitisation or obscuration of our history, that effect an ability to develop a critical analysis or a willingness to discuss openly the contemporary positioning of Maori and Pakeha and the awkward space between us.
Developing works from this knowledge base and through what is essentially a documentary research process from formal recognised and informal community/people sources with audio-visual recordings of sites and conversations, without the work being overcooked or too earnest whilst still being true to the content is a major consideration of my project.
I visited the Mercer primary school and the school assistant, Tuija Glass, has been very helpful allowing access to the school history collections, that consist of photographic images and scrap-books dating from the 1930’s.
Her husband Terry, a local historian, has taken me to the different battle sites which are now horse, turkey and cattle farming paddocks, indistinguishable from any other.
I have had long conversations with Wilfred Waller who is tangata whenua. His mother, who is 94, is the last person alive who lived with Te Puea before she moved the hapu and marae to Ngaruawahia.
I have also spoken with the manager of the Rangiriri museum who is very keen to gather more information on Koheroa.
My project has centered on historical and contemporary narrative and sites that connect back to the historic military stone wall that crosses the University of Auckland city campus.
This stone fortification ties in with other important sites including the memorial at the corner of Wakefield St. and Symond St. that commemorates the settlers and friendly Maori who fought to protect the city of Auckland, the sacred Totara (protected by the white picket fence ) planted by Te Puea to remind us that this was where the first Maori King PÅtatau Te Wherowhero held meetings in the grounds of the Domain , the Queens Redoubts at Pukekohe and Pokeno and the British and Maori trenches of the site of the first battle of the invasion of the Waikato by Imperial Troops at Koheroa ( Mercer)
Some historical background.
In 1835 The Declaration of Independence of New Zealand and the 1840 Treaty of Waitangi upheld Maori rule (Tino Rangatiratanga), land, sea and resource ownership and indigenous and human rights.
The stone wall that traverses the space between the Clock Tower and the southern end of the Choral Hall was constructed by the settler Government (consisting solely of Pakeha members who were predominantly land dealers and capitalist traders) in the 1860’s to protect the (Pakeha) settlers of the emerging city of Auckland against the (constructed) rumored threat of Maori attack from the Kingites of the south. The Stone wall was considerably longer than that which remains today and on the northern side several army barracks were erected (both in the university and Albert Park grounds). So this northern side, the side that Commerce B is on, was the safe side, and the southern side was where the ‘Maori threat’ was believed to be.
Previously, the minority white Settler government had wanted to create an infrastructure to support their fledgling new nation. Building this infrastructure was hugely expensive as expertise, resources and machinery had to be imported from the UK. As the Treasurers report printed in the 1863 NZ Herald informs us, a large sum (3, 000,000 Pound) was to be borrowed from England. The report explained that this loan was to be repaid by firstly confiscating land off the so-called “rebels” in the south, the Maori of the Waikato, Taranaki, and the East Coast. The plan was to repay the bulk of the loan from the the profits gained from selling that free ‘confiscated’ Maori land to settlers who were yet to come.
All Maori who refused to gift or sell any of their land to Pakeha formed a united land protection organisation known as the Kingitanga.
They declared that
“These land will not be given by us into the Governors and your hands, lest we resemble the sea-birds which perch upon a rock: when the tide flows the rock is covered by the sea, and the birds take flight, for they have no resting place.” (Sinclair P.112)
The settlers were putting immense pressure on the Governor to secure them Maori land, so order to legalise their actions, the Settler Government constructed a law that required Maori to sign allegiance to the British Queen. If they refused they would automatically be ‘in rebellion’ and their lands could be taken as punishment. This law was passed but Maori were not told about it and neither were they given the opportunity to sign the allegiance, and from then on any resistance to military invasion on their part was judged as treachery and punishable as such. The Settler Government ordered the invasion of Maori regions using aggressive Imperial military force, knowing that Maori would fight back to protect their families and lands and could thus be proven to be in 'rebellion'.
They also constructed and spread rumors of a so-called Maori threat to invade Auckland, so that local and military support was given with armed troops being sent from Australia and Britain, and the Albert Barracks and stone wall were built.
Further British support was gained for the invasion of the Waikato and the destruction of the King movement and some 10,000 Imperial troops and 8 gunboats were assigned to the invasion of Kingitanga, initially against the Tainui peoples, the boundary of which was the Mangatawhiri River which joins the Waikato at what is now known as Mercer. The Imperial Forces, under the direction of Cameron, invaded by crossing the Tainui boundary of the Mangatawhiri river on July 1863 and the first battle took place on Koheroa Hill, to the east of the Mercer train station. As only 1 Imperial soldier was killed this battle has historically and presently been referred to as a ‘skirmish’, however the Quarter Master's report of the battle records that between 30 to 40 Maori were killed by repeated bayonet charges.
The remainder of this hapu withdrew southwards to Meremere, and then on to Rangiriri where a major battle was fought.
The Declaration of Independence of NZ and the Tiriti o Waitangi agreements have neither been upheld nor constitutionalised within Pakeha governmental or settlement processes to this day. Nor has there been formal recognition of, or inclusion in memorial/s or monuments built by the nation, to Maori who sacrificed their lives in defense of their people and their land during the so-called Land wars and subsequent ‘legal’ processes of colonisation.
I believe that as a consequence there has been a collective settler/immigrant amnesia or manufactured ignorance and a distortion of the facts and impact of colonisation on Maori and ourselves and our relationship, coupled with a sanitisation or obscuration of our history, that effect an ability to develop a critical analysis or a willingness to discuss openly the contemporary positioning of Maori and Pakeha and the awkward space between us.
Developing works from this knowledge base and through what is essentially a documentary research process from formal recognised and informal community/people sources with audio-visual recordings of sites and conversations, without the work being overcooked or too earnest whilst still being true to the content is a major consideration of my project.
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