THE WAIRAU "MASSACRE"
Sir,-in @ puDiicity articie, "Nevised Judgment on Te Rauparaha" announcing a ZB talk, an injustice is done to the impartiality of New Zealand historians, and the sense of justice among New Zealanders. It is asked if Wairau was really a massacre, and it is said that "when passions are aroused it is difficult to get a reliable account of happenings that lead to violence, and what we know of Wairau we know from _ historians whose views of the Maoris could not always have been, in the nature of things, objective." The truth is that from the beginning the overwhelming consensus of opinion among New Zealanders, including their historians, has been that the Europeans were to blame for the affray at Wairau; and it has always been recognised that the killing of the prisoners could be justified, in Maori eyes, by ancient Maori custom. My collaborator in Maori and Pakeha which has been used as a text-book for many years, the late A. W. Shrimpton, thus summarised the contemporary condemnation of the party from Nelson: "The fact remains that all persons in authority whose duty it was to pass judgment on the affair-the Protector of Aborigines, the Commissioner of Land Claims, the Acting-Governor, the Attorney-General, and finally the Secretary of State for the Colonies-on sifting the evidence, were unanimous in the opinion that the conduct of the Europeans violated the principles of law, justice, and prudence, and stigmatised the affair as illegal, unjust, and imprudent in the highest degree." When the new Governor, FitzRoy, arrived, he took a similar line. Te Rauparaha was the’ senior chief, but Te Rangihaeata was responsible for the killing of the men who had surrendered. Shrimpton says he did this as "utu" or vengeance, that is, he followed Maori custom. Years before Shrimpton wrote, Reeves in his classic The Long White Cloud, roundly condemned. the Europeans, gave reasons for Rangihaeata’s action and referred to "the Wairau Massacre, as it was called." On June +17 last, in the daily series of historical talks from 2YA for which Dr. Scholefield and I are responsible, the Wairau tragedy was treated objectively.
ALAN
MULGAN
(Wellington).
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https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/periodicals/NZLIST19491209.2.12.1
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 22, Issue 546, 9 December 1949, Page 5
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357THE WAIRAU "MASSACRE" New Zealand Listener, Volume 22, Issue 546, 9 December 1949, Page 5
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