The invasion of Parihaka

From the mid-1860s Parihaka, a Māori settlement in western Taranaki, became the centre of a peaceful resistance movement. Its leaders, the prophets Te Whiti-o-Rongomai and Tohu Kākahi, were of both Taranaki and Te Āti Awa descent. Both had followed Te Ua Haumēne's Pai Mārire faith and played a part in the attack on the Sentry Hill redoubt in 1864, but after 1864 Te Whiti is said to have taken no further part in hostilities. The main grievance was land declared confiscated in the 1860s, and the government's failure to set aside the reserves it had promised. Dispossessed Māori from around the country were drawn to Parihaka, and tribes sent food and other supplies from as far away as the Chatham Islands. Te Whiti's followers adopted the raukura, a single white albatross feather, as a symbol protecting the mana of the movement.

In May 1879 the colonial government moved to occupy the Waimate Plains, surveying 16,000 acres (about 6,500 hectares) of confiscated land without first allocating reserves. Ploughmen from Parihaka fanned out to plough land occupied by settlers from Pukearuhe to Hāwera, survey pegs were pulled out, and when the government built roads across cultivated land, men from Parihaka rebuilt their fences across them. The native minister, John Bryce, introduced the Confiscated Lands Inquiry and Maori Prisoners' Trials Act 1879, the first of many controversial laws that let him keep ploughmen and fencers in prison without trial for up to two years. The West Coast Settlement (North Island) Act 1880 made ploughing, fencing and removing survey pegs offences punishable by up to two years' imprisonment. Prisoners were sent to South Island gaols, where some died; the Crown has since acknowledged that more than 400 protesters were held as political prisoners. In 1880 the West Coast Commission recommended creating reserves for the Parihaka people, and the prisoners were released in early 1881.

Ploughing resumed in July 1881, and John Hall's government decided to act while the governor, Sir Arthur Gordon, was visiting Fiji. On the night of 19 October the outgoing native minister, William Rolleston, signed a proclamation giving the Parihaka people 14 days to submit to the law or risk the loss of all their lands, and Bryce was sworn in as minister for native affairs and defence. On 5 November 1881 volunteers and Armed Constabulary marched on Parihaka, commanded by Lieutenant Colonel J. M. Roberts but under Bryce's direction. NZHistory puts the force at about 1600; Te Ara's biography of Te Whiti gives 1,589. Tohu had gathered the people on Toroanui marae, and about 2,000 sat quietly as singing children greeted the troops. NZHistory says the troops were greeted with bread and song; Te Ara's biography of Tohu says he withheld the planned hospitality because the soldiers had advanced on the village from the rear. Bryce rode onto the marae and ordered the arrest of the leaders. Te Whiti and Tohu, wearing korowai, the traditional dress of their younger days, were arrested. In the following days Bryce ordered the destruction of the village and the dispersal of most of its people. The Sim Commission, which investigated these events in the 1920s, was told that women were raped by troops, with some bearing children as a result.

Bryce had banned the press from the scene. Reporters were ambivalent about the government's actions, but most colonists approved of them. Te Whiti and Tohu were charged with 'wickedly, maliciously, and seditiously contriving and intending to disturb the peace'. After nearly six months in custody in New Plymouth they were moved to the South Island. Parliament passed the West Coast Peace Preservation Act 1882, which provided that neither man would be tried for the offence charged and let the governor hold them wherever he saw fit, and an Indemnity Act protected those whose actions against the protesters 'may have been in excess of legal powers'. The two were allowed home in March 1883 and found the damage done by the constabulary still unrepaired. Parihaka was rebuilt and the protests went on. Te Whiti was imprisoned for six months in 1886, and in 1897, 92 Māori were arrested for ploughing. On the 25th anniversary of the invasion Bryce said he looked back on it with no regrets or misgivings.

Bishop Octavius Hadfield reported that west coast Māori knew Bryce as Bryce kōhuru (Bryce the murderer). In a deed of reconciliation, Te Kawenata ō Rongo, entered into with the trustees of the Parihaka Papakāinga Trust on 9 June 2017, the Crown recorded the apology it gave to the people of Parihaka at the reconciliation ceremony He Puanga Haeata. It apologised for invading Parihaka in November 1881, for the rapes committed by its troops, and for detaining Tohu and Te Whiti for sixteen months without trial, and acknowledged that it had 'responded to peace with tyranny, to unity with division, and to autonomy with oppression'. The Parihaka Reconciliation Act 2019 records the apology and protects the name Parihaka from commercial use. Every year on 7 November the whānau (families) of Parihaka gather to remember the tūpuna (ancestors) who met the Crown's soldiers with songs and gifts of food.