RNZ's recent article, The Deadly Battle New Zealand Forgot, is a moving account of the Battle of Waerenga-a-Hika and the suffering endured by many Māori communities. No fair-minded New Zealander would deny that lives were lost, families were torn apart, prisoners were exiled, and communities experienced hardship whose effects continued for generations.
But history deserves more than sympathy alone. It also deserves context.
The documentary makers themselves acknowledge they are not presenting a definitive history. Mihingarangi Forbes states: "We're not trying to create the definitive history of these battles." Instead, the series seeks to preserve oral histories and the experiences of descendants.
There is nothing wrong with preserving oral histories. They are an important part of New Zealand's historical record. The problem arises when those stories are presented to a national audience without the wider historical context needed to understand why these events occurred.
The result is not a complete picture of history, but a selective one.
The missing context of Pai Mārire and the Hauhau movement
Readers of the RNZ article are told about suffering, land loss and exile, but they are given little explanation of the events that led to the Battle of Waerenga-a-Hika.
By 1865, New Zealand was experiencing armed conflict involving militant followers of the Pai Mārire movement. Pai Mārire began as a religious movement founded by Te Ua Haumēne, but some sections of the movement developed into an armed resistance movement against the Crown.
Settlers commonly referred to militant Pai Mārire fighters as "Hauhau", a name derived from their battle cry. Contemporary accounts record that some fighters believed spiritual rituals and chants would provide protection from enemy bullets and ensure divine victory.
However, this was not simply a matter of religious belief. Some militant Pai Mārire factions committed acts of violence that shocked both European settlers and many Māori communities.
At Te Ahuahu in Taranaki in 1864, government soldiers were killed and several were decapitated. In March 1865, the missionary Reverend Carl Völkner was executed at Ōpōtiki, beheaded, and his remains subjected to ritual mutilation by Kereopa Te Rau. Government interpreter James Fulloon was later murdered while carrying out official duties.
These events were central to the government's decision to act against armed Pai Mārire forces.
Even historians often cited as sympathetic to Māori perspectives, including James Belich and Vincent O'Malley, acknowledge this context. Belich describes the way sections of the Pai Mārire movement became involved in armed conflict, while O'Malley records the violence associated with some of its adherents and the impact these events had on the wider conflict.
Remarkably, none of this appears in RNZ's account of Waerenga-a-Hika.
Instead, readers are left with the impression that war simply arrived because the Crown wanted "prime Māori land."
History is rarely that simple.
Not a simple Māori versus Crown conflict
Another important omission is that the New Zealand Wars were not simply Māori versus the Crown.
Many Māori fought alongside government forces against the Hauhau movement. These were not powerless individuals forced into conflict; they were iwi and leaders making political, strategic and tribal decisions based on their own interests.
Vincent O'Malley has repeatedly highlighted that the New Zealand Wars involved Māori fighting on both sides. The siege of Waerenga-a-Hika included substantial numbers of kūpapa (pro-government Māori).
Ignoring their role removes Māori agency from the story and creates the false impression that Māori communities were united behind one position.
They were not.
Land, sovereignty and the causes of conflict
RNZ also suggests that the pressure for war came from a Crown desire to acquire "prime Māori land."
Land confiscations following the wars were deeply damaging to many Māori communities and remain an important part of New Zealand's history. Vincent O'Malley has written extensively about the consequences of confiscation policies, and those impacts should be acknowledged.
However, explaining the Battle of Waerenga-a-Hika solely through land acquisition is incomplete. The immediate circumstances included armed rebellion, killings, regional instability, and the government's determination to suppress what it regarded as an expanding insurgency.
The RNZ article also states that Māori and settlers had "respect on both sides for each other's sovereignty." - That is an interpretation, not an established historical fact.
By 1865, the Crown had asserted sovereignty over New Zealand through its interpretation of the Treaty of Waitangi, while many Māori retained their own forms of authority and independence in practice. Some Māori accepted Crown authority; others resisted it. The relationship was complex and contested.
Reducing this complicated situation to mutual recognition of separate sovereignties oversimplifies a major constitutional dispute that existed at the time.
The aftermath and Te Kooti
The defeat of Pai Mārire forces at Waerenga-a-Hika did not end conflict in the region.
Many prisoners were transported to the Chatham Islands, including Te Kooti Arikirangi Te Tūruki, whose imprisonment remains a subject of historical debate. While detained, Te Kooti developed the Ringatū faith. In 1868, he escaped with fellow prisoners and returned to New Zealand, beginning another prolonged conflict with government forces.
This demonstrates that Waerenga-a-Hika was not an isolated episode of Crown oppression, but part of a much larger and more complicated period of armed conflict.
History requires the whole story
No reasonable person denies the suffering experienced at Waerenga-a-Hika. Innocent people suffered. Families were disrupted. Communities endured trauma. Those experiences deserve recognition and respect.
But compassion does not require selective memory.
If New Zealand teaches only Crown actions while ignoring the violence committed by militant insurgents, or presents every military campaign only as a story of land acquisition, then students are not learning history; they are learning a political interpretation of history.
A mature country should be able to acknowledge multiple truths at once.
The suffering at Waerenga-a-Hika was real.
The violence that preceded it was also real.
The choices made by Māori on both sides were real.
The actions of the Crown were real.
New Zealand's past is not a simple story of heroes and villains. It is a history of competing loyalties, competing visions of authority, conflict, courage and tragedy.
If we want future generations to genuinely understand the New Zealand Wars, they deserve the complete story — not only the parts that fit a modern narrative.
References
Belich, James. The New Zealand Wars and the Victorian Interpretation of Racial Conflict. Auckland University Press, 1986.
There is nothing wrong with preserving oral histories. They are an important part of New Zealand's historical record. The problem arises when those stories are presented to a national audience without the wider historical context needed to understand why these events occurred.
The result is not a complete picture of history, but a selective one.
The missing context of Pai Mārire and the Hauhau movement
Readers of the RNZ article are told about suffering, land loss and exile, but they are given little explanation of the events that led to the Battle of Waerenga-a-Hika.
By 1865, New Zealand was experiencing armed conflict involving militant followers of the Pai Mārire movement. Pai Mārire began as a religious movement founded by Te Ua Haumēne, but some sections of the movement developed into an armed resistance movement against the Crown.
Settlers commonly referred to militant Pai Mārire fighters as "Hauhau", a name derived from their battle cry. Contemporary accounts record that some fighters believed spiritual rituals and chants would provide protection from enemy bullets and ensure divine victory.
However, this was not simply a matter of religious belief. Some militant Pai Mārire factions committed acts of violence that shocked both European settlers and many Māori communities.
At Te Ahuahu in Taranaki in 1864, government soldiers were killed and several were decapitated. In March 1865, the missionary Reverend Carl Völkner was executed at Ōpōtiki, beheaded, and his remains subjected to ritual mutilation by Kereopa Te Rau. Government interpreter James Fulloon was later murdered while carrying out official duties.
These events were central to the government's decision to act against armed Pai Mārire forces.
Even historians often cited as sympathetic to Māori perspectives, including James Belich and Vincent O'Malley, acknowledge this context. Belich describes the way sections of the Pai Mārire movement became involved in armed conflict, while O'Malley records the violence associated with some of its adherents and the impact these events had on the wider conflict.
Remarkably, none of this appears in RNZ's account of Waerenga-a-Hika.
Instead, readers are left with the impression that war simply arrived because the Crown wanted "prime Māori land."
History is rarely that simple.
Not a simple Māori versus Crown conflict
Another important omission is that the New Zealand Wars were not simply Māori versus the Crown.
Many Māori fought alongside government forces against the Hauhau movement. These were not powerless individuals forced into conflict; they were iwi and leaders making political, strategic and tribal decisions based on their own interests.
Vincent O'Malley has repeatedly highlighted that the New Zealand Wars involved Māori fighting on both sides. The siege of Waerenga-a-Hika included substantial numbers of kūpapa (pro-government Māori).
Ignoring their role removes Māori agency from the story and creates the false impression that Māori communities were united behind one position.
They were not.
Land, sovereignty and the causes of conflict
RNZ also suggests that the pressure for war came from a Crown desire to acquire "prime Māori land."
Land confiscations following the wars were deeply damaging to many Māori communities and remain an important part of New Zealand's history. Vincent O'Malley has written extensively about the consequences of confiscation policies, and those impacts should be acknowledged.
However, explaining the Battle of Waerenga-a-Hika solely through land acquisition is incomplete. The immediate circumstances included armed rebellion, killings, regional instability, and the government's determination to suppress what it regarded as an expanding insurgency.
The RNZ article also states that Māori and settlers had "respect on both sides for each other's sovereignty." - That is an interpretation, not an established historical fact.
By 1865, the Crown had asserted sovereignty over New Zealand through its interpretation of the Treaty of Waitangi, while many Māori retained their own forms of authority and independence in practice. Some Māori accepted Crown authority; others resisted it. The relationship was complex and contested.
Reducing this complicated situation to mutual recognition of separate sovereignties oversimplifies a major constitutional dispute that existed at the time.
The aftermath and Te Kooti
The defeat of Pai Mārire forces at Waerenga-a-Hika did not end conflict in the region.
Many prisoners were transported to the Chatham Islands, including Te Kooti Arikirangi Te Tūruki, whose imprisonment remains a subject of historical debate. While detained, Te Kooti developed the Ringatū faith. In 1868, he escaped with fellow prisoners and returned to New Zealand, beginning another prolonged conflict with government forces.
This demonstrates that Waerenga-a-Hika was not an isolated episode of Crown oppression, but part of a much larger and more complicated period of armed conflict.
History requires the whole story
No reasonable person denies the suffering experienced at Waerenga-a-Hika. Innocent people suffered. Families were disrupted. Communities endured trauma. Those experiences deserve recognition and respect.
But compassion does not require selective memory.
If New Zealand teaches only Crown actions while ignoring the violence committed by militant insurgents, or presents every military campaign only as a story of land acquisition, then students are not learning history; they are learning a political interpretation of history.
A mature country should be able to acknowledge multiple truths at once.
The suffering at Waerenga-a-Hika was real.
The violence that preceded it was also real.
The choices made by Māori on both sides were real.
The actions of the Crown were real.
New Zealand's past is not a simple story of heroes and villains. It is a history of competing loyalties, competing visions of authority, conflict, courage and tragedy.
If we want future generations to genuinely understand the New Zealand Wars, they deserve the complete story — not only the parts that fit a modern narrative.
References
Belich, James. The New Zealand Wars and the Victorian Interpretation of Racial Conflict. Auckland University Press, 1986.
Cowan, James. The New Zealand Wars: A History of the Māori Campaigns and the Pioneering Period. Government Printer, 1922–23.
O'Malley, Vincent. The New Zealand Wars / Ngā Pakanga o Aotearoa. Bridget Williams Books, 2019.
O'Malley, Vincent. The Great War for New Zealand: Waikato 1800–2000. Bridget Williams Books, 2016.
Geoff Parker is a passionate advocate for equal rights and a colour blind society.
9 comments:
Another reason for teaching NZ history in all its entirety and accuracy at schools and also promoting the reality (not the political expediency) on a regular basis. Reading lists need to be distributed to all school children and cheap editions of the relevant books used as teaching aids.
It is Radio NZ so one cannot expect anything else. The only time any truth or context slipped through was when a staff member introduced facts on an anti-Russian Ukraine article and got the boot. Narratives must be followed.
RNZ's responsibility as a public broadcaster should be to inform, not curate a preferred historical narrative. Waerenga-a-Hika deserves remembrance, but remembrance without context becomes a political message. New Zealanders deserve the whole history — including the uncomfortable facts that do not fit neatly into today's narratives.
Yet another selective retelling of the past to fit current day objectives
For shame RNZ for shame
Did the Coalition not change the RNZ Board?
Mihingarangi Forbes showing some bias in her work? Surely not.
None of this selective history helps Maori today. They suffer from all sorts of social and economic problems with eg being 45 % of the prison population, over-represented on welfare, solo mothers and economic hardship , infant violence and death stats and more including poorer health.
None of this DEI, CRT driven history of victimhood is at all helpful in resolving current Maori social and educational problems.
Start being constructive RNZ . Cancel culture is not the answer since it is based on deception. We are tired of it .
Who do you trust to tell the full and accurate truth in NZ ?
Certainly, not RNZ or TVNZ.
Government owned and controlled - you could be listening to Radio Moscow or Russia Today.
Our print media telling the truth and disclosing all thats seriously happening in NZ - you have to joking !
TASS or Pravada equivalents.
First of all, kids need to learn to read.... then they ALL need full basic NZ history in the secondary curriculum. Only 10% chose history in the 80s for year 11... Primary kids need basic FACTS [not propaganda] in reading programmes.. Yeah, I can see that happening with uneducated teachers following current brainwashing doctrines.
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