Tuesday, April 29, 2025

Colonisation and the burden of guilt



A friend recently lent me a New Zealand book published in 2021 and called The Forgotten Coast, by Richard Shaw. The title is odd because it tells you nothing about the book’s contents. The same is true of the cover photo, which shows the author as a boy (at least we must assume it’s the author) holding up a wriggling eel that he appears to have just caught. Its relevance isn’t clear.

The book is unusual in other ways too. On one hand it’s the painstakingly researched biography of a brilliant young Catholic priest, a great-uncle of the author, who died tragically young from TB; on the other, it’s a breast-beating mea culpa over the injustices suffered by Taranaki Maori in the 19th century. Unable to make up its mind, it weaves uneasily between the two narratives.

Nonetheless I found The Forgotten Coast interesting because I have a few things in common with the author. Shaw, a professor of politics at Massey University, has deep family roots in Taranaki. His forebears were Irish Catholics and his great grandfather was part of the Armed Constabulary that took part in what is now called the invasion of Parihaka.

Shaw’s family settled on land confiscated from Maori and became prosperous farmers. These things trouble him, and his book involves a lot of anguished self-flagellation. He takes what some Australian scholars would call a “black armband” view of our history, meaning he sees aspects of it as deeply, ineradicably shameful. This obviously weighs on him personally.

Unlike Shaw I’ve never lived in Taranaki, but my maternal family roots are there and I could relate to his family history. My mother’s family were devout Irish Catholics too. Mum grew up in Hawera – my grandfather wrote a history of the town in 1904 – and my family tree on her side is Taranaki to the core. My grandparents and great-grandparents are buried in the Hawera cemetery (and a lovely cemetery it is, to be sure). I visited their graves only a few weeks ago.

I have other points of identification with the author. He recalls that as a pupil at Francis Douglas Memorial College in New Plymouth, he took part in a long-established Catholic secondary schools’ speech and debating contest called the O’Shea Shield. So did I, although a decade earlier, in 1967. (My school, St Patrick’s College, Silverstream, won the shield that year, but no thanks to me. My team lost its debate against an opposition lineup from Sacred Heart Whanganui that included my cousin Damian de Lacy and a confident verbal skirmisher named Ruth Richardson.)






More to the point, however, my great grandfather, like Shaw’s, was part of the colonial forces that he depicts as ruthless enforcers of Maori subjugation. John Flynn, my mother’s grandfather (pictured above in later life), wasn’t at Parihaka, but he was a combatant in the Battle of Te Ngutu o te Manu (the beak of the bird), north of Hawera, in 1868. That was the battle in which the celebrated Prussian adventurer Gustavus Von Tempsky was killed and his men were ignominiously routed by the brilliant guerrilla chief Titokowaru. Twenty soldiers lay dead or dying when the smoke cleared. John Flynn, who served with the Taranaki Rifle Volunteers, was lucky to escape alive; he was shot in the thigh and carried to safety by his comrades during an arduous seven-hour retreat through the dense bush.

My other maternal great-grandfather, Charles Quin, later commanded the Normanby Volunteer Rifles in the small Taranaki town of that name, although hostilities had subsided by then and he never fired a shot other than in target practice. So I’m waist-deep in connections with the colonial oppressors whom Shaw condemns. And it gets worse, because my forebears, again like Shaw’s, took up land made available by the government; land presumably taken from Maori, although I’m not sure whether, in Charles Quin’s case, it was acquired fairly or confiscated. I do know that he ended up with substantial holdings near Normanby and Eltham.

There’s little doubt that a great injustice was done in the way land was taken. As Shaw explains, the law was arranged to facilitate easy acquisition of Maori land by white settlers and to restrict what Maori themselves could do with it. Even worse, Maori were sometimes forced to sell land to repay debts imposed by the Crown.

Deplorable? Certainly, and Shaw doesn’t hold back. His assiduously researched, eloquently crafted and sometimes painfully introspective book generally supports the orthodox left-wing academic line that colonialism was a brutal assertion of white supremacy.

I can sympathise up to a point. Every time I drive anywhere in New Zealand I’m aware that this wondrously rich, beautiful and bountiful country was once all Maori. It’s not hard to understand their resentment that they now control only a small portion of it (albeit a steadily expanding one).

I can also share Shaw’s distaste at the way a colonial template has been super-imposed on our history as if Maori didn’t exist. This is evident in all sorts of small ways. Driving through Patea, for example, I can’t help but notice that all the streets have staunchly English names – Norfolk, Cambridge, Dorset, Victoria, Manchester – despite roughly half the population identifying as Maori. 

More problematical, however, is the author’s struggle to come to terms with his family’s role in the colonisation process. He writes at one point that he doesn’t bear personal responsibility for what happened in the past, which is obviously true, yet the entire book is shot through with guilt and shame.

Here he and I, for all that we may have in common (Taranaki, Irish Catholicism, ancestors who took up arms against Maori) part company.

I am neither proud nor ashamed of my forebears in the Taranaki Volunteers and the Normanby Rifles. They acted according to the prevailing attitudes and values of their time. To judge them according to 21st century standards is to engage in what is known as presentism: a tendency to interpret past actions and ideas according to our rather smug feelings of moral superiority. Shaw’s ancestors were creatures of their time, just as he is.

In any case, New Zealand history is complex and highly nuanced. The relationship between Maori and Pakeha was rarely straightforward. This was borne out by a recent Newsroom book review in which the historian Ron Crosby pointed out that more Maori fought on the side of the British Crown than against it – something you won’t read in histories that present the conflict as a straightforward one between Maori and the colonial invader, with no inconvenient caveats. In later life even Titokowaru became an advocate of peace between the races.

My own family history offers evidence of the ambivalence in Maori-Pakeha relations. Although John Flynn fought against Titokowaru’s Hauhau warriors, he spoke te reo and was on friendly terms with most Taranaki Maori – a fact attested to by his ability to travel unaccosted through the bush between New Plymouth and Hawera at a time when most Pakeha hesitated to venture beyond the safety of their towns.

Shaw himself refers to a tension between Pakeha who sincerely wanted to do the right thing by Maori and others (such as Native Affairs Minister John Bryce, who ordered the invasion of Parihaka) who had fewer scruples. He reminds us that New Zealand’s first Chief Justice, Sir William Martin, not only opposed confiscation of Maori land but pointed to Ireland as an example of how a “brooding sense of wrong” could leave a malign, long-lasting legacy. (That so many Irish, themselves victims of oppression and dispossession in their country of origin, should themselves become dispossessors of Maori is an irony not lost on the author.)

There are some things I can agree with Shaw on. One is that we need to know more about the totality of our history, not just the bits that shore up our comforting national mythology. He’s right when he says we pay more attention to Gallipoli and El Alamein than to the battles fought on our own soil.

That’s changing, as books such as the recently published Toitu Te Whenua, Lauren Keenan’s journey through the battlefields of the New Zealand Wars, demonstrate. But it’s a painfully slow process. The British, Americans and Australians celebrate their warts-and-all histories far less timorously than we do. How many people, for example, have spent their lives in Lower Hutt without knowing that eight British soldiers were killed in 1868 in a skirmish at Boulcott’s Farm, now the site of a local golf club?

It follows that we shouldn’t forget the past. We should face it squarely and try to remedy historical injustices wherever practicable (as governments have tried to do over the past several decades). But not forgetting is one thing; bearing a personal burden of guilt seems to me to be quite another.





15 comments:

Anonymous said...

It is one of the enduring tragedies of our time that history is increasingly judged not by what actually happened, but by what serves contemporary political narratives. When individuals such as Willie Jackson claim that they cannot be held accountable for the acts of their ancestors—and they are right in that—yet simultaneously justify present-day entitlements, preferences, or political reparations based on ancestral grievances, they engage in a selective moral accounting that has little to do with justice and everything to do with power.

The notion of presentism—judging the past by today’s values—is not only intellectually lazy, it is dangerous. Societies that constantly look backward in anger rarely move forward in prosperity. Maori settlements are framed as a remedy for historical wrongs. Yet in practice, such measures are more about redistributing guilt and grievance than fostering real reconciliation or economic development.

The Māori, like all peoples, have a complex history—including periods where they were the conquerors, not merely the conquered. To cherry-pick certain historical episodes and ignore others to construct a narrative of perpetual victimhood is not only dishonest—it undermines the capacity for people to rise above the past. Justice must be individual, not tribal. Rights belong to people, not groups. The moment we grant political or economic privileges to people based on ancestry, we no longer have a nation of equal citizens—we have a caste system enforced by the state.

The real question is not what happened in the 19th century, but what policies will enable all New Zealanders—regardless of ancestry—to thrive in the 21st. History can inform us, but it should never be used to imprison us in endless cycles of resentment and redistribution.
That is not justice. That is tribalism dressed in the robes of modern politics.

LNF said...

Anon - you are 100% right

Gary Peters said...

An excellent commentary and comment. "Divide and Conquer" is the adage. We have certainly been divided so who is coming to conquer?

D'Esterre said...

Many years ago, I read "The Fox Boy", by Peter Walker. It's quite a story, and one about which I hadn't known. I recommend it to commenters here. I passed that book on to a family member.

"....it’s a breast-beating mea culpa over the injustices suffered by Taranaki Maori in the 19th century."

To some extent, this description also applies to Walker's book. I think it may well be true of any such accounts. People who set out to write them generally (it seems to me) have as their purpose the illustration of pakeha crimes: we're supposed to feel guilty over what happened.

"There’s little doubt that a great injustice was done in the way land was taken."

A young relative who's studied law has pointed out that, in signing the Treaty, the tribes conceded sovereignty. Then they rebelled against the Crown. That's treason: confiscation of land is the very least that they could have expected by way of consequences. This is another way of looking at the issue.

"...this wondrously rich, beautiful and bountiful country was once all Maori."

It's important to remember that, prior to first European contact, NZ wasn’t a bucolic paradise: it was Hobbesian. Tribes were ruled by hereditary elites; slavery was the norm. Inter-tribal conflict was frequent and violent, cannibalism routinely practised. The indigenous population was small, and made smaller by the depredations of the Musket Wars, in which settlers played no part. Access to food had been under pressure for centuries: the large flightless birds had been hunted to extinction by about 200 years after the first Polynesians arrived, and they had no viable cultivars, aside from the kumara, which really did best in the north of the North Island. Had it not been for Cook's arrival, and his return bringing megafauna - pigs and chickens, eg - and for sealers and whalers bringing the cabbage, carrot and potato, there'd likely have been a large scale indigenous population crash due to starvation. European contact probably saved the indigenes from extinction.

You comment on the English street names of Patea: That area was part of my childhood. In those days, the population was almost exclusively pakeha, which goes some way to explain the English street names. As I recall, it was the closure of the Works in the late 70s /early 80s which saw the rise of the Maori population.

"I am neither proud nor ashamed of my forebears..."

Ditto. All of us should feel likewise. Nobody - either Maori or pakeha - now alive, played any part in what happened in the 19th century.

I used to be a supporter of Treaty settlements. But no more. I've come to realise that we the contemporary taxpayers are being expected to pay for wrongs and perceived wrongs committed by other people's ancestors. Even had they been our ancestors, it is still wrong to expect us to pay. We're no more guilty for what happened in the past than are Maori

We have extended family in central Europe. People are all too aware of the awful things which happened there during WW2. But our family members were all born after the war. None of it is anything to do with them. A family member there takes the view that, given that nothing in the past can be changed, they must look forward, and try to make their country the best it can be for everyone. I agree: that's the attitude that we in NZ should take.

Anonymous said...

The comments are at least aa interesting as the du Fresne text. 'A lawyer relative' is quoted giving final say on ceding sovereignty. No mention of Ned Fletcher's who's story of the English Text of the Treaty says both Māori and English texts are in fact recognising f that the Crown did not ask Māori to cede, but to look after their own.
All histories are histories of the present. For a range of reasons . New information comes to light, or what was viewed as an open and shut case becomes problematic
And it's not about guilt but realising that those of us who benefited from confiscations if land continue to benefit. As those who lost land continue to be in the bottom quintile of statistics.

Originz said...

Excellent comments that enhance Karl’s already insightful article, D’Esterre. Especially your third point. Unceasing claims by “Maori” for a share in the prosperity of NZ always remind me of the story of the Little Red Hen.
The back-breaking work of developing the land and making it as productive as it is today was done by dedicated individuals who (hopefully) enjoyed the fruits of their labour but also established a foundation for those who came after and carried it on. For unrelated individuals of whatever race to want to grab a share of it now “as of right” is lazy and greedy. When I drive the country and see the vast shelter belts, woodlots and beautiful ancient exotic trees, but see few new trees being planted and nurtured, I fear that we are resting too much on the laurels of the pioneer settler heroes.

Karl du Fresne said...

D'Esterre:
Re Patea, I can only comment that the Maori population you refer to must have lived somewhere before the works closed. At a wild guess I would say it was most likely Patea.

D'Esterre said...

Karl, my observations date from my childhood in the 1950s. As I recall, some Maori lived around marae on the outskirts of the town. "The Fox Boy" provides an explanation for why that was so.

It's all a very long time ago, and I no longer go there: have only passed through it once or twice in recent times. Until I read that book, I hadn't known anything about that particular history.

Your account of family connections to the Hawera area prompted some reminiscing here. The Irish side of my family settled in that general area, having arrived in NZ under the aegis of Vogel's assisted migration scheme. They came here as family units, many descendants still living thereabouts. I have said to friends - not entirely jokingly - that anyone with an Irish name in that part of the world is likely related, by marriage, if not by genetics. A near neighbour and I didn't realise that our great-grandmothers had been sisters, until said neighbour acquired a genealogy from another relative in that area. Large Irish Catholic families, huh?

The O'Shea Shield: named after Archbishop O'Shea, I believe. One of his relatives married into my extended family. And good old SHC, the alma mater of your cousin and of Ruth Richardson: I have family connections to that school as well. It's closed down now, as doubtless you know.

Gary Peters said...

As a descendant of one who was deported to Oz for rabbit stealing so therefore deprived of everything they had I would hate to have my life and it's successes and failures attributed to the past.

There are those that like to wallow and there are those who get up and progress.

We are all victims in some measure if we look hard enough.

D'Esterre said...

"A lawyer relative' is quoted giving final say on ceding sovereignty."

That was an opinion, and it wasn't represented as a final say, but another way of looking at the issue. In the 1970s, when I was a young adult, I learned the Maori language to a fair degree of fluency, so I was then able to read the Treaty in both languages. The Maori language version is a translation of the English version. Note that the term used for this country in the Maori language version is "Nu Tirani": a transliteration of "New Zealand". Not Aotearoa, which wasn't the Maori name for NZ.

Both versions are unequivocal: sovereignty was ceded. It's that issue which prompted so much debate on the part of the chiefs gathered at Waitangi for the signing. The proceedings of the Kohimarama Conference in 1860 confirmed this. The minutes are in the National Archives, I believe. Modern interpretations are just that: interpretations.

Note further that sovereignty and rangatiratanga aren't synonymous. Chiefs weren't asked to cede rangatiratanga, ie, the exercise of their chiefly authority over such lands and peoples as they controlled. Had they been asked to do that, it's unlikely any would have signed. But they agreed to cede sovereignty, while keeping their rangatiratanga.

There are no principles. nor is there any mention of partnership: no 19c monarch could have contemplated an arrangement of that sort with their subjects.

"... it's not about guilt...."

You had better believe that it is. And of all the emotions we might be expected to feel, guilt is the most useless. It achieves nothing but resentment: none of us was alive in the 19th century. We had no say over events back then. We now alive bear no responsibility for any of it.

"As those who lost land continue to be in the bottom quintile...."

If it's being claimed that the bottom quintile is occupied exclusively, or almost exclusively, by landless Maori, it would need to be backed up by evidence. It certainly runs counter to my own experience and that of many others. Not all Maori are poor, and not all poor people are Maori.

Anonymous said...

Karl, your comment that the land was 'once all Maori'. The problem is I believe, that Maori themselves were never 'once all Maori'. Family first, tribe etc second - rings a bell re the deposed current Labour party philosophy, n'est pas?

Doug Longmire said...

Excellent post, D'Esterre.
The points you make are well balanced.

Anonymous said...

Interestingly, Patea was once called Carlyle but the settlers wanted it changed to Patea, same with Raleigh to Waitara and Petre (a disliked man) to Wanganui.
On the white -guilt front I know personally a couple in their 70s who feel guilty and are totally opposed to the ''English'' empire and so forth.
One is of Irish ancestry, born in NZ, who still fights the Irish wars through opposition (armchair) to the Westminster system. He has no problem with the Omagh bombings, for example. His wife is a Scottish nationalist who has become more bitter down the years.

They both see the colonisation of NZ as unjustied and that it should never have happened. However, they are not responsible for it. They support all the treaty settlements and Maori ''rule'' measures.
I suggested to them that although they didn't ''do it'' they have benefitted immensely from colonisation with two properties of substantial value. And that as ''legacy colonisers'' who have acquired what was once ''all Maori'' land they are as ''guilty'' as the rest of us. Oh no, they insist.
Hypocrites.
There is a solution, I suggested, as they back decolonisation and insist it should never have happened. That is 1. Approach local iwi (all part- white actually) and do a deal for their properties to be returned to ''Maori''. 2. Leave NZ (after all, their legacy presence as white is unjustified). 3. Both steps aid decolonisation. 4. They get the moral high ground by returning to Scotland or Ireland. Oh no, that will not be happening. But others can pay through others' land and taxes.
To be blunt, whites here who oppose colonisation so much should ''go home''.
We still have new migrants from the UK and Eire saying how much they detest colonisation and the ''empire'' without realising they are latter-day colonisers.

rouppe said...

Exactly right.

The protagonists in this story might have a connection to the activities at the time in Taranaki. Many New Zealanders of today do not.

My parents came here as young people escaping the difficulties of post-WW2 Europe, and family troubles.

Neither they, nor I, participated, perpetuated or profited from confiscations. They bought land (in the BoP) that was available on the open market, believing it to be freehold.

Every time my taxes are directed towards settlements, the feeling now is more like being convicted and fined for crimes we didn't commit.

Doug Longmire said...

Extremely well summed up, Anon.