In God they did trust
Missionaries contributed to the settlement of New Zealand, often acting as mediators between Maori and settlers.
Pre-colonial missionaries prepared the way for the Treaty of Waitangi, says historian Keith Newman in his book that discusses their role in the forming of New Zealand.
At first, inter-tribal warring hotspots were dampened through missionaries acting as peacemakers, who then later played those roles between European officials and Maori chiefs, as the potential for conflict arose around land-sale negotiations.
On arriving in Aoteoroa, the missionaries immediately set up schools and churches and taught children and adults to read English and the Bible.
These students then shared their newfound knowledge with others. As a result fewer of the ‘‘less acceptable’’ Maori customs were practised, such as acts of infanticide, polygamy, killing of slaves and others.
Newman says it was the dawn of ‘‘the great baptism period’’ and consequently there were fewer outbreaks of war, cannibalism and utu.
However, he says, the missionaries’ promises and principles were betrayed by property dealers, ‘‘high church’’ overlords and the Crown.
In 1836 the head of the Wesleyan Mission, John Bumby together with fellow missionary John Hobbs travelled up the western length of the North Island to find locations for more mission stations. At Ngamotu they found the small group of Te Atiawa people left behind after their tribe’s migration south from warring Waikato tribes four years earlier. The ‘‘squalid conditions’’ the people were living in touched the missionaries who later on, from the Rev John Whiteley’s mission at Kawhia, organised for two Maori teachers to bring the Christian message to those at Ngamotu and any others they could find in the wider Taranaki region. One of these teachers, Nera, had been a renowned warrior with the Waikato, who, before becoming a devout Christian had taken part in several major battles against the Taranaki people.
Nera, baptised Wiremu Nera, returned to the province a changed man, working to prevent fighting between Waikato and Ngati Ruanui near Hawera. He helped to gain the release of Waikato slaves held in Taranaki since the 1832 raids. He showed his bravery and commitment to peaceful relations when he narrowly escaped with his life while kneeling to pray at Patoka Pa, near Waitotora. Nera was trying to prevent war breaking out between the people of Patoka and Ngati Tuwharetoa and mediated between the two, but as he knelt to pray, two of his companions were shot by Ngati Tuwharetoa. Despite this, peace was brokered between the tribes.
Progress in peaceful relations may have been made by the missionaries and their students, but pressure was soon put upon them by the New Zealand Company that was actively buying up large tracts of land from Maori for Pakeha settlement. In 1839 there was urgency to finalise an earlier deal for the mission station land at Ngamotu to be secured. For a deposit of two blankets and some fishhooks, 90 acres was bought from Ngati Awa for the purpose, but after other claims to the land they were left with a portion of that, just enough to establish the mission.
Near the mouth of the Mokau River, the Rev Cort Schnackenberg ran a Wesleyan mission that continued for many years. There followed another prominent missionary, Johannes Riemenschneider, who after an attempt to establish a ministry inland up the Mokau River at Motukaramu, founded a successful station at Warea. The people at Motukaramu had been welcoming to the German. However, on discovering that Catholicism has already been established in the area, Riemenschneider set out to find a place he could be of most use in his teachings to people who as yet hadn’t heard the word of God.
The Rev Henry Turton offered Riemenschneider a position at Warea, in coastal Taranaki. Turton himself covered a large area and was in need of help to attend to the large numbers of Maori returning to their ancestral homes after being released from slavery in the Waikato tribal lands. With so many Maori unbaptised, Riemenschneider accepted the post.
He met most of his new charges as he travelled to Warea with Turton. Many of the Warea inhabitants were driving pigs to sell in New Plymouth to raise the funds required for their new flour mill. The pair returned to New Plymouth with them and Riemenschneider retrieved his belongings from Motukaramu, having been accepted into the fold. A house had been built for him on his return to Warea, and the Maori-speaking German settled into his new role. But controversy wasn’t far away.
The Anglican missionary, Rev William Bolland, who resided at the St Mary’s vicarage in Henui, publicly debated that Riemenschneider, as a Wesleyan (under the auspices of the Wesleyan-north German Mission Society), was preaching to Bolland’s own flock, the Anglicanconverted Maori. Riemenschneider rebuffed that he wasn’t looking for converts and wouldn’t turn anyone away who wanted to hear him preach.
The resulting confusion was resolved when it was discovered Riemenschneider was actually from Martin Luther country, rather than Catholic, Anglican or Wesleyan and this resulted in a celebratory hui over four days, hosted by chief Paroa.
Riemenschneider went on to have a successful parish with many learning the Christian faith under his guidance, but he found himself increasingly busy when hundreds of Maori began returning home from the south after deciding it was safe to do so with the diminished threat from the Waikato. European settlement gave increasing confidence to ex-taranaki Maori to return, but as they did, land-sale activities were creating a new tension in their old home grounds.
With slow payment for land bought and early occupation by the Pakeha buyers, there was much to be tense about and confusion began to reign. The missionaries increasingly found themselves as mediators between parties, not just Pakeha and Maori but between rival tribes as well.
‘‘The missionaries worked hard ground,’’ writes Newman, ‘‘among a fiercely intelligent and cynical people who challenged and questioned them at every step until a rapport and respect was reached.’’
It wasn’t education, he says, or the Treaty of Waitangi or the stand against injustice that won Maori over, ‘‘but the enduring love of the missionaries, their confidence and belief that all men and women are equal under one God, that made the difference.’’