The Cyclopedia of New Zealand [Auckland Provincial District]
Later Episodes
Later Episodes.
In the later seventies a good deal of trouble was caused for a year or two by Te Whiti, the noted tohunga of Parihaka. Te Whiti's influence with his people was partly religious, partly political, and at his instigation, surveyors were removed and the lands of settlers ploughed up by the natives. At last in November, 1881, Mr John Bryce, then Minister of Defence, invested Parihaka with about 2,000 volunteers and constabulary; and Te Whiti and Tohu, his lieutenant, were arrested without bloodshed, and kept in custody till February, 1883. Since then there has been nothing worthy of the name of trouble as between the Maoris and the colonists. Even the men of the wild Uriwera Country, in the fastnesses of which Te Kooti found sanctuary, have for years been on the friendliest of terms with the people and the Government of the colony, and everything in the nature of Maori war is now, happily, a memory of the past. The years of strife are land-marked here and there by some appalling atrocities, but, in the main, the study of the Maori wars brings to light not only the indomitable courage and heroic endurance of the Maori race, but, as traits in Maori character, a military genius and intellectual resourcefulness which often baffled our ablest men and will ever be admired by British hearts. Henceforward, instead of even remotely thinking of fighting against us, the Maoris will be anxious to fight with and for us, and during the recent troubles in South Africa many of them pleadingly asked to be allowed to assist in upholding the integrity of the British Empire. This shows that the Maori wars have left no sedimentary bitterness in the natures of that brave and generous race.