Writing our story
Letters from prominent New Zealanders offer a revealing insight into our history.
The rough outlines of our national story, too, lie in a bundle of yellowing letters. One from 1831, penned by 13 Ngāpuhi chiefs to Britain’s King William IV, seeks protection from lurking French warships. Their invitation prompted the arrival of British Resident James Busby in Waitangi and set the scene for a treaty.
“We, the chiefs of New Zealand assembled at this place, called the Kerikeri, write to thee for we hear that thou art the great chief of the other side of the water … We are a people without possessions. We have nothing but timber, flax, pork, and potatoes … we pray thee to become our friend and the guardian of these islands … lest strangers should come and take away our land.”
We know what came next. The 1860s, in particular, became a decade of bloody conflict as Māori battled with red-coated Imperial forces, land always the nub.
Ngāti Ruanui leader Riwha Tītokowaru’s wars to save Taranaki land sparked this famously defiant (and scary) warning to settlers, in a letter dated June 25, 1868: “A word for you. Cease travelling on the roads; stop forever going on the roads which lead to Mangamanga [Waihi], lest you be left on the roads as food for the birds of the air and for the beasts of the field or for me … I shall not die; I shall not die. When death itself is dead I shall be alive.”
Exactly half a century later, as a world war ended, Dunedinite and conscientious objector Archibald Baxter (father of poet James K Baxter) penned a letter that prompted an outcry after the weekly Truth printed it. Shipped to the trenches in France, Baxter repeatedly refused to submit to British military discipline. He was then subjected to repeated sentences of “crucifixion” and beatings:
“I have suffered to the limits of my endurance, but I will never in my sane senses surrender to the evil power that has fixed its roots like a cancer on the world. I have been treated as a soldier who disobeys (Field Punishment No 1) … It is not possible for me to tell in words what I have suffered. But you will be glad to know that I have met with a great many men who have shown me the greatest kindness.”
World War I also touched the life of Katherine Mansfield, a superb and constant letter writer. The death of her soldier brother Leslie in 1915 prompted her to turn back to her New Zealand childhood, inspiring stories such as Prelude and At the Bay. In 1917, she penned an ecstatic letter to her friend, the painter Dorothy Brett: “You know, if the truth were known I have a perfect passion for the island where I was born. Well, in the early morning there I always remember feeling that this little island has dipped back into the dark blue sea during the night only to rise again at beam of day, all hung with bright spangles and glittering drops … I tried to catch that moment – with something of its sparkle and its flavour. And just as on those mornings white milky mists rise and uncover some beauty, then smother it again and then disclose it. I tried to lift that mist from my people and let them be seen and then to hide them again.”