Talk:Wairau Affray

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--In recent decades, there has been a strong move to rename this as the "Wairau Incident". Robin Patterson 03:25, 28 Apr 2004 (UTC)

--I'm moving this Wikipage from Wairau Massacre to Wairau Affray. -- PFHLai 04:35, 2005 Feb 6 (UTC)

--However, the Europeans did write the history of the incident: for this reason it became known by the pejorative title of the Wairau Massacre. Wairau Affair or Incident would be a more accurate title, but the facts became lost in a welter of subsequent events and the need to justify the British position

--Isn't this a POV? How do you know the British reasons? And for the families of those killed, it was a massacre.

--To the above: If you get arms and seek to fight, you engage in combat. Massacre would be if they were all unarmed, did not cause any trouble and were civilians in their own right. But these settlers were armed and looking to force the issue. Therefore how can it be said when they lost the initiative, they were all of a sudden massacred. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 60.234.139.214 (talk) 00:01, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

--This Article is completely biased towards the Maori Point of view. It is blatantly obvious to anyone who has any understanding of history that this is infact, incorrect.

--I agree, this sentence in particular: "Twenty-two Europeans died in the incident. It could have been more if the Māori had seriously pursued the rest of the party, but having made their point, they allowed them to escape."

I've fixed this and added a references section. I'll go through the article eventually and adde further references. Can you please sign your comments on the talk page with four tildes. Thanks! Grimhim 03:52, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

--This Article is completely biased towards the Maori Point of view. I SECOUND THAT WHO EVER WROTE THIS needs to get there facts correct —Preceding unsigned comment added by 202.27.47.18 (talk) 04:18, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure what bias you're referring to. I've given the article a bit of a re-work, relying on one major book on the subject so far and replacing the viewpoint material that had drifted into it; I'll bring in other information from other authoritative sources when time allows, as well as move on to the "Aftermath" section.Grimhim (talk) 12:48, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Memorial

We have a page on the memorial on NZHistory.net.nz - http://www.nzhistory.net.nz/media/photo/wairau-memorial - probably should be mentioned somewhere? Jamie Mackay (talk) 10:53, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

Referencing

I've converted this page to a referencing system that uses shortened footnotes. That system is capable of quoting the same source several times, but referring to different page numbers. See Template:Sfn and WP:CITESHORT for how that works. Schwede66 02:42, 16 May 2010 (UTC)

yes it was a massacre

The word massacre is the correct one to describe what actually happened. The settlers did have a deed or title to the land.The settlers were deputized by a magistrate as police to carry out a lawful arrest.The fighting appears to have started by accident.After the fighting stopped a large number of settlers were killed in cold blood and then eaten.Obviously the settlers would not have been so rash if they had known about the chiefs history of extreme violence.Affray is a word you use to descibe people hitting each other with hand bags.Today police raiding the mongrol mob make sure they are fully kitted up to deal with any violence so arrests are peaceful-we learn from history.Claudia Feb 2011 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 125.237.33.244 (talk) 01:34, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

You make an awful lot of points here. 1. Affray means more than people hitting each other with handbags.2. Fitzroy investigated and reported "In the first place, the white men were in the wrong. They had no right to survey the land ... they had no right to build the houses on the land. As they were, then, first in the wrong, I will not avenge their deaths.". So that torpedoes to your paragraphs 2-4. I thinks cops who have to deal today with the The Mongrel Mob would love to be as fully kitted as the Brits were at Wairau, who had cutlasses, bayonets, pistols and muskets. I have removed the word "tomahawked" that you inserted in the article. It is unreferenced, and demonstrably one sided. We don't say Māori were split asunder with a cutlas or spiked on a bayonet). Moriori (talk) 02:21, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

Also if you look a little higher up this page you will see this exchange from 2007. Poster 1 -- " And for the families of those killed, it was a massacre." Poster 2 -- "If you get arms and seek to fight, you engage in combat. Massacre would be if they were all unarmed, did not cause any trouble and were civilians in their own right. But these settlers were armed and looking to force the issue. Therefore how can it be said when they lost the initiative, they were all of a sudden massacred. " Moriori (talk) 03:00, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for replyng.I cant recall at the moment where the "tomahawked" came from-I think it was a coroners report(I'll check when I have time and put it up) which lists exactly how they died,their injuries etc.I think the implication -maybe even the definite statement was this happened after the fighting had stopped-again I'll double check .I think you overlook, or are not aware that the settlers, being deputized, were actual police.They did have a legal warrant for the chief's arrest-not for issues to do with land but because he had burnt a hut to destroy the surveying instruments that were inside .Even in those days being arrrested didnt mean you were guilty.They would have been well aware that Maori in those days, and particularly when they knew a fight of some kind was looming, were likely to be geared up. Bohan has made the point that it was quite common in fact for Maori in those early years after the treaty, to simply refuse to comply with the law because they knew very well they could either avoid arrest or use force to free a person from jail .I have read probably 5 or 6 cases when this happened -come to think of it I have never read an account when a Maori submitted to the law peacefully .Massacre is the correct word as this is what happened to the captured settlers AFTER the fighting stopped.Killing people in cold blood is not an affray!In the Oxford dictionary an "affray" is "a fight , a noisy quarrel,or a disturbance in a public place, from the Latin meaning to break the peace".Clearly this was far more violent-on a differnt plateau altogether.If the killing of the prisoners had not taken place then the correct word would have been battle.It was the killing of the prisoners that turned it into a massacre.A massacre in the Oxford is "wanton or savage killing" that hits the nail excactly on the head .Think about this -was the killing of the Moriori on Chatham Island an affay?No -it was a massacre.Quoting Fitzroy weakens your point-if you have read any of the detailed accounts about him you would realise that he was in an impossible position when it came to enforcing the law.After the event he was bound, as a politician to defuse the whole situation to avoid a full scale uprising for which the government was woefully ill equipped.Claudia Feb 2011 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 125.237.38.135 (talk) 20:09, 14 February 2011 (UTC) The ref to the Tomahawked comes from Broad ,Lother.1892.The Jubilee History of Nelson.The rev Ironside and John Kidson went looking for survivors 3 days after the event.Their account makes it clear that the wounded were killed by tomahawkes and in some cases mutilated.This kind of psychological warfare did in fact have the desired effect-the British backed off .It is clear from Maori accounts that the Chiefs did want to sell the land but but had not been offered enough cash.Claudia feb 15 2011 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 125.237.38.135 (talk) 23:04, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

I agree. We are talking about a battle, followed by the killing of prisoners, where 26 people died. This sort of event is simply not what 'affray' means.

Is the word 'massacre' correct in this context?. The key point, I think, is this: was the second event (killing the prisoners) separate from the fighting itself? Deaths as part of a battle are not a massacre, but killing a number of unarmed and defenceless prisoners 'in cold blood' is a massacre. See List of events named massacres for some context. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 192.190.108.19 (talk) 00:29, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

It is not clear from the contemporary accounts how soon after the shooting stopped the massacre began.Wakefield surrendered thinking he was dealing with civilized people who thought like him.The chief, who had his woman killed, demanded utu immediately apparently, so it is likely the wounded and prisoners were killed within a short while of the cease fire.From the arrangements of the bodies as found by the 2 men ,it seems that many of the wounded were in fact killed where they lay .This would be consistent with normal Maori practice in those days.Some symbolic "gifts" were put under Wakefield's head but I dont know what they signify nor have I read comments about that.Claudia Feb 2011 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 125.237.38.135 (talk) 20:45, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

Ad Claudiam

I have reverted to a clean version for two reasons: the lack of spaces after punctuation; and the introduction of nonsense names such as Ngati Toawho. This is probably the unspaced version of Ngati Toa, who ... but is doubly bad since it happens to look like a Maori word. In a previous edit I had elimated that, but an Anon reverted to the messy version without giving an explanation for doing so. Kahuroa (talk) 07:45, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

The meaning of utu

For non Kiwis here is an explanation of the Maori traditional practice of utu or payback.In all Maori society utu was one of the several common beliefs that underpinned their belief system and led to so much violence in both traditional and post contact NZ.Other key ideas are mana meaning importance,prestige,power,authority and take meaning just cause for action.A chief was tapu or sacred because he had mana-which was built up by display of power -this could be material ie well built Pa or fine canoes , having high quality weapons,large stores of food.If anything lowered his mana this was seen as just cause(take) to use or threaten violence to get equal(utu).As Maori had no separate criminal justice system to regulate their society,they used this method -what I would call lore and order.Every Maori knew that if you did something to upset a chief and cause him to lose mana there would be hell to pay .A slave or a person who was noa(ordinary)could be killed or robbed and often little or nothing would happen-slaves generally had no great value and could be exected for the most trivial 'reason'with no utu expected.In some cases utu could be satisfied by the giving of acceptable gifts-the most acceptaple were preserved food such as birds or eels. Therefore, killing the captured was considered by all traditional Maori perfectly normal ifa chief or his property (eg his woman) was harmed.Gradually, as the influence of missionaries, christianity and British culture in general started to influence the majority of Maori, these traditional practices started to die out but at the time of the Wairau massacre/utu executions the traditional beliefs held sway. By the time of the land wars in the 1860s Maori understood that killing of prisoners was to the British abhorrent,though Maori still considered it ok to kill isolated settlers-even children as late as 1863.During the invasion of Auckland by the war-mongering Ngati Maniapoto, bands of Maori targeted soft targets such as farmers out in their fields in the Wairoa Valley and at Ramarama. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 125.237.36.156 (talk) 00:25, 19 May 2011 (UTC) Utu in the case of the Wairau massacre was for several reasons according to a variety of Maori sources-firstly the killing of the chief's wahine but also for several events that had given Maori "Take"or just case in their lore or tikanga.Firstly Maori were very upset about a pakeha settler being released after he had been charged with the murder of a Maori women in Wellington. They were also annoyed at the unresolved land issues in the area.Claudia June 2011 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 125.237.37.112 (talk) 00:58, 5 June 2011 (UTC)

Interpretation of Wairau

It seems a reasonable and accurate interpretation of the Wairau battle and the utu or massacre that followed, that the NZ company did have a legal title to the land. After all they did have the deed and they did have its provenance. Te Rauparaha was an invader from the north who had taken the land by conqest from a branch of Rangitane who lived in the Wairau valley for many centuries. This is quite consistent with the known history of both Te Rauparaha and Rangitane.Te Rauparaha was a shrewd customer . Like many conquering chiefs of that period, he saw the treaty as a way to officialy validate his claim on land that was not actually his at all.

It is interesting that in the Spain enquiry he claimed that the group had called out they were christians one moment (by showing the testiment and calling out "we are christians and we dont want to fight") yet within perhaps 2 minutes his warriors are clearly out of control slaughtering many unarmed people (the quakers and others) who were running away. His evidence is interesting as ,of course, he had killed all the British witnesses so could say anything without being challenged.Utu was clearly not a christian belief so what was Te R up to ?In private he had said he was astonished that the British had not immediately come to Wairau and reclaimed the land by force-clearly he expected them to. This would have been Maori Tikanga. What Te R didnt realise was that the British were civilians with no military force to back them. When the governor did eventually arrive he quickly saw the lie if the land(he was not called "the man of war without guns" for nothing) and did everything he could to pacify Te R, much to the horror of the settlers, who within months had started a succesful campaign to get rid of him. In 2010 Rangitane started a Treaty of Waitangi claim for the Wairau valley.The raupatu compensation is in the order of $2 to $4 million for that area.Te Rauparaha had been so keen to validate his 18 year old conquest in 1840 that he signed the treaty Of Waitangi twice -the only chief to do so.Claudia June 2011 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 125.237.37.112 (talk) 23:51, 5 June 2011 (UTC)

The character of Te Rauparaha and Rangihaeata

Historians have noted that litle reliance can be placed on what these 2 Maori warrior said .They should be judged by their actions.They stand condemmed by the treacherous double game they played against the settlers at Hutt Valley a year or 2 after Wairau, when British troops intercepted letters between the 2 men which showed beyond any doubt their scheming ways .P184 The Newest country in the world .Paul Moon. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 222.153.158.54 (talk) 07:44, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

Hi Claudia. Your contributions are being reverted because they are poorly written, poorly formatted and without reliable in-line references. Please read Wikipedia:Citing sources for instructions on how to cite in-line references and Wikipedia:Fringe theories for an explanation of why fringe sources such as Paul Moon are not reliable.

It would also be of great help to yourself if you got a Wikipedia account so that people could discuss your work with you in one central place, hopefully resulting in your contributions being better sourced, referenced and formatted so that they can stand as written or with minimal editing. Cheers. Daveosaurus (talk) 08:25, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

Paul Moon would have a good laugh at being called a fringe source. I believe he has written about 12 books on Nz history-most of them to do with the early history of Nz. He is employed by a leading Tertiary Educational provider in NZ and is regularly consulted by the media to interpret historial Nz events or there impact today-far more than any other historian in Nz. The only public criticism I could find was a small piece by a rather extreme Maori academic who criticised Moon's book on canabalism. The basis of the criticism was that it didn't show Maori in a good light. By all means please help correct any editing errors.Thanks.Claudia.June 2011 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.58.190.22 (talk) 08:49, 1 July 2011 (UTC)

Doubt over spelling of Blenkinsopp

The family of Capt Blenkinsopp have indicated that the old English records show that the family name was spelt both ways. These spelling differences were very common up until the 20th century with many if not most surnames.

If he was active in the 1840s he would be long dead by now. I suggest you try to trace his headstone (if he has one) or those of his descendants (if he has any) to see what spelling he used. Daveosaurus (talk) 05:56, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

Unable to find details of headstone-Im assuming he was buried in Australia where he drowned but the Wairau land deed in question, which presumably was drawn up by the good captain or his legal advisor, has the name with a single p,not two. I'd say this is fairly conclusive. Most of the "descendants" seem to be on the Maori side. He appears to have been "married" to 2 Maori women including Te Rongo,the women who was shot by the armed posse at Wairau. It was a very small world then.