Vincent O’Malley is –
or should be – notorious already for his gross distortion of history when, in
an article in “The Listener” for 25th February 2017, he
misrepresented as “an almost incomprehensible act of savagery” General
Cameron’s humanitarian action in his almost bloodless capture of the Waikato
rebels’ primary food source at Rangiaowhia.
But no! He has now
produced another book entitled “The New Zealand Wars Nga Pakaranga o Aotearoa”,
receiving on 18th May 2019 a nice slice of publicity from the “New
Zealand Herald”[i]
and even more from “The Spinoff”[ii] the day before. Once again, his lurid tales in lieu of facts
do no service to historicity – the genuine recording of our actual
history. Indeed his very title - “The
New Zealand Wars” shows his bias since, whatever they have been called in the
past, the only accurate description of those hostilities is as tribal
rebellions. Whatever suffering any
tribes may have endured in consequence, they were the direct result of armed
conflicts which they started – often, it is fair to say, by warlike chiefs
simply spoiling for a fight - Wiremu Kingi in Taranaki and Rewi Maniapoto in
Waikato for example.
The “wars” were “fought between 1845 and 1872 ... from the
Far North to Wairau near Blenheim”. So
says the “Herald”.[iii] Well now, the “Wairau Affray”, so described
today at the site, actually occurred on 17th June 1843, and was the
only armed conflict in the whole of the South Island in the colonial era. As such, it hardly qualifies as a “war”. It ended with the murder of nine helpless
prisoners, mostly by Te Rangihaeata whom Governor Fitzroy was powerless to
bring to justice. And do recall that it
was a mere ten years earlier that the Ngatitoa led by Te Rauparaha and Te
Rangihaeata had claimed possession of the Wairau Valley with the virtual
extermination of its former Maori inhabitants.
And recall once again, that not far away in the Marlborough Sounds in
December 1773, ten members of the crew of Cook’s ship “Adventure” had been
killed, cooked and eaten.[iv]
Then the so-called “Northern War” or “Heke’s War”[v] of 1844-5 precipitated by
Hone Heke at the urging of the disaffected Kawiti and encouraged by the fact
that the Wairau murderers escaped scot-free[vi] was mostly a series of
skirmishes until the attack on Kororareka after which it was principally Maoris
loyal to the Crown who did most to suppress it.
There followed spasmodic violence in Wellington and Wanganui
in which Te Rauparaha broke his oath of allegiance and was interned – something
for which a recent craven government apologised! Andrew Gillespie and his young son were
murdered at Lower Hutt on 10th April 1846, the Gilfillans with six
child victims tomahawked at Wanganui in April 1847 and the Branks family with
three young children at Johnsonville in March 1849 - fifteen innocents
slaughtered by tribal blood lust.[vii][1]
And so to Taranaki where Charles Heaphy on a mission to buy
land for the New Zealand Company in 1839 found South Taranaki virtually
deserted following the invasion by Waikato tribes barely a decade earlier. Returning refugees from the South and
erstwhile slaves of the Waikato fell to fighting among themselves over land
they sought to re-possess. In point of fact,
apart from what had been bought legitimately for farm settlements (sometimes
three times over)[viii]
the tribes really had far more land than they knew what to do with.[ix] Nevertheless, hostilities escalated and in a
little over twelve months in 1860-1, 177 settler homes and farms were destroyed
by Maori rebels.[x] Intermittent hostilities in Taranaki led to
the emergence of Pai Mairire, initially alleged to be a religion of peace,
notwithstanding it blasphemed
Christianity.[2] It soon developed into the practice of the
Hau Hau where heads of victims, both white and maori, were desecrated in wild
dances around a “niu” pole.
The next serious development was the increasingly aggressive
behaviour of the strong Waikato tribes and several settlers in remote districts
were murdered. Indeed the Waikato
developed in much detail a plan for the invasion of Auckland and the slaughter
of all inhabitants, both white and Maori except those favoured few whose doors
were to be marked with a cross to exclude them.[xi] It was only the return of the resolute
Governor Grey which led to its abandonment.
In the hostilities which followed, two of the country’s most
important tribes, Arawa and Ngapuhi, declared themselves on the side of the
Queen and ready to fight. So too did
Waikato tribes, Ngati Tipa, Ngati Whawhakia and many of the Ngatihaua.
Thus followed Rangariri and other battles, and the capture
of the rebels food supplies at Rangiaowhia, the brilliant action which led
almost immediately to the concoction by the rebels, furious at being so
outwitted, of the foul lie of the burning of a church full of women and
children. Persisting to the present day
and parroted by O’Malley, this led to the cruel deception of students at
Otorohanga College and the presentation of a petition to Parliament for a
commemorative day, accepted by our culpably ignorant legislators. Do we really want any observance based on
such a perversion of our history?
It was the capture of Rangiaowhia which really broke the
back of the rebellion; the rebels abandoning their fort at Paterangi but
holding on dramatically at Orakau for some time until starvation forced them to
abandon it. It would have made sense for
them to surrender peacefully but they chose to flee in the hope perhaps of
surviving to fight another day but many were killed in the ensuing
pursuit. In any case, Orakau was no more
than a final gasp, simply not “one of the most important battles of the New
Zealand Wars”[xii]
as O’Malley would have it.
The nation had yet to deal with Te Kooti’s rebellion, with
O’Malley “explaining” “how the decimation of Maori in Turanga ‘completely
eclipsed’ the country’s losses in Gallipoli.”
We look a little further. Te
Kooti of Rongowhakaata had some justification for a grudge against the
government. He exacted a terrible
revenge. Attacking the peaceful village of Matawhero just before midnight on 9th
November 1868, 70 sleepers, many being women and children and around half being
Maoris were massacred by Te Kooti, his tribe and some Tuhoe supporters.[xiii] With the rebel fort of Ngatapa captured by
loyal Maoris led by Major Ropata Wahawaha, Te Kooti regrouped and attacked the
twin fortified villages at the Mohaka River, killing about 60 loyal Maoris and
the Lavin family whose three children were tossed in the air and impaled on
bayonets.[xiv]
O’Malley says nothing of these atrocities but plenty
about Turanga where there was prolonged fighting between Te Kooti’s Hau Hau and
government forces. With some fast
figuring, from an estimate of 16% of the rebels killed in battle in the years
1865-9, O’Malley jacks up the number of total casualties to “around 40% - an
almost incomprehensible level of loss”.
This he proceeds to compare with a 5.8 % casualty rate in World War I
some fifty years later. He could equally
have compared it with the figures for the invasion of the peaceful Chatham
Islands by Maori tribes only thirty years earlier. There an estimated Moriori population of 1600
was reduced in a few short years to a mere 101, the death rate estimate: a
colossal 94%.
And only a few years before that, in the capture by Waikato
of the Taranaki fort of Pukerangiora, around 1300 victims were killed and
eaten, many thrown alive into the ovens.
Of course the Turanga tribes did not take part in these massacres but
they do go to show that tribal warfare was endemic. Indeed a third of the Maori population was
killed in a few decades before 1840 by other Maoris. Deaths among those of breeding age, both
women and men, were particularly high and that fully explains the decline of
the total Maori population for several decades into the colonial era.[xv]
O’Malley muddles the waters ever further by some
extraordinary juggling in which he conflates the deaths of loyal Maoris with
those of rebels. Does he seek to imply
that they were all equally the victims of the wicked white colonials he is so
anxious to vilify? In his hands the old
adage that there are “lies, damned lies and statistics” receives confirmation
at a new depth of iniquity.
O’Malley sullies the names of the 843 New Zealanders who
died at Passchendaele on 12th October 1917 and of the Wellington
battalion which briefly saw the Dardanelles from Chunuk Bair as 711 of their
strength of 760 became casualties. And
with the tattered red ensign which decorates the cover of his book he likewise
demeans the merchant seamen who lost their lives to German torpedoes in the
Battle of the Atlantic as they took vital supplies to a besieged Britain.
That the “New Zealand Herald” gives so much publicity to
this distorted narrative leads one to question seriously its agenda. And advertising can scarcely be more perverted
than the lengthy “Spinoff” piece with the claim in bold type in its first
paragraph that “O’Malley explains how the decimation of Maori in Turanga
‘completely eclipsed’ the country’s losses at Gallipoli.” Yeah, right!
Notes:
[1] I ask: why does O’Malley not quote examples
such as these to provide some “balance” in his tale, for the alleged lack of
which the Nelson City Council denied me my right of free speech at the Nelson
Public Library in April 2018
[2] When recently I sent the twelve “tenets” of
Pai Mairire, recorded by veteran missionary James Buller, and including “The
Scriptures must all be burnt”, to Richard Ellena, Bishop of Nelson, and asked
him whether they were anathema to his church, he specifically refused to answer
my question.
References:
[i] Interview with O’Malley. “New Zealand
Herald”, 18th May 2019
[ii] “The Spinoff” Review of Books, Unity Press,
17th May 2019
[iii] op.cit.
[v] “Heke’s War”,
[vi] J. Robinson, “The Kingite Rebellion”, Tross,
2016, ISBN 1 872970 48 6,
[vii] A. Plover,”Blood and Tears”, Tross, 2018,
ISBN 9781872970585, Chapters 12-14
[viii] Robinson, op.cit.,p.182, in a very
revealing letter from Ihaia Kirikumara and Tamati Tiraurau all should read!
[ix] S. Ironside, “Sydney Morning Herald”, 12th
February 1862 and “Nelson Examiner”, 12th March 1862
[x] W
I Grayling, “The War in Taranaki, during the years 1860-61”, 1862
[xi] As reported in June 1863 by James Falloon,
half-caste native interpreter later killed by the Hau Haus.
[xii] “Herald Interview, op.cit.
[xiii] M. Butler, “Tribes, treaty, money, power”,
Tross, 2014,ISBN 1 872970 38 9, p.50
[xiv] ibid, p.52
[xv] J. Robinson, “When two culture meet”, Tross,
2012,ISBN 1-872970-31-1, analyses this matter in depth
Bruce
Moon is an historian and retired computer pioneer who wrote "Real Treaty; False Treaty -
The True Waitangi Story".
6 comments:
Would be good to see bullet points with original sources
Thank you Bruce Moon. The truth must be told, too many people actually believe the BS that fuels the New Zealand grievance industry.
In the customary manner for such maori related topics there was a simpering unquestioning interview with O Malley on RNZ. In promoting the teaching in schools of "NZ history" I presumed he was angling to supply the textbook.
Anyone else noticed how many Treatyists, both White and part-Maori, are descended from Crown-hating Fenian agitators, and imbibed their Brit-hatred with their mother's milk?
Vincent O'Malley's malicious distortions of history go back a long way.Following the revolt of Japanese prisoners at the Featherston camp in 1943 He introduced the idea that the New Zealand guards had "run amok". He had no evidence to make a positive assertion but cleverly introduced it as a question, which was later taken up by some like minded writers as fact.
Another propagator of literary poison is James Belich who described the Matawhero massacre as a cleverly planned guerrilla raid. A guerilla raid is one carried out on a military target, whereas at Matawhero the raid consisted of murdering men, women and small children sleeping in their beds at night. It was not a guerrilla raid - it was a massacre.
This scenario would seem to covered by the concept "who ever controls the narrative controls the world" and "if you tell lie often enough it is eventually considered to be a truth". However this does not explain how O'Malleys book that so obviously contradicts actual recorded history, can be allowed to be published without challenge. Surely there are agencies/departments whose job it is to monitor this.
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