A brief history of Mormons in NZ - from Joseph Smith to the Māori ‘lost tribe’

A Māori Mormon crowd on the Mahia Peninsula, Hawke's Bay, in the mid-1880s.

How did the religious revelations of a young man in 19th century America gain such a foothold in New Zealand? And could the King Country have become the Utah of the Pacific? Host of Heaven’s Helpline Murray Jones looks at the early work of Mormon missionaries in Aotearoa and finds stories of golden plates, prophecies, and polygamy.

The Book of Mormon was less than 25 years old before it reached the shores of Aotearoa in 1854.

Its author, Joseph Smith, was the son of a farmer living in upstate New York.

The early 1800s was a time of great religious enthusiasm and revivalism in the eastern United States and Smith had been unsure about which spiritual path or church to follow.

But after praying, he claimed to have been told that he must join none of them, for they were all wrong. He must set up his own church instead.

According to Smith’s account, he was visited by God and Jesus and then by an angel called Moroni. The angel showed him the location of some golden plates hidden near his home.

Those plates, resembling a ring-binder of metallic gold pages, contained the writings of ancient prophets who, starting around 2000 BC, had moved from the Middle East and travelled to the American continent.

Smith was able to translate the plates with the help of a special seer stone and these translations became known as the Book of Mormon.

Published in 1830, it serves as a partner piece to the Old and New Testaments of the Bible. Among many incredible stories, there’s the notable claim that, after his crucifixion and resurrection, Jesus himself appeared many times in the Americas.

Smith’s new religion was a hit and spread quickly. Individual followers were called “Saints”; the faith itself was the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, but given the importance of this new Book of Mormon, they called themselves Mormons.

A lot of followers headed west, to set up their own communities in Ohio, Missouri, and Illinois.

They didn’t always get along with those who were not in the church.

One big objection from wider society was the church’s practice of polygamy - men taking multiple wives. It wasn’t the done thing at the time, so Smith married many of his 30-plus wives in secret - either behind his first wife’s back or because his brides were often already married to other men.

Antipathy towards polygamy was used to attack the church and its members. After Smith was killed by an angry mob, his successor Brigham Young, led a great relocation to Salt Lake Valley, in 1847.

From day one, the church’s successful growth depended on enthusiastic missionaries converting people into the church.

Canada and the United Kingdom were the first targets but missionaries were quickly in the Pacific, arriving in Tahiti in 1844, Hawaii in 1850, Australia in 1851 and then New Zealand in 1854.

At first, the church was focused on converting Europeans. There was limited success and those that did join tended to head off to the promised land of Utah.

And so, in the 1880s, the missionaries turned their attention towards Māori - and they were hugely successful.

There were many churches at this time battling for the souls of tangata whenua. Anglicans, Protestants, and Wesleyans from England; Presbyterians from Scotland; Catholics from France.

“Americans were just a bit exotic and different from the British missionaries,” explains historian Professor Peter Lineham.

He points to Mormon missionaries being especially successful in the parts of New Zealand where Māori land loss was the most severe - Waikato, Bay of Plenty, Hawke’s Bay, Gisborne, and Northland.

“So it’s quite clear that it’s an anti-colonial move by Māori. They’re responding to specific abuses and misuse of resources by the Anglican Church. And so there’s a very real sense in which it’s a protest move,” he argues.

The American missionaries weren’t aligned with the Crown and, due to the typically fixed durations of Mormon missions, the individuals had no real plans to stay in New Zealand.

Aside from one audacious scheme when the church was looking to escape the intensifying crackdown of the United States government and were scouting for places that may be more sympathetic to their polygamous practices.

In 1886, according to a report in Wellington’s Evening Post, two senior Mormons - Elder Doolan and Elder Sorenson - met the Waikato leader and second Māori king Tāwhiao with a proposal to buy half a million pounds worth of land in the King Country, to be used as a safe haven for the church.

The paper reported that Tāwhiao was quite keen on the plan. But the Mormon elders obviously couldn’t quite sell it back in Utah.

Regardless, the level of connection between Māori and Mormon missionaries was strong and it wasn’t entirely down to anti-colonial feeling. The American missionaries learned te reo, they lived and ate with Māori where they were.

There were alignments in values as well - a focus on whakapapa and genealogy with both Māori and Mormons having foundational stories of great migrations under celestial guidance.

Missionaries taught Māori followers that they were descendants of key figures in the Book of Mormon and that collectively they were one of the lost tribes of Israel.

And there were prophecies foretold by a Māori matakite - or prophet - that the right church for tangata whenua would come from the east, travel in pairs, eat and sleep in their whares and would preach with one hand raised. All criteria that the Mormon missionaries fulfilled.

By 1890, about 3000 Māori, or one in every 12, belonged to the Mormon church.

Heaven’s Helpline is available at iHeartRadio, Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. The series was made with the support of NZ On Air. For more on this series, go to nzherald.co.nz/heavenshelpline