"MASSACRE HILL."

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 145, 21 June 1935, Page 6

"MASSACRE HILL."

OBJECTION TO A NAME. (To the Editor.) The decision of the authorities responsible to remove that offensive signboard at Opepo is to be commended, for the affair of Opepe was a military occasion. The capture of that ill-guarded outpost resulted in the death of the brave men whose duty had placed them there. In regrettable contrast to this wise decision to remove a blot from New Zealand's nomenclature is the decision of the Marlborough County Council (by C votes to 5) to retain the unsavoury and historically incorrect name "Massacre Hill" applied to Tuamarina, the site of one of the saddest of many sad incidents of the Maori-pakeha conflicts. The affair of Tuamarina was, in fact, the outcome of a regularly equipped but sadly ill-advised and worse led military expedition. The objective was to arrest the head chief, Te Rauparaha and his equally aristocratic son-in-law, Te Rangihaeata. The issues involved were then actually sub judice"; the natives concerned were at Tuamarina peaceably awaiting the result of a judicial inquiry when that armed force arrived. Te Rauparaha justly resented his intended arrest, and, indeed, indicated reasonable resistance. Thompson, the commander of the force, ordered his men to fire, Fire they did, a succession of volleys. Several natives fell, some wounded and some dead, Then the daughter of Te Rauparaha (ani wife of Te Rangihaeata) was mortally wounded by a spent bullet; she and othef women were at the rear attending to the cook* ing and other domestic affairs of the camp. Tn"en only <iid the exasperated Maoris reply with their muskets, and efficiently so. The European force faltered, then fled, many.falling either from niUßket fire or the tomahawks of" the" pursuing natives. That ill-judged military expedition' was thus wiped out on the battlefield to which it had been led—but why term that defeat a massacre? Now if, oh th"e other hand, those natives had been leSa efficient in their self-defence, and had themselves been decimated by Thompson's force, would that have been a massacre? Would Tuamarina Hill have been renamed to commemorate that fact? Yet during the subsequent sad wars (at Rangiriri and at Orakaii, to mention only two examples), much unnecessary toll'of Maori life was taken,'by musket and sabre, as the refugees from those engagements fldß from the conflicts. Were tliebo incidents' massacres? Let us be fair to the Maori warriors of Ngati-Toa and expunge this name "Massacre Hill" from the map. This is not a matter solely the concern oE the Marlborough County Council, but ona that concerns all New Zealand. GEO. GRAHAM.