THE CHATHAM ISLANDS

Te Ao Hou, December 1957, Page 19

THE CHATHAM ISLANDS When the Hauhau troubles came to Poverty Bay and culminated in the seige of Waerenga-a-hika, Te Kooti was one of those who fought on the side of the Government forces. The Dunlops state that Te Kooti fought by the side of their brother-in-law, Lieut. Ross and was with him when he was wounded. It was here that some of Te Kooti's earlier misdeeds appear to have boomeranged, for Paora Parau, one of the friendly chiefs with whose wife Te Kooti is suspected of having dallied, accused him of trafficking with the enemy. Te Kooti was charged and brought before a court-martial held in the Bishop's house at Waerenga-a-hika, but the hearing resulted in his being cleared of the charge and dismissed with a clean character. Almost immediately afterwards he was arrested and brought before a magistrate, Major Biggs, on a civil charge, this time of stealing a horse the property of Captain Reade. Once again the charge had to be dismissed as Captain Reade did not come forward to sustain his charge. Te Kooti had fought for the pakeha against the Hauhau Maoris. He had been cleared of all charges, civil and military, brought against him.

Yet within a week or so he was again arrested, without warrant, and exiled, without trial. He was shipped away to the Chatham Islands with the Hauhau prisoners and although he made three appeals to Donald McLean for trial, or at least an explanation, he received no answer to any of them. Te Kooti himself always believed that his imprisonment was due to the hostility of Captain Reade and that Major Biggs was his accomplice. Biggs certainly must have authorised Te Kooti's deportation, even if he did not actually sign an order for it. In either case he acted in an arbitrary manner, and without any legal or moral authority or justification. As long after as 1887 Te Kooti told James McKay, the Government Agent in Waikato, that Reade had caused him to be sent away because Te Kooti had set the natives against trading with him. My old friend Ted Burke told me that in his youth it was commonly believed that Reade was responsible and it was held to be a smart piece of work on his part. It is as likely an explanation as any. Had Te Kooti been a chief of rank, or had he possessed friends of influence the deportation could never have taken place. As it was it cannot be denied that many people in high places at least condoned the action, and it was to smoke-screen this unjustifiable course, that so much mud has been slung at Te Kooti. Needless to say Te Kooti reacted with bitterness and rage. Nor is it likely that his fellow captors failed to rub it in to him that he had backed the wrong horse in fighting for the pakeha against his own people, for most of the Hauhau rebels were of the Rongo Whakaata tribe. It is said that in dismissing the horse-stealing charge against Te Kooti, Biggs had delivered himself of a little homily pointing out that pakeha justice consisted in never convicting without proof or punishing without conviction. Yet here, within a week or two Te Kooti found himself punished by banishment without even the shadow of a trial. Captain Tuke who was one of the officers in the Chathams garrison has left an interesting account of Te Kooti's imprisonment and escape. All accounts however agree that during the first two years or more Te Kooti was a model prisoner, quiet and taciturn, giving no trouble and apparently trustworthy. In fact he was given one of the most trusted jobs available, being put in charge of the boats used for loading and unloading the various vessels which called at the prison islands. One evening he appears to have had some sort of a seizure. His life was despaired of, and following Maori custom the other Maoris sought permission for him to be isolated in an old hut, and attended only by an old woman. This was allowed, and it was under these circumstances that Te Kooti's long convalescence took place. He managed to borrow a bible from one of the guards and he set to work to re-write some of the old testament books to his own pattern. It was during this period of convalscence that he began to assert his leadership. It would not be too much to say This sketch is by T. H. Hill, B.A., F.G.S., chief inspector of schools for Hawkes Bay. It was done at Te Teko in 1892. Two fingers from the left hand are missing and there is no tattoo. For what it is worth, the sketch is clearly genuine. (Turnbull Library Photograph) that he began to re-assert it, for there must have been many among his fellow prisoners who would remember his having represented them in the days when he was trading between Tauranga and Auckland. He began to hold morning and evening services, during which he preached his new religion of Ringatu. That he based it on those old testament books which dealt with the delivery of the children of Israel from the Egyptian bondage is not strange. The cases were apposite, and the fondness for the warlike books of the old testament among all the tribes was a source of some concern to Bishop Selwyn and the other missionaries. It was natural and understandable that the Maori nationalists, who had suffered defeat at the hands of the pakeha, and whose lands had been confiscated, should find comfort, and example in the story of Moses leading the exiled Israelites to freedom and to the promised land. It must not be forgotten that the Hauhau religion was much more than a mere religious fanaticism. It was a rallying movement for all those, of all tribes, who refused to accept as final

their defeat at the hands of the pakeha. Te Kooti was not, and had never been a Hauhau, nor was the new religion he preached a Hauhau religion. But it did receive the support of those who had formerly followed the Hauhau creed. In Taranaki the Hauhau banner attracted all those who still hoped for some success against the pakeha and all he stood for. Under Te Kooti the Ringatu flag served the same cause. Te Kooti's hatred and distrust of the white man, his ways and his justice, was all the deeper because he had at one time served him and trusted him, but I do not think that, in its initial stages, Te Kooti's plans went further than to escape from the pakeha and his influence. This is not the place to re-capitulate the story of Te Kooti's escape from the Chathams. It is well known that he succeeded in capturing two vessels and forcing their crews to carry his fellow prisoners back to their homeland. The Government officer sent down to the Chathams to report on the escape made especial mention of the almost complete absence of violence and ill-treatment of their former captors by Te Kooti's men. The officers and crew of the “Rifleman,” though closely guarded during the voyage back to New Zealand, were not in any way molested, and they were given their ship and their freedom, as promised, when the journey was over. Yet Te Kooti and his followers must have known full well that once they returned to Wellington with the news of the rebel landing at Whareongaonga there would be an immediate hue and cry.