Other formats

    TEI XML file   ePub eBook file  

Connect

    mail icontwitter iconBlogspot iconrss icon

Notes on Sir William Martin's Pamphlet Entitled the Taranaki Question

Page 92

page break

Page 92.

"The fact is that Wi Kingi strenuously resisted the King movement."………

As Sir W. Martin has quoted pretty fully from Mr. Buddle's pamphlet, it is strange he should not have remarked that the deputation from the Ngatiawa and Ngatiruanui tribes, which came up to yield their allegiance to the King and hand over their lands to the League, had been received at Waikato before hostilities were commenced. It was while the deputation was in the Waikato, and after they had made their most violent speeches, that news came from Taranaki of the breaking out of the war.

But there is ample proof of the connexion of Wiremu Kingi with the Taranaki Land League from the very earliest time. Even so far back as 1848, prior to the great meeting which took place at Waikanae (referred to in the Governor's Despatch of 4th December, 1860), and before the migration, Wiremu Kingi had proposed to Natives of Ngatiruanui and Taranaki to give them allotments of land at Waitara, though they had not the slightest pretence of right to land there, and had not the slightest connection with the Ngatiawa tribe.

It is by no means certain that this proposal was not itself the germ of the land league. The league specifically called the Taranaki Land League was inaugurated at Manawapou in the Ngatiruanui country in 1854, The proposal originally made by Wiremu Kingi to members of that tribe to take up a position with him on the Waitara, with the avowed object of helping to prevent any further sales of land, fully accounts for their support to his proceedings in 1855 as stated by the Rev. Mr. Riemenschneider. They had already for years been bound up in a league with him to prevent the extension of English territory, and the Rev. Mr. Taylor admits that the murder of Rawiri was one of its first results.