Lessons from Rangiaowhia

If a plaque is to be attached to the Colonel Marmaduke Nixon memorial in Otahuhu, telling the true story of the 1864 massacre of women and children at Rangiaowhia, a subsequent tragedy should also be included. It is a story of divided loyalties, missionary treachery and murder. As a direct result of the sacking of Rangiaowhia, trust in Christian missionaries evaporated, a missionary was hanged by Ma¯ori as a spy and one of his executioners was later hanged for murder.

A number of women, children and old men were killed at Rangiaowhia in May 1864 during the land wars after being advised, by military aides to General Duncan Cameron and local missionaries, to seek save haven in the little town from the looming battle at nearby Pa¯terangi. The missionaries had played a significant role in the establishment of the town some 30 years before the land wars as a secondary goal to converting Ma¯ori to Christianity. By the early 1860s Rangiaowhia was the centre of a thriving agricultural enterprise which initially supplied wheat, flour, fresh fruit and vegetables and pork to Auckland. After the invasion of Waikato by the British, a number of missionaries were suspected of supplying information about Ma¯ori movements, weaponry and defence plans to General Cameron and were ordered by Rewi Maniapoto to Waikato. Rangiaowhia then supplied the Maori defenders with food.

The town and surrounding fields and orchards were therefore seen as a legitimate military target and many of the women and children who had sought refuge there were unnecessarily killed.

One of the defenders of Pa¯terangi was Kereopa Te Rau, and his wife and two daughters were burnt alive at Rangiaowhia. The following day his sister was killed at nearby Hairini. After the sacking of Rangiaowhia, Kereopa no longer trusted missionaries and he denounced Christianity converting to Pai Ma¯rire which had been established by Te Ua Haume¯ne in Taranaki. Kereopa took the new philosophy to the East Coast when he cautioned the local people about missionary treachery.

One of the East Coast missionaries was Carl Volkner who had been sent to New Zealand by the North German Missionary Society, arriving in August 1849. He was ordained a priest in 1861 and took charge of the CMS mission station at Opotiki in August that year. There he worked among Te Whakato¯hea, who built a church and a school for him.

Like many other missionaries, Volkner saw nothing wrong in providing information to the British about Ma¯ori military matters. In May 1864, Volkner was discovered sending information to Auckland about Ma¯ori forces and military strength and was rebuked by leading members of his congregation. When he went again to Auckland during 1864 and again in January 1865, he was warned by members of Te Whakato¯hea not to return to po¯tiki or he would be killed as a spy.

He ignored the warning and returned to po¯tiki in March 1865 where he was caught by Pai Ma¯rire prophets including Kereopa. Volkner was tried and hanged the following day by his own Whakato¯hea congregation outside the church they had built for him. He was then taken down and decapitated, and his eyes were gouged out and swallowed by Kereopa as revenge for the murder of his family and for spying for the British.

For several years Kereopa was sheltered by the Tu¯hoe people in Te Urewera but he finally gave himself up to prevent further British actions against Tu¯hoe.

Kereopa was convicted of the murder of Volkner at the Supreme Court at Napier in December 1871. A European witness, Samuel Levy, testified that he had seen Kereopa among those who escorted Volkner to the willow tree from which he was hanged. The former missionary William Colenso appealed unsuccessfully for clemency on the grounds that the crime had already been punished by executions and land confiscation. Mother Mary Aubert, of Father Reignier’s mission at Napier, stayed with Kereopa during his last night. It was Reignier who had baptised Kereopa as a Roman Catholic 30 years earlier. Kereopa was hanged on January 5, 1872, at Napier. In 2014, as part of the settlement of Nga¯ti Rangiwewehi’s Treaty of Waitangi claim, Kereopa was pardoned for his role in the death of Volkner.

An additional plaque for the Nixon memorial at Otahuhu, as has been suggested as an alternative to removing it, should tell the full story of the Rangiaowhia massacre and its sad aftermath eight years later. To turn traitor against those who have given unquestioning trust is the ultimate betrayal.

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR