On November 5, 1881, military power crushed a peaceful protest in Taranaki. As part of the Herald’s Whenua project, Julia Gabel retraces the events that made Parihaka an international symbol of non-violent action against injustice and talks to the great-great-granddaughter of a key participant. Data journalist Chris Knox shows what happened on our interactive map (below).
In 1879, a Taranaki man was arrested for ploughing a paddock and detained without trial in a harsh South Island prison for 18 months.
Descendants of Tamati Whanganui say he was ploughing and cutting fern on land in north Taranaki, unaware that the Crown had recently confiscated the block and on-sold it to settlers.
When the settlers saw him working in the paddock, they called the police. He was charged with damaging property and imprisoned with hard labour.
Tamati Whanganui was one of hundreds of Taranaki men and boys who were detained in 1879 and 1880 amid rising tensions and violent clashes between the Crown, which wanted the region’s fertile land for settlers, and Māori, who resisted the sales.
As large parts of the region were taken by the Crown – 485,622ha (1.2 million acres) in total, including the sacred Taranaki Maunga (renamed by the British as Mt Egmont) – protests by displaced Māori emerged, including one of the most famous peaceful demonstrations in New Zealand’s history, Parihaka.
Whanganui had recently returned from Parihaka when he was detained while ploughing the confiscated land. More than 144 years later, his great-great-granddaughter Liana Poutu (Te Atiawa, Taranaki, Ngāti Mutunga, Ngāti Tama, Ngāti Maniapoto, Whanganui) was part of a team who Treaty settlement negotiations on behalf of the eight iwi of Taranaki with the Crown, which resulted in a formal apology and the return of Taranaki Maunga.
“The confiscation had a significant impact on everybody in Taranaki – I can’t imagine what my tūpuna [ancestors] went through,” Poutu said.
“Because when you take the land, you take that spiritual connection, you take that cultural connection, you take everything about being Māori in Taranaki, you just strip that all away.”
During negotiations, Poutu tried to get her ancestor and the other men who were unjustly imprisoned officially pardoned but it was impossible because Whanganui, like many others, was never charged or convicted of a crime.
While that was a disappointment, Poutu believes the bigger goal has been educating the whole community about Taranaki’s real history.
“It’s not about hanging those historical grievances over people’s heads, but it’s about acknowledging that they actually happened and they have an impact,” she said.
“One of the important things about Treaty settlements for me is acknowledging that things happened and they have an impact and they need to be healed in some way.”
Click on the Whenua map below to see how land changed hands in Taranaki and across the country. The map includes historic claims to each area, official land loss accounts from Treaty of Waitangi settlements and filters showing NZ Company deeds, Crown purchases and confiscations. The story continues after the map.
The Parihaka story began in the late 1860s, when the prophets Te Whiti-o-Rongomai and Tohu Kākahi established a community in the remote village, which lay in dense bush west of Taranaki Maunga and in the heart of the Taranaki iwi rohe (region, territory).
Founded on the principles of peaceful resistance to the alienation of Māori land, the settlement grew rapidly and thrived on modern farming techniques in the 1870s, as it attracted Māori displaced by land loss and a series of attacks by Crown troops on their settlements.
In 1876, the Crown implemented “takoha payments”, informal cash payments to Māori who had an interest in a land block before confiscation and who could most influence the delivery of the land into European ownership.
A commission of inquiry later described the payments as “nothing but secret bribery”. Settlement documents note that the willingness of Māori to accept these payments decreased in relation to their proximity to Parihaka. Te Whiti had rejected several takoha payments with contempt.
In June 1878, New Zealand Premier Sir George Grey met with Māori leaders from Taranaki in Waitara. His officials distributed gifts and made informal payments to the leaders to try to get their consent to make more land in Taranaki available for settlement.
After the meeting concluded, Native Minister John Sheehan travelled south to inform Te Whiti, Tohu and southern Taranaki leader Riwha Tītokowaru about the impending surveying of their land, starting with the fertile Waimate Plains. The minister reassured Tītokowaru that large reserves in the Waimate Plains would be set aside for Māori to live on and that their sacred burial grounds, cultivations and fishing grounds would be protected. On these grounds, Tītokowaru allowed the surveyors to carry out their work.
Soon, southern Taranaki Māori became concerned that the surveyors were not marking out the promised reserves. Some Māori removed survey pegs in protest and evicted the surveyors when they cut lines through a burial ground, cultivations and cash crops.
Te Whiti and Tohu directed the Parihaka men to plough land occupied by settlers within the Taranaki iwi rohe, but not to touch the settlers’ possessions, enter their houses or harm them, even if they were provoked.
Although one Crown official described the ploughmen as “orderly and good-tempered”, many settlers felt threatened by the protests and demanded an increase in armed presence, which the Government agreed to.
On June 22, 1879, 200 armed settlers gathered to restrain a group of ploughmen and move them off the land. As tensions rose, Grey directed the head of the Armed Constabulary to arrest any ploughmen whose actions were likely to lead to disturbing the peace.
Meanwhile, Crown forces were building a coastal road into central Taranaki which weaved through cultivations near Parihaka. Builders broke fences around the cultivations and some looted Māori property. Parihaka residents repaired the fences to protect their crops from wandering livestock. The repaired fences blocked the road and each time they were rebuilt, Crown forces pulled them down again. Te Whiti and others were arrested for continuing to erect fences and for threatening to cut down the Government’s telegraph poles.
Between June 30 and July 31, 1879, 182 ploughmen were arrested and charged with “causing damage to land exceeding £5 in value”. Of the 182 men, only 46 received a trial. The following year, the Government passed the Māori Prisoners Act which stated that it was “not deemed necessary” to try those ploughmen who had not had a trial.
However, the legislation only applied to people who had been arrested before it had become law, meaning it would not apply to the fencers. Parliament passed another law – the Māori Prisoners Detention Act – that allowed the Government to detain the fencers without trial. Te Whiti and Tohu continued to send out small parties of men and women to repair the fences each day and another 157 people were arrested and imprisoned in the South Island without trial.
Shortly after, the Government passed the West Coast Settlements North Island Act, which created a range of new offences, including removing survey pegs, erecting fences and ploughing. Those convicted could be imprisoned for up to two years. On September 4, 1880, another 59 fencers were arrested and sentenced to two years’ hard labour.
In total, the Crown arrested 405 Māori men and boys for ploughing or fencing in Taranaki during 1879 and 1880, including 182 ploughmen and 223 fencers. Settlement documents detail how the loss of the men and boys from Parihaka had “extreme impacts” on the family structures within the community. The imprisonments and the consequent loss of labour reduced the once-prosperous Parihaka community to a state of subsistence living.
Inside prison, conditions were harsh and the cold South Island climate was unfamiliar to Taranaki Māori. Settlement documents detail reports of gross overcrowding, prisoners spending up to two months in solitary confinement and reports of some prisoners being forced to swim out to sea at gunpoint.
Native Minister John Bryce suggested the prisoners had been detained for political reasons rather than for any particular offence they had been charged with.
“It mattered very little whether [the prisoners] had been brought to trial or not. If convicted, they would not perhaps get more than 24 hours’ imprisonment for their technical offences.”
The Crown-appointed West Coast Commission later concluded in its final report that the Taranaki Māori were being imprisoned “not for crimes, but for a political offence in which there is no sign of criminal intent”.
Back in Taranaki, tensions continued to rise. Parihaka residents disrupted the construction of a bridge near their settlement; residents cleared, fenced and cultivated land, some of which had been on-sold to settlers. This included some residents pulling down fences that belonged to European farmers.
The Government wrote to Te Whiti, telling him the fencing was illegal and needed to stop. It then issued a proclamation saying Te Whiti had repeatedly refused to discuss the situation and had “caused apprehension amongst the settlers”.
The proclamation gave Te Whiti 14 days to submit to the law of the Queen and accept the reserves that had been recommended. If he did not, the offer of reserves and promised land would be withdrawn.
By the beginning of November 1881, more than 1500 armed constabulary and volunteers were stationed in the Parihaka area.
Just after 5am, on November 5, 1881, Bryce led 945 volunteers and 644 armed constabulary to Parihaka. They were met by 200 children who sang and performed haka. Some girls were skipping rope while other residents offered the troops potatoes. Bryce went on to the marae, seeking a response to the Crown’s proclamation. When he did not get a reply, the Riot Act was read, directing residents to disperse within an hour or face a jail sentence of hard labour.
No one moved and, at the end of the hour, troops advanced further on to the marae and arrested Te Whiti and Tohu. Armed constabulary placed notices around the settlement, directing all non-Taranaki residents to leave. An Armstrong gun was placed on the hill overlooking the settlement, intimidating some residents into leaving.
Some men from other tribes were identified, arrested and their houses pulled down. Crown troops searched the settlement and found 200 guns along with powder, swords and tomahawks. Houses were ransacked and greenstone taonga, mats, cloaks and other treasures were looted. Troops stole or killed livestock and destroyed 18ha (45 acres) of potato, taro, corn, wheat and tobacco cultivations. As troops pulled out the crops, Parihaka residents presented them with a gift of potatoes.
In 1927, the Royal Commission of Inquiry into the confiscations of native lands, known as the Sim Commission, heard witnesses’ accounts of seeing Crown troops assaulting women at Parihaka. Another witness recalled that soldiers “took women and made use of them”.
More than 1500 residents were removed from Parihaka, leaving only those from the local Taranaki iwi in the settlement. The Crown started a pass system that regulated entry into the settlement and banned public meetings. The mass evictions and destruction of crops placed many of the former Parihaka residents at risk of starvation.
Meanwhile, Te Whiti and Tohu, who had been arrested at Parihaka, were taken into captivity and exiled without trial for 16 months. On several occasions, they were offered their freedom, reserves and a Government income on the condition that they would agree to cease assembling the people, but they refused.
Within the 22,600ha (56,000 acres) Parihaka block, the Crown granted 8693ha (21,482 acres) of reserves to 590 people. These reserves were supposed to be large enough to support their residents, but provided for much less than the 20ha (50 acres) per man, woman and child minimum specified in legislation.
The Crown kept most of the fertile 6070ha (15,000-acre) coastal section of the block and reserved only some urupā (burial grounds), small traditional cultivation sites and small fishing stations located at stream-mouths for Māori.
Reserves were returned under the administration of the Public Trustee, which leased most of the land without the consent of the owners. Māori owners of the land ended up receiving little or no rent after the trustee took a cut and used much of the remaining rent payments for the construction of roads and other improvements to the areas. In protest, followers of Te Whiti and Tohu refused to accept any rent at all.
In 1883, the Crown created new regulations that allowed the Māori land to be leased in perpetuity. Almost all of the leases went to European farmers on favourable terms. In contrast, Māori were generally only granted less secure “leases at will” which could be terminated at short notice. In the end, most of the land the Crown had promised to Māori for their use and occupation was leased to European farmers.
In the following years, Māori continued to relentlessly protest the loss of their land. In August 1884, legislation that had previously banned Te Whiti and Tohu from assembling people lapsed and large numbers of people gathered at Parihaka. They formed processions that travelled through the region to raise awareness about Māori land loss.
Ploughing campaigns restarted and Te Whiti, along with others, was arrested again. Māori from across Taranaki provided Parihaka with material assistance so they could carry out their mass processions. Support continued after the marches ended and Parihaka used the donated funds to build several large guest houses and meeting houses.
Residents paved the streets, installed electric lighting, water and drainage systems and established several shops and a bank. At the turn of the 20th century, an observer described Parihaka as being “in line with the most advanced ideas of municipal improvement”.
Both Te Whiti and Tohu died in 1907. The Crown continued to promote the leasing of Māori land to European farmers in perpetuity. By 1912, Europeans held 56,053ha of the remaining 78,495ha (138,510 of 193,966 acres) of Taranaki reserve land under either 30-year or perpetually renewable leases, while Māori held only 10036ha (24,800 acres) under the less-secure licences at will.
In 1934, Māori won a Supreme Court case against further reductions in rent. Parliament then passed special legislation which effectively overturned the decision.
The massive loss of land condemned Taranaki Māori to intergenerational poverty. In 1891, a major inquiry into the leasing of Māori land stated that it “would be difficult to imagine a more flagrant case of legislative robbery” and that “Māoris’ [sic] rights were confiscated by one dash of the pen”.
In its formal apology for the Maunga settlement, the Government acknowledged that although much of the harm caused could not be undone, it hoped through the settlement, the Māori of Taranaki could restore their connection to the maunga so “that future generations might again look to Taranaki as a symbol of resilience and hope, rather than of loss”.
The maunga has always been a central pillar of Taranaki life. For the Māori of Taranaki, it is considered an honoured ancestor, a source of physical, cultural and spiritual sustenance and a final resting place. The settlement also acknowledged the spiritual status of the maunga by granting it personhood – the same rights and protections as an individual.
Wherever you are in Taranaki, you’re most likely able to see the maunga. And if you can’t see it, you can probably feel it. It is a moody day when the Herald travels to New Plymouth to interview Poutu, who is also the chair of Te Tōpuni Kōkōrangi – the new entity representing the maunga.
Thick rain pummels the floor-to-ceiling windows of the iwi office building. Poutu sits down in the office’s library. Books about land loss and the history of Parihaka surround her. Her calm, steady voice cuts through the clatter of rain against the glass.
“Whenua [land] for us is everything. It’s where we are born from, it’s where we return to, so without whenua, we don’t exist as a people.
“We carry that [pain of the confiscation] all the time. We carry that in kōrero [discussions] at the marae and ceremonies. We carry that in our waiata and our mōteatea [lament]. We carry that in the commemoration days that we have.”
She says that almost 100 years since Tamati Whanganui returned from prison in Dunedin, his son Pehimana Tamati was chair of the Taranaki Māori Trust Board when the Crown returned confiscated Taranaki Maunga to the iwi of Taranaki - on the proviso that it be immediately gifted back to the Crown as a symbol of love for the nation.
Forty-seven years later, she was one of the iwi negotiators to negotiate a formal apology from the Crown and recognition of Taranaki Maunga as a legal person.
The eight iwi of Taranaki settled with the Government individually, then came together for the maunga settlement. Poutu describes the maunga redress as the “final settlement ... to bring things to a close”.
“ My hope is that my children, my grandchildren and my great-grandchildren will always have a connection to whenua,” she said.
“For my kids, they will never know that Taranaki was not his name ... they will never know [him as anything other than] a tūpuna.”
Read all the stories in the series at nzherald.co.nz/whenua. The project is supported by NZ On Air.