Children and War: A Historical Anthology

16. Children and the New Zealand Wars: An Exploration

Chapter Sixteen Children and the New Zealand Wars An Exploration Jeanine Marie Graham The armed conflict which disrupted indigenous (Maori) and settler (Pakeha) relationships in several North Island regions of New Zealand during the 1860s was esssentially a war about government policy. Maori fought on both sides; colonists criticized Crown strategies; eminent Pakeha espoused the legitimacy of the Maori cause; military and political authorities quarreled openly over the nature of the campaign to be conducted.1 For much of the country’s immigrant population, resident in the South Island, the war touched child and adult lives lightly, if at all. Most Maori lived in the warmer North Island, where few tribes were unaffected. Communal lifestyles and a strong oral tradition ensured that successive generations heard, from an early age, the stories of conflict, confiscation, and land alienation . Only in the late twentieth century did awareness of the injustices of the 1860s and their repercussions begin to filter through into a wider New Zealand public consciousness. Catalyzed by a disputed land purchase, fighting began at Waitara in North Taranaki 1860–61, spread to South Auckland and Waikato in 1863, extended to the Bay of Plenty by 1864, intensified in South Taranaki during 1865, and involved communities in Poverty Bay and Te Urewera from the mid-1860s onward. Pakeha children lost lives and livelihoods but their families were usually supported in some way by colonial authorities. The adverse impact of wartime destruction on Maori children was exacerbated by legislation which permitted the large-scale confiscation of tribal lands as a punitive measure and undermined the communal nature of Maori land 216 ownership.2 Yet demographic, geographic, cultural, and political factors enabled most colonial children, in and beyond the regions concerned, to grow up with minimal knowledge of the issues involved and without any comprehension of the consequences for the dispossessed. This was not an ethnic conflict, although racist rhetoric infused contemporary debate, but its repercussions caused major disparities between two societies that had co-existed with a high degree of mutual acceptance, friendship, and respect . This essay explores the nature of children’s involvement in the New Zealand Wars of the 1860s. It suggests that, despite clear differences in the severity of the impact, both Maori and Pakeha chidren were affected directly and indirectly, with consequences that were both short- and longterm . Whether Pakeha or Maori, those who developed formative impressions during these years and in the decades following were likely to have grown up with attitudes that would prove resistant to change. The legacies of Pakeha ignorance, Maori mistrust, and intertribal differences are still evident in contemporary political and social discourse. Disruption, displacement, and destruction were the most common experiences of youngsters whose routines and surroundings were disturbed during the nine years of war which followed the declaration of martial law in Taranaki on February 22, 1860. Seasonal planting and harvesting routines were broken; the crops, stock, food stores, and homes of both communities were destroyed. As imperial and colonial forces grew in size and campaign strategies became more punitive, the scale of damage for Maori increased. The“scorched earth”and“bush-scouring”tactics used against tribal groups in South Taranaki (January 1866), Bay of Plenty (January 1867), and Te Urewera (May 1869) occurred at the height of the growing or harvesting seasons when supplies could not be replenished.3 Infant and child mortality rates were already high, largely because Maori were only slowly building up immunity to introduced diseases: Food shortages further weakened children ’s resistance.4 Settler children living in confined and over-crowded quarters during periods of “alarm”also had a much less nutritious diet than normal. Yet, as with the military forces who were paid and provisioned by official agencies, rations were supplied and compensation promised. Only in the aftermath of war, and in response to the pleas of local officials, was minimal assistance provided to some “widows and orphans” and Maori communities who were themselves impoverished as a consequence of trying to succour their displaced kin.5 Children and the New Zealand Wars 217 Disturbances in one tribal domain influenced youth in another because of traditional loyalties. Within the Waikato, for example, the mission schools at Otawhao and Waipa lost older pupils as parties of Ngati Haua and Ngati Maniapoto traveled south to assist their Te Atiawa kin at Waitara. The girls, especially, would...