A.E. Thompson: (Oral) History Never Repeats - RNZ's 'NZ Wars' Series

Radio New Zealand collaborated with Great Southern Television and Aotearoa Media Collective to produce, funded by us taxpayers, a number of video productions and associated podcasts for radio called 'NZ Wars'. I heard one recently and was struck by the sarcastic and biased nature of the commentary. Another one that played on RNZ was called 'NZ Wars: Stories of Wairau' so I explored it in detail as follows.

Use of the abbreviation NZ in the title of this series reflects the racism throughout it. Let's not use the white-skinned actual name of our country.

The radio podcast begins with a story about Ngati Toa chief Te Rauparaha writing the famous 'Ka Mate' haka whilst hiding from enemies in a kumara pit around 1820 during the 'Musket Wars'. According to the narrators, it was his 'instinct for survival' that saw him "rise to power during the Musket Wars, forging alliances and trade and marriages with arriving Europeans; an instinct that would eventually see him standing on the Wairau Plains in June 1843 in a showdown with the New Zealand Company..." Apparently, all good; don't mention his cruelty and massacres in every Maori settlement along his way.

The Wairau showdown, known by various terms including 'The Wairau Affray' and (more accurately) 'The Wairau Massacre', was claimed by the narrators to be "...sparked by dodgy schemes and even dodgier deeds...and fundamentally different ideas about land". Apparently, Maori "had no idea that what William Wakefield was really saying was "I'm gonna give you this stuff and then we're gonna own all that land". Yeah right, by 1843, after many decades of selling land to settlers who then treated it as owned according to European models, and even after the process around Te Tiriti further clarified the idea of future land purchases by the British Crown, astute Maori chiefs had no idea what selling land meant.

The narrators (who also wrote or participated in the writing of the script) then introduced themselves. Justine Murray referred to her Maori ancestry  but didn't include anything about her European ancestry. Narrator Mr Rae said he was "..born in Hamilton, Kirikiriroa..." and expressed thanks, with both he and Ms Murray giggling ironically, that his ancestry didn't include anyone from the New Zealand Company.

Kirikiriroa was the name of a Maori pa (settlement) on the western side of the Waikato River, part of the area over which the town then city of Hamilton developed. Use of the name 'Kirikiriroa' is entirely appropriate in referring to that pa and land around it that was defended at times by Maori groups, but 'Hamilton' is a municipality established on the basis of European models. Using the name 'Kirikiriroa' is disrespectful of the European knowledge and heritage that created the entity 'Hamilton', an entity incomparable to that of Kirikiriroa. And that's in no way to imply superiority of one form of settlement over the other, simply that the two are very different entities and the name of one does not equate to the name of the other.

The podcast is replete with forest sounds and includes enacted dialogue and claimed direct quotes. Fair enough to bring the story to life but it would have been honest and accurate to include some acknowledgement that all the dialogue and quotes were approximations to what was believed to have been said. This might sound like nit-picking but such matters added to the bias in the podcast's whole portrayal of the history.

Substantial attention is given to Te Rauparaha's birth and background. A great man apparently, and no need to mention his bloodthirsty habits. The background information about one of the main white people, Edward Gibbon Wakefield, focuses almost entirely on a crime he was involved in and a scheme he thought up in prison allegedly designed to keep poor people out of affording property and thereby enslaved to work for rich people, narrator Ms Murray describing it disdainfully as "Ah yes, a new Brittania". Actually, Wakefield's published article was titled 'Cure and Prevention of Pauperism by Means of Systematic Colonization'. That sounds like a plan to overcome poverty rather than to entrench it. The sarcastic commentary, accompanied by ominous, threatening music, alleged that plan led to the establishment of the New Zealand Company headed by Wakefield. All references to terms involving 'colonize' were made in a disparaging way.

The podcast tells us that British trader Blenkinsop was allowed to marry a young Maori woman of high status from an iwi in alliance with Ngati Toa. There is some interesting explanation of the value to an iwi in those days of associations with white people who could procure muskets and other desirable European assets. The narrators also refer to there being various conflicting histories of the events pertaining to the woman, but for most other events they did not acknowledge that they were simply accepting one of many possible portrayals, and that they clearly preferred accounts from Maori oral history and particular English writings consistent with those accounts.

Through the marriage Blenkinsop gained access to various Maori leaders including Te Rauparaha. Blenkinsop may or may not have stolen a cannon that he used to buy land from Te Rauparaha and other leaders, but narrator Mr Rae portrayed the possible cannon theft as a certainty, saying it "wasn't the only dodgy part of this deal". No, it seems also that the detailed, specific and accurate legal deed that Blenkinsop provided was a deception, signed by the chiefs who didn't know what it said because it was in English. The chiefs later claimed that they thought it was only a rental agreement allowing Blenkinsop access to the land to take water and timber. Te Rauparaha is said to have later had someone translate the deed whereupon he destroyed it in anger (Ms Murray asserted that she didn't blame him, accompanied by the sound effect of paper being ripped up...) Yeah, well, perhaps so according to oral history. Or perhaps he had been very keen to get hold of the cannon etc and didn't care about the content of a deed that he never intended to respect. Regardless, it seems unlikely that astute Maori leaders would sign a deed they didn't know the contents of, or that they did not have some understanding of the significance of English legal agreements, or that they didn't have someone available to translate the deed for them before signing.

The land ownership deed was later sold to the New Zealand Company.

Then there's a case against Richard Cook who the narrators were absolutely certain had committed a murder of a Ngati Toa woman and her baby, but whom the English law Court acquitted of the crime in 1843. Apparently, Maori believed they were better than an English law Court at deciding if there was sufficient evidence to convict and punish, and the narrators seemed to agree. They also seemed to agree that Te Rauparaha's nephew Te Rangihaeata's unhappiness with the Court's verdict added to the righteousness of his Wairau massacre about 6 months later.

Part 2 of the podcast stated that "In 1839 the New Zealand Company's first expedition arrived in the waters of Aotearoa". This is silly. New Zealand was never called 'Aotearoa' until late 19th Century. One might as well say that Caesar conquered the last parts of France in 51 BC even though it was actually Gaul and didn't become France until around around 1500 AD. Calling current New Zealand 'Aotearoa' is disrespectful until the name might be democratically changed, but applying that name to New Zealand in 1839 is either ignorant (believing, as many people have been led to believe, that 'Aotearoa' was the original Maori name for New Zealand) or brazen woke propaganda.

Narrator Mr Rae told us that the New Zealand Company wasn't allowed by Governor Hobson to buy land where they wanted it so "...they had to settle for land at Whakatu, also now known as the city of Nelson". What? More woke nonsense. The city of Nelson is the only thing known as the city of Nelson. Whakatu was never the city of Nelson and 'Nelson' was never a name given to a piece of land or a Maori settlement; Nelson is the name given to a municipality established on European models, an entity that did not exist in Maori times.

Anyway, the podcast claimed that the New Zealand Company didn't own the land that the Maori chiefs had been paid for and for which they had a clearly worded and signed ownership deed. No, that was all just devious scheming by the nasty white people, while Maori chiefs would never have sold stuff they intended to take back by warfare or trickery, now would they? The narrators called the deed "dodgy" and "a joke" and claimed Blenkinsop had "pulled a fast one", based it appears on self-interested Maori oral history rather than the written, signed document. In fact, the deed appears to have been very clear and precise, not dodgy. Anyway, Te Rauparaha appealed to the Colonial Land Commissioner William Spain who was appointed to review the validity of pre-Tiriti land sales, then Te Rauparaha warned the New Zealand Company to halt further activity on the Wairau plains until Spain had investigated and pronounced on the sale.

Regarding the surveying that the New Zealand Company was undertaking on the now disputed land, narrator Ms Murray asserted that "Ngati Toa needed to send a message that this was unacceptable". So a group led by Te Rauparaha went to the surveyors' camps, pulled out the pegs and burned down their huts. Yay! Fully justified and morally righteous according to the narrators. We are later told that Te Rauparaha claimed he had burned the branches and ferns he owned that the huts were made of, so it wasn't arson. The narrators didn't seem to recognize that this was strong evidence of Te Rauparaha's duplicity. According to him he had believed the land deed was to allow taking of timber and water yet he now denied his need to honour even that claimed version of the agreement.

The settlers in Nelson were angry because they had paid the New Zealand Company for their plots of the land in question. They demanded that Te Rauparaha and his nephew Te Rangihaeata be arrested for arson and the Nelson magistrate provided a warrant accordingly. A posse of armed settlers with some constables traveled to arrest Te Rauaparaha who positioned warriors hiding in the bush. Leaders of the posse with a few supporters meet with Te Rauparaha, telling him they have come to arrest them and bringing out handcuffs. A historian who takes over the narrating admits he's putting words in Te Rauparaha's mouth concerning the dialogue, but assures us it's true anyway. Te Rauparaha is portrayed as trying to defuse the situation, the voice of reason etc. But voices are raised and somebody's shot kills Te Rangihaeata's wife nearby, probably by accident.

The scene erupts into battle, killing and wounding some on both sides. The European posse soon realizes they are no match for the better placed, more numerous and much more experienced warriors, so they run away. Nine including the leaders of the posse (including another Wakefield representing the New Zealand Company) surrender and are taken prisoner. After some discussion between the Maori leaders Te Rangihaeata murders the prisoners one by one with a mere, a  Maori clubbing and cutting weapon. Of course, the podcast narrators and experts find that all ok because it's tikanga. No mention that if the prisoners had been treated humanely and returned to their people, Ngati Toa would probably have gained respect from the European settlers and the battle forgiven. No mention that allowing tikanga and utu to preside as law is more likely to result in never-ending back and forth retaliation than to resolve matters. No recognition that the podcast's state-funded justification of lethal violence under tikanga might inspire many more Maori youth and gang members to commit serious crimes believing in their righteousness and thereby ruin their own lives as well as the lives of their victims.

Robert Fitzroy, the new governor who arrived soon after the massacre, expressed understanding of the Maori response to the attempted arrests and ordered no further action. Here, the narrators refer to his decision as potentially averting a war. Actually, refraining from clubbing to death nine prisoners would possibly have averted a war. Regardless, Fitzroy doesn't last long in the face of settler and New Zealand Company revolt against his position. The next governor, George Grey, takes a different attitude and demands that the Maori hand over the Wairau land as payment for their crimes. Te Rauparaha is arrested, Te Rangihaeata battled but was overwhelmed and retreated, although he was involved in subsequent warring elsewhere. The podcast plays some statements by a Maori teacher and  students he has brought to the site of the massacre; the students have been told that Te Rauparaha was "kidnapped" by the Crown in order to coerce Ngati Toa to give up the Wairau land.

Interestingly, the podcast tells us that the Waitangi Tribunal in 2010 determined that Ngati Toa never had cultural rights to the Wairau land, this leading to compensation to the value of $25 million to the Rangitane iwi even though they had been defeated in battle by Ngati Toa in the 1830s. Regardless of the Waitangi Tribunal's mental gymnastics in upholding cultural ownership by conquest in some cases but not others, the podcast narrators showed no recognition that under the Tribunal's finding Te Rauparaha had always been fraudulent in entering any agreements over that land or to claim later that he still owned it!

Some of this podcast's account may be true, much of it appeared to be based on oral history that is almost certainly uncertain, and there was almost nothing to promote understanding towards the white players in the events, those evil colonists, except perhaps the customers of the New Zealand Company who are also portrayed as victims of that Company. This kind of exclusively white-blaming portrayal of history appears to be what our children are now being fed at school, and we're all funding it.

A.E. Thompson is a working, tax-paying New Zealander who speaks up about threats to our hard-fought rights, liberties, egalitarian values, rational thinking and fair treatment by the state.