History NZ Database

Eruera Tirikatene, of Ngai Tahu, was born near Kaiapoi in 1895. When the First World War broke out in 1914 he enlisted in the army and served with distinction in France. After the war he set up a number of profitable businesses, including a dairy farm, a timber mill and a fishing fleet. While visiting Ratana pa in 1921 he became attracted to the teachings of the religious leader and prophet T. W. Ratana, and began living there. He particularly admired Ratana's use of the Treaty of Waitangi as a way of seeking justice for Maori and settling land claims. Ratana's emphasis on land claims particularly appealed to him, as Ngai Tahu had been actively seeking redress for their claims since the 1840s. Tirikatene became one of Ratana's key advisers, and led the movement's inner councils. When Ratana decided to win the four Maori Parliamentary seats, Tirikatene was the obvious candidate for Southern Maori. He narrowly missed in the 1928 and 1931 elections. In 1932 he won a Southe...

Apirana Ngata (1874–1950), of Ngati Porou, was born at Te Araroa on the East Coast. He graduated from Te Aute College, and later completed an MA and a law degree. He was the first Maori to complete a degree at a New Zealand University. He returned to the East Coast and became involved in improving Maori social and economic conditions. Unlike a number of other tribes, Ngati Porou had kept much of their land. The young Ngata, armed with legal expertise and determined to achieve progressive farming techniques and land tenure reform, encouraged sheep farming and investment in land development. By 1916 Ngati Porou were running more than 180,000 sheep. Ngata favoured the incorporation of owners into more workable legal bodies. It was a way to retain tribal ownership and to efficiently use land with multiple owners. It also meant fragmented Maori land titles could be combined into viable farming units. During this early period Ngata was also prominent in the Young Maori Party. This movement w...

Suddenly the tribes discovered that large hunter-gathering areas were no longer necessary for their support, while the variety of material goods and possessions of Europeans were attractive items much to be desired. A rapid transformation occurred of the entire tribal system of values. A veritable frenzy of land selling began, some chiefs travelling to Sydney to sell. Of course they encountered plenty of speculators ready to deal with them. The documents recording the transactions exist there today. https://kapitiindependentnews.net.nz/maori-land-use-2-selling-willingly-to-europeans/

The Maori Language Strategy 2003 identifies a significant role for broadcasting in supporting the use of the Maori language and the development of positive attitudes towards it. Even as the Maori Language Strategy was being developed and written, exciting innovations were occurring in the digital environment with potential to stimulate further language revitalisation efforts through broadcasting and other related media, for example, Maori language learning podcasts. In 2007, the Maori Broadcasting and e-Media Outcomes Framework was developed to support new opportunities for promoting the Maori language and culture on other electronic media. This publication summarises key findings from two research projects on Maori language and culture content preferences and general broadcasting and related media use. https://www.tpk.govt.nz/en/a-matou-mohiotanga/broadcasting/use-of-broadcasting-and-e-media-maori-language-and/online/1

Belgrave is a former research manager for the Waitangi Tribunal and has been critical of its reports. The book  includes a chapter examining the ways the Treaty has been re-interpreted over the years to serve the needs of the time. Historical Frictions explores the role of the courts and of various types of commissions in mediating and reinventing historical narratives of colonisation. Author Michael Belgrave shows how the courts became from 1840 places where different narratives of discovery and conquest, of loss and displacement and of claims to resources and mana were debated. These legal debates were not only between Maori and Pakeha; Maori also used the courts to maintain or reclaim traditional rights between Maori and Maori. From this perspective the Waitangi Tribunal is less radical than is often supposed and is seen to be carrying on a similar function to earlier tribunals and courts in the transformation of historical narratives. Historical Frictions covers a number of iss...

In the absence of a universally acknowledged civil government and laws to provide for land ownership, in 1840, the various tribes owned NOTHING. They simply used or occupied it until a stronger bunch of bullyboys came along and took it off them. The only universally acknowledged system of laws was "te rau o te patu" [the law of the club] aka "might makes right." Throughout the 1830s, various Maori chiefs were begging the Crown to intervene in New Zealand. It seems clear that in the lead-up to the signing of the Treaty, most chiefs had come to view British sovereignty and its associated rule of law as the only way to put a conclusive end to the Musket Wars that had ravaged the land for almost two decades prior to 1840. With the coming of the musket, the various tribes possessed for the first time weapons of mass extermination with which to be revenged upon traditional enemies. The farsighted came to see that only outside intervention could arrest this ever-escalating...

Here are a few accounts of this revolting, subhuman practice, culturally institutionalised among pre-European Maori. Hundreds more can be found if one goes looking. Daniel Henry Sheridan, a member of a shore-based whaling party, describes the defence of the Nga-Motu Pa from 28 January to 23 February 1833, by its Maori occupants and a small number of European traders: ‘To the gun I was stationed at, they dragged a man slightly wounded in the leg, and tied him hand and foot until the battle was over. Then they loosed him and put some questions to him, which he could not answer, nor give them any satisfaction thereof, as he knew his doom. ‘They then took the fatal tomahawk and put it between his teeth, while another pierced his throat for a chief to drink his blood. Others at the same time were cutting his arms and legs off. They then cut off his head, quartered him and sent his heart to a chief, it being a delicious morsel and they being generally favoured with such rarities after an eng...

So what does history tell us about our voting system and why did we change to MMP? For a start, in 1978 and 1981, the Labour Party received more votes than the National Party but National remained the government, because they held more electorate seats. That is how First Past the Post (FPP) works. In 1978 the Social Credit Party (now Democrats for Social Credit) received sixteen percent of the vote, but only one seat in Parliament, then twenty one percent of the vote in 1981 which gave them only two seats in Parliament. In 1984 the New Zealand Party received twelve percent of the vote, but no Members of Parliament. These results, along with a growing distrust of politicians due to many broken election promises, and New Zealander's innate belief in fairness, led to calls for a Royal Commission, and change. https://betterdemocracynz.blogspot.com/2010/02/mmp-to-disembowel-or-develop.html

Thousands of Maori died in the intertribal Musket Wars of the 1810s, 1820s and 1830s. Many more were enslaved or became refugees. Northern rivals Ngapuhi and Ngati Whatua led the way, but all the tribes were soon trading for muskets. Muskets (ngutu parera) changed the face of intertribal warfare, decimating some tribes and drastically altering the rohe (territorial boundaries) of others. By the 1830s campaigns had become too costly. With European diseases also taking a heavy toll, warfare gave way to economic rivalry. https://nzhistory.govt.nz/war/new-zealands-19th-century-wars/the-musket-wars

War changed the face of New Zealand in the 19th century. Tens of thousands of Maori may have died in the intertribal Musket Wars between the 1810s and the 1830s. Muskets revolutionised intertribal warfare, decimating some tribes and drastically shifting the boundaries of areas controlled by others. Thousands fled their traditional lands, complicating questions of ownership and opening large areas to potential Pakeha (European) settlement. https://nzhistory.govt.nz/war/new-zealands-19th-century-wars/introduction

Coverage from NZ current affairs shows in August 2015 following death of former Labour Prime Minister (1984-89) David Lange. Clip of Oxford Union debate (0:55​), footage of final press conference as Prime Minister(6:41​), John Campbell interviews Geoffrey Palmer, Roger Douglas, and Richard Prebble (8:39​), and news coverage of Lange memorial on 20 August (21:20​). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJhjTP8K0Mk

The Plucked Parakeet of Hataitai In the days that lie behind, a certain small hamlet of the sons of Ira, situated on the Hataitai peninsula, was surprised by the sudden appearance of a party of raiders of the Rangitane and Ngati-Apa clans of Rangi-tikei, under a chief named Pae-ngahuru. At the very moment that the alarm was given, the chief of the hamlet was about to partake of a meal. The food was just being taken from the steam oven, and was too hot to be eaten hurriedly. Feeling the want of a little light refreshment ere he entered the fray, our worthy chief looked round for some substitute. Seeing some plucked but uncooked parakeets suspended from a food stage hard by, he seized several of them and ate them as he proceeded to meet the enemy. In the light that ensued he succeeded in killing the leader Pae-ngahuru, and when about to despatch him, he cried : - " You cannot prevail against the man of the kakariki hitia (plucked parakeet)." To commemorate the above incident th...

Simon Walker interviews Muldoon Campaign ad from 1975 - the Dancing Cossacks https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=erScQkPr5kQ

A Political Game explores an issue whose origins are to be found in the fi rst decades of this century. It is about the battle for the soul of New Zealand, about an affl uent period in our history when internationalism was popular and idealism was affordable. IN BROAD brush-strokes we learn the context of rugby, politics and apartheid from 1921 through to 1996 and today. What did we do, and why did we do it? What effect did we have not only on New Zealanders attitudes towards sporting and other contacts with South Africa, but on wider related issues such as New Zealands foreign policy? Outside South Africa itself, nowhere was the impact of that countrys racial politics greater than it was in New Zealand. What does this tell us about ourselves? Why was the New Zealand/South Africa rugby connection the subject of such an intense and protracted debate? Rugby did more than mirror emerging cultural values; it stimulated national pride and national feelings. It brought a nation together, pro...

This chapter consists of five letters found by the author in the columns of the “Sydney Monitor” of 10th, 17th, and 20th April, and 1st and 4th May, 1833, giving an account of the defence of the Nga-Motu Pa from 28th January to 23rd February, 1832. by its Maori occupants, aided by a party of Europeans traders resident at that place. As the author lays no claim to a knowledge of Maori history, he asked Mr. W. H. Skinner, Commissioner of Crown Lands for Nelson, and formerly a resident of New Plymouth, who has given the subject of the Maori invasions of Taranaki special study, to write an introduction to the “letters” and to supply explanatory notes of the names given and the customs referred to in them. These Mr. Skinner has done, and a perusal of his work will show how much would have been lost had his information not been at the reader's disposal. http://nzetc.victoria.ac.nz/tm/scholarly/tei-McNOldW-t1-body-d1-d3.html?fbclid=IwAR1Chk6p9uF0zQmwVMNTrSRoFzYJzL2TZRo9oTQtB_OAApSAN6mfNBg...

I will commence my remarks on the growth of the remarkable traffic in Maori dried heads with an account of a battle as given by Rutherford—an eye-witness—in his graphic narrative over seventy years ago. From such a battle as that which he speaks of, the traders derived no small advantage; and the traffic became so great a scandal that in 1831 it was stopped by legislation. Rutherford says: “The two bodies then advanced to within about one hundred yards of each other, when they fired their muskets. They only fired once, and then throwing their muskets behind them, where they were picked up by the women and boys, drew their meres or tomahawks out of their belts; when the war-song was being screamed by the whole of them together, in a manner most dismal to be heard, the two parties rushed into close combat. They now took hold of the hair of each others' heads with their left hands, using the right to cut off the head. Meanwhile, the women and boys followed close behind, uttering the m...

'Though stronger evidence of this horrid practice prevailing among the inhabitants of this coast will scarcely be required, we have still stronger to give.' - Captain James Cook This Horrid Practice uncovers an unexplored taboo of New Zealand history - the widespread practice of cannibalism in pre-European Maori society. Until now, many historians have tried to avoid it and many Maori have considered it a subject best kept quiet about in public. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6459207-this-horrid-practice Author unbowed on book's horrid reaction https://www.stuff.co.nz/auckland/local-news/east-bays-courier/601301/Author-unbowed-on-books-horrid-reaction

This documentary describes the epic struggle between New Zealand's teachers and free market radicals during the 1980s and 90s. In 1984 neoliberal zealots came to power intent on transforming public education. Schools were to be run as businesses competing in the marketplace. Battle was joined over the transfer of teachers' employment from central government to schools, a process called "Bulk Funding". Parents supported teachers in protests and strikes as students faced an increasing unequal education system. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=78rRtaO_ZWo

The documentary series Revolution mapped the social and economic changes in New Zealand society in the 1980s and early 1990s. Revolution (part one) - Fortress New Zealand https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JZXpeUQ0tD8 This first episode focuses on NZ's radical transformation from a heavily regulated welfare state to a petri dish for free market ideology. It includes interviews with key political and business figures of the day, who reveal how the dire economic situation by the end of Robert Muldoon's reign made it relatively easy for Roger Douglas to implement extreme reform. Revolution won Best Factual Series at the 1997 Film and TV Awards. Revolution (part two) - The Grand Illusion https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A7drcQVvpM0 This second episode argues that in its first term in office, the Labour Government promoted neoliberal reform via illusory ideas of consensus and fairness, while PM David Lange mined goodwill from its indie anti-nuclear policy (famously in an Oxford...

Unless you can answer the following questions, you have no idea of New Zealand’s true history. Questions 1. Who smuggled 800 muskets from England into New Zealand in 1820? 2. Who went on a rampage south slaughtering thousands of men, women, and children for the fun of it and the feasts that followed? 3. Why did the 13 Ngapuhi Chiefs write to the King asking for protection? 4. Why was the Declaration of Independence a complete failure? 5. How and when were the boundaries of New South Wales extended to include New Zealand, placing New Zealand under the dependency of New South Wales? 6. Who drafted the instruction for Lt. Governor Hobson to write the Treaty of Waitangi? 7. What did tangata Maori give up in the Tiriti o Waitangi? 8. What did tangata Maori gain by the Tiriti o Waitangi? 9. How did New Zealand become a British Colony? 10. How did Lt, Governor Hobson become Governor of New Zealand? 11. How was New Zealand’s Government formed under one flag to make laws, irrespective of race, ...