Whitewash being adressed finally

A109 Light Utility Helicopter flight with mayor Gisborne City from the air in November 2023.

Opinion

A correspondent yesterday claimed our coverage on Saturday of the 150th anniversary of the summary execution of 86 to 128 local Maori, after the siege of a hilltop pa at Ngatapa, was the “usual whitewash of the murder at Matawhero of some 60 men, women and children — some even babies — by Te Kooti and his followers; many of them Maori as well”.

Perhaps he missed our coverage two months ago of the 150th anniversary of that terrible chapter in our history — one that has until recently been the standout in a colonial retelling of this incredibly dark and inadequately-known period of Crown/settler conflict with the tangata whenua of Turanga.

Perhaps he also read over the fact that an estimated 240 men, 43 percent of the adult Maori male population of Turanga at the time, were killed in armed conflict with the Crown “from the Crown’s attack on Waerenga-a-Hika in November 1865 to the fall of Ngatapa in January 1869”. As reported, the tribunal believed this was the highest casualty rate suffered by Maori during the land wars.

More likely, though, the decimation of a proud people, the original inhabitants of an area, does not move our correspondent because he has his own perceived grievances that blind him to this stark reality.

That he went on to write “stop trying to rewrite history so that more money can be fleeced from the taxpayer” shows this in spades.

The Treaty of Waitangi settlement process, which has been completed for most Tairawhiti iwi impacted by these tragic events, associated land confiscation and more, has been about fact-finding and Crown apologies as much as a small degree of recompense.

That comment also ignores how history is told first by the victor or dominant part of society, and needs a reappraisal of the evidence. It’s called historical revisionism and it seeks to get to the real truth, even as those who prefer the original version might see ulterior motive.

The truth is that the massacre at Ngatapa and other Crown actions here were “whitewashed”. Thankfully they can be depicted much more accurately now for a community that needs to know its history, as it looks to create a bright future where all its people can succeed.