Talk:Moriori genocide

Balance between lead and body

I know this is early on in the process but the balance between the lead (lede) or introduction and the body of the article is not useful at the moment. I think much of the detail sould be moved down into the body of the article. See WP:lead.

..plus a couple of other comments questions... Moriori Genocide or Moriori genocide? which is more appropriate referencable - I see Te Ara avoids the G word altogether and uses "annihilation" which I kind of find more appropriate and accurate.

I am uneasy with the tone of much of this article - the majority of the events in this article took place before there was a government in New Zealand and at a time before organised colonisation and settlement. True Europeans were absolutely disruptive because of their technology and religion but they were not really in control of anything at the time most certainly not the musket wars. The musket wars were more a rush to account for hundreds of years of pent up utu not some grand racist plan by Europeans. The Moriori got one of the most extreme tragic consequences of this utu through no fault of their own. But please be careful of revisionst history it will only hurt those supposedly being helped. Andrewgprout (talk) 01:13, 1 March 2021 (UTC)

Andrewgprout (talk) 01:13, 1 March 2021 (UTC)

The Armenian Genocide page is capitalised, that is where I got the idea to capitalise the word genocide from. Also, I believe the Europeans, being the dominant power and having a huge and near endless supply of guns and soldiers, were very much in control of the situation. I also made sure it was clear that the genocide (yes, genocide, the attempt to eliminate a group of people in full or in part- you can't deny that this was a genocide) happened under British non-governmental rule, and continued until the 1860s, when there was a localised government. Regardless of whether it was a British military administration or a government largely made of white men who had emigrated from Britain, the fact they chose not to intervene is indicative of strong and ruthless white supremacist ideology, and I have multiple sources backing this up. It is tacit, as the UK at the time tried not to be explicitly racist, but painfully clear that the British desired to show that the "greater races" replaced the weaker before getting replaced, in a form of racist Darwinism, and that the British at the top of this "food-chain" would be the replacers of Maori. So as for the Musket Wars, yes the Europeans didn't start them, but were pleased to see Māori wipe each other out, and become weak and divided, as this would stop any sort of united resistance and back up their ideology....for the British it couldn't have worked out better Also, as for the "self-published source", I did not write that, and couldn't have because I don't know how to make a website. Finally, we must make the European involvement in this clear, to avoid this entry being used to hypocritically defame Māori when the perpetrators couldn't have done it without colonial arms and apathy. Aubernas (talk) 01:16, 3 March 2021 (UTC)

@Aubernas: I think you need to stop reading modern morals into every action from 150 years ago. I have tried to read what you wrote above but I really am having trouble understanding this at all. I don't think you can assume in 1835 Europeans were the dominant power in NZ, that would be far from true for a couple of decades to come. I suspect this is the root of your confusion. Also most initial contact between Europeans and Maori had surprisingly enlightened and philanthropic ideals yes it went all tragically wrong after but in 1835 this was still mostly so. Andrewgprout (talk) 02:39, 4 March 2021 (UTC)

Also I have deleted the photo

The photo I believe is of the Armenian genocide - quick reverse image lookup on tineye.com confirmed. So I have removed it. If you are writing on a topic of historical importance a general idea of when photography was developed would help. This only furthers my disquiet about the POV behind creating this article. Andrewgprout (talk) 01:24, 1 March 2021 (UTC)

@Aubernas: Please see the below examples from tineye of the photo identified as Armenian - all but one of them. These are not hard to find.

https://tineye.com/search/10b13ce46b1ad5b75f3b93c44180ccd053fc1ef8?sort=score&order=desc&page=4

As said all this does is question the overall validity of the site claiming these are Moriori in 1835 which is effectively before photography. Andrewgprout (talk) 02:38, 1 March 2021 (UTC)

colonialism as a trigger for the invasion.

It is dubious to say that colonialisation and land loss was one of the triggers for the invasion by Maori. It appears quite well established that the displaced Taranaki tribes in Wellington that went to the Chathams, were displaced because of the domino like musket wars within maoridom in the decades before the 1830s. These musket wars were the effect of centuries of pent up utu let lose by the availablility of European muskets and European potatoes. Colonisation (NZ was not a colony in 1835) and land alienation came later. Andrewgprout (talk) 02:53, 4 March 2021 (UTC)

NPOV issues

Large parts of the article seem to be sourced from non-neutral and possibly self-published sources, and the language in several sections is loaded (e.g. "brainwashed"). I don't know enough about the topic to be comfortable making changes to a potentially very sensitive article, but it needs a thorough cleanup. 2001:700:300:4106:3917:11A8:A458:FB2F (talk) 09:30, 8 April 2021 (UTC)

I have removed the "brainwashed" additions from earlier, apart from that can you be more specific on which parts of the article you have issue with? Greyjoy ^talk 09:35, 8 April 2021 (UTC)

Pretty much all of the body of the article is unsourced. That's unacceptable for such an article as this.  Nixinova   T   C   08:26, 5 May 2021 (UTC)

Rewrite

I have undertaken a complete rewrite of this article. Content from the old revision may be added if it is sourced as much of the claims weren't previously.  Nixinova   T   C   21:36, 15 May 2021 (UTC)

Thank you Nixinova that is so so much better. Andrewgprout (talk) 00:41, 16 May 2021 (UTC)

Thanks Nixinova!--Aréat (talk) 01:27, 16 May 2021 (UTC)

Genocide?

Freely admit that I am not all that familiar with this topic, but calling it a "genocide" seems questionable to me. The only sources before the existence of this article that use that word is the E-Tangata piece cited in the article, and an Atlas Obscura article saying that Andre Brett, a historian, has argued that the events were not mass killing, but rather genocide. Brett has also published an article in the Journal of Genocide Research arguing as such. Other sources used in the article don't use that term, however.

For example, The Spinoff source doesn't describe it as a genocide, instead saying that Māori from Taranaki arrived on the Chathams, and "shortly after they arrived they killed around 300 Moriori and enslaved the rest". The Guardian source uses similar phrasing, saying that "the accepted wisdom was that the Polynesian settlers of the Chatham Islands, who arrived hundreds of years before Māori, were wiped out by invading Māori tribes, who killed and enslaved their population after landing on the islands in 1835". The Te Ara source describes it as an "annihilation", where "around 300 Moriori were initially slaughtered, and hundreds more were enslaved and later died". The Radio NZ describes it as an "invasion" where "a sixth of the Moriori population were murdered and those left behind were taken as slaves".

It seems to me, personally, that most of the sources speaking about these events don't describe it as a genocide. The word genocide carries such significant weight - heck, it's described on the genocide article as being "widely considered the epitome of human evil" - that I think if we're going to call something a genocide, there needs to be significant evidence for it. Don't get me wrong, hundreds of Moriori were undoubtedly killed and many more enslaved - I am not seeking to minimise that at all.

But most of the sources talking about it do not use the word "genocide". It doesn't seem to me like there is consensus that these acts constitute a genocide - again, speaking personally, they don't really seem equivalent to the other "genocide of indigenous peoples" they're listed alongside in the genocide infobox. I think that a better alternative here might be to either merge this article into another one, or to rename it to something such as "Moriori mass killings" or "Invasion of the Chatham Islands". Just my thoughts.--LivelyRatification (talk) 03:19, 18 July 2021 (UTC)

There are two ways to decide that some event is a genocide: We can find a good definition, then assess the actions against the definition; or we can check reliable sources, and see whether they describe it as a genocide. You seem to be going with the latter approach—which is totally fine—but in doing so, you kind of dismiss the historian who explicitly describes it as genocide. I haven't read through everything to check, but if it is as you describe, then we have some sources calling it a genocide, and many who choose not to comment on the word (or simply don't consider the word). I don't think this is reason enough to avoid the word, especially given the alternative assessment:

If we were to find ourselves a good definition (eg, per the genocide article, the intentional action to destroy a people … in whole or in part), the event almost certainly classifies as a genocide, and the only reasons not to consider it so would be A) because the question of intent were in dispute (as in, the invading tribes intended to destroy the Moriori, but did not intend to destroy their existence as an ethnicity or a people), or B) because the idea of a genocide is (in Western ideologies) a modern name for something that historically occurred with great frequency, and would not have been thought of as wrong until the 20th century (ish). I think (B) is not a good enough reason to consider changing the name of the page when the word is in use by at least some people, and (A) is hard to argue when we already include passages like the following:

During the period of enslavement the Māori invaders forbade the speaking of the Moriori language. They forced Moriori to desecrate sacred sites by urinating and defecating on them. Moriori were forbidden to marry Moriori or Māori or to have children. This was different from the customary form of slavery practiced on mainland New Zealand.

In short, I think that without any sources arguing against the notion of "genocide", we shouldn't dismiss that description, especially on the back of at least one historian who has written extensively and explicitly that the word applies. I vehemently oppose any merger of this subject into some other page, especially as a way of seeking to avoid calling a genocide a genocide. I am less opposed to alternative titles, such as "invasion", but I do think they would be ill-fitting, and would not accurately convey the events that followed any initial invasion. Similarly I think "mass killing" doesn't convey the extent of what happened. But I would certainly not oppose adding a section, subsection or even footnote on the word itself and how it applies (or doesn't) to the Moriori. — HTGS (talk) 06:05, 18 July 2021 (UTC)

Yeah, I am going with the latter approach that you describe here - but to clarify, I don't disagree with retroactively applying the genocide definition. I think the issue here might mainly be that there isn't exactly an abundance of sources relating to this event, hence why I suggested the possibility of merging, though the events do meet WP:GNG, in my view, and the article as it stands is certainly fine enough to stand alone, so I might retract that.

Generally, my thoughts on this can be summed up as followed: while there are some sources that do call it a genocide, and none that explicitly rebut that idea, most contemporary sources don't use that term when describing the events, which suggests to me that there isn't consensus that this constitutes a genocide. If it were to be renamed, I'd suggest something similar to Black War#Characterisation as genocide be added to the article, adding information about how the event has been characterised as a genocide - or if it wasn't renamed, adding a section on how other sources have characterised it. --LivelyRatification (talk) 07:29, 18 July 2021 (UTC)

Title change (capitalization)

In accordance with MOS:AT, I propose to move this article to "Moriori genocide" (lower-case G). —VeryRarelyStable 07:26, 24 July 2021 (UTC)

I see that Armenian genocide (referred to above) now has a lower-case G, as of 23 May. This too is in line with MOS:AT. —VeryRarelyStable 10:09, 24 July 2021 (UTC)

I will make this move within the next 7 days unless there is objection. —VeryRarelyStable 23:58, 25 July 2021 (UTC)

Go ahead. I see no reason why this would be controversial.-gadfium 02:04, 26 July 2021 (UTC)

No problem, I clearly had issues with this from the start. I have some sympathy for the above discussion in favour of changing the g word completely in the title. I am unsure that genocide is commonly used to describe what happened here. I would be much happier if there were considerably stronger references supporting such use. As I said above somewhere above Te Ara uses the term annihilation, which removes the question of weather Maori and Moriori were sufficiently distinct for the word genocide to be appropriate. Andrewgprout (talk) 04:54, 26 July 2021 (UTC)

I don't see any concrete proposal for an alternative title in the discussion above. This would be a good time to propose one, rather than potentially going through multiple renames. I personally have no problem with the article being titled with "genocide".-gadfium 05:28, 26 July 2021 (UTC)

I think "genocide" strikes the appropriate balance between "invasion", which is too weak for what happened, and "annihilation", which is too strong, since there are still Moriori left.

Regarding whether Moriori and Māori are distinct, well, Moriori certainly see themselves as distinct. The introductory paragraph of Māori people reads

The Māori are the indigenous Polynesian people of mainland New Zealand... Some early Māori moved to the Chatham Islands where their descendants became New Zealand's other indigenous Polynesian ethnic group, the Moriori.

The introductory paragraph of Moriori reads

The Moriori are the native Polynesian people of the Chatham Islands (Rēkohu in Moriori; Wharekauri in Māori), New Zealand. Moriori originated from Māori settlers from the New Zealand mainland around AD 1500... Over several centuries these settlers' culture diverged from mainland Māori...

And I can report that New Zealand anthropologists and archaeologists treat Moriori as a separate ethnicity, without debate. This isn't a point of contention in academia.

Besides which, I have to query how relevant any of this is to the question of whether to call the events of 1835 a "genocide". Moriori were and are inarguably more culturally distinct from Māori than German Jews were from German Gentiles in the 1930s, and no-one disputes the characterization of what happened to them as a "genocide" (well, unless you count the crackpots who deny that it happened at all).

—VeryRarelyStable 05:57, 26 July 2021 (UTC)

The final alternative I can think of is "massacre", which does accurately characterize the level of violence that occurred. But it doesn't capture the subsequent attempt to eradicate Moriori culture, the way "genocide" does. My vote is for keeping "genocide". —VeryRarelyStable 21:56, 26 July 2021 (UTC)

@HTGS: @LivelyRatification: Any alternative suggestions or comments before I make the change? —VeryRarelyStable 07:21, 27 July 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for the ping. I have no issue with the lowercase G. I will add that—ignoring the comparison to German Jews and gentiles—I agree, the Moriori and Māori were clearly ethnically different. And, as I outlined above, I prefer the word genocide for similar reasons. — HTGS (talk) 07:44, 27 July 2021 (UTC)

I think it'd be best to lowercase it. I'm still a bit uneasy with the use of the word "genocide", but that being said, I can't think of much of an alternative. --LivelyRatification (talk) 08:56, 27 July 2021 (UTC)

“Colonial abetting” of invasion

@Aubernas: part of the issue with your adding statements about the Crown’s responsibility to protect Moriori is that you are citing Maui Solomon, who is clearly not an impartial source on the subject. If you want to add this sort of take back in (i.e. the onus of the Treaty, and the Moriori as crown subjects), you should read WP:INTEXT first. — HTGS (talk) 20:13, 4 April 2022 (UTC)

@Aubernas As stated there was no crown until 1840 by which time the genocide (not the somewhat dire after affects of it, but the actual killing bit of the genocide) had happened. The crown had patchy control over much of NZ for many decades after 1840 due to population and resources, and maybe a desire not to involve themselves in "intra native" matters. Look at the history of the King country or the Tuhoe land if you want to gauge how much control Pakeha had for many decades in these areas. It is also questionable how much the treaty was meant to protect Maori/moriori from other Maori/Moriori - from exploitative Pakeha absolutely but not necessarily other Maori. It would be interesting to muse on weather the Treaty actually was a barrier to such protection as it was supposed to (at least in the Te Reo) enshrine the ability for Maori to look after their own affairs, which runs somewhat counter to your claim that the colonial government from 1840 should have and could have provided immediate protection to the slaves of Maori on the mainland and in the Chathams. It also appears that it was the "big bad" colonial government that forced the abolition of slavery on the islands in 1863 - somewhat ironic given your prevailing POV. Andrewgprout (talk) 01:11, 5 April 2022 (UTC)

@Aubernas: I feel I should weigh in since I'm one of the ones who's reverted your changes.

For one thing, you twice edited a paragraph so that it repeated information. The first paragraph of the "Invasion" section already said

This group arrived in two waves. The first arrived on 19 November 1835 via the hijacked European ship Lord Rodney... The second group arrived on 5 December 1835.

so if you felt the paragraph needed to open with

In November 1835 the two tribes seized the Rodney, a Sydney trading ship then in Wellington Harbour, and the journey was made to the Chatham Islands with about 470 Ngāti Mutunga and Ngāti Tama... A second trip to the islands assisted by Pākehā mariners was made with about 430 on board.

then you should have redacted the repetition. Otherwise it's rather apparent that someone edited in haste without reading ahead.

That's a secondary concern, however. A more serious issue with your edit was

The latter myth was taught extensively in New Zealand schools as a way to deceive the next generation of Māori into believing they had no true claim to New Zealand and were "no better" than Pākehā.

I need to be very clear here. I largely agree with your political stance, though you will have gathered not everyone here does. But that doesn't make this kind of writing appropriate for Wikipedia. There is a place for editorializing and a place for foregrounding value judgements, but Wikipedia is not either one. Wikipedia is a place for stating verifiable facts in plain language. I think yours is a reasonable interpretation of the motivations of those who promulgated the Pre-Māori Moriori myth in schools; but until someone finds an actual note pressed into some old book in the Ministry of Education saying "How can we deceive the next generation of Māori into believing they have no true claim to New Zealand and are no better than Pākehā?", it's not a verifiable fact.

I've looked at your Contributions history, and this appears to be an ongoing issue with your edits. I think you need to understand that putting opinions and interpretations and political slants into Wikipedia is not going to slip them under the radar of anyone whose politics are in disagreement with them. It is far more effective in the long run to state the facts and let people figure out the implications for themselves; which, as it happens, also aligns much better with the philosophy of Wikipedia.

—VeryRarelyStable 05:45, 5 April 2022 (UTC)

Racist posting of 'European diseases'

This is racist rewriting of history. First, It is not China virus, it is Covid. Refering to a disease as a people is disgusting bias. Second, None of the diseases even originated in Europe, but were rather mostly Asiatic in origin. 118.37.13.130 (talk) 07:37, 6 April 2022 (UTC)

Calling something "European" doesn't equate it to people. European badgers are not people, for example. It's not like anyone called them "white diseases".

We don't call Covid the "China virus" because there really has been a myth going around that the Chinese government, and by extension all Chinese people, are responsible for creating and spreading it. Thus, it is important not to add to the existing confusion. No-one is similarly blaming all Europeans for spreading disease around the world.

Also, Covid is just one disease, and can be most easily referred to as "Covid". "European diseases" is a collective term which would otherwise have to cover "smallpox, measles, influenza, rubella, chicken pox..." and a long list of others.

Most of these diseases originated in animals somewhere on the Eurasian continent, but all of them came to New Zealand and to the Chatham Islands with European visitors and settlers. Those that had local variation were represented by their European variants. Europe was their point of departure.

You are edit-warring, problematizing a non-controversial phrase, and being needlessly aggressive. These are the kinds of behaviour which can end up getting you blocked from editing if you persist in them. I suggest you calm down before that happens.

—VeryRarelyStable 08:05, 6 April 2022 (UTC)

Oral history of Moriori migration

I think it’s a bit dangerous, or at least confusing, to only lay out that oral tradition has Moriori arriving in the Chathams from East Polynesia around 1500AD. The source that’s pulled from gives it with a bit more complexity, and I think we should either give the modern scientific take (arrival from NZ), or give more depth to the legend (or both). From the Maui Solomon source:

For the record, the first Moriori ancestors, according to our own traditions, arrived directly from Eastern Polynesia to Rēkohu. Later waka came over from mainland Aotearoa me Te Waipounamu (it’s a three- to five-day sail) about 500 or 600 years ago. Some stayed and settled and intermarried with ngā uri o Rongomaiwhenua, our founding ancestor from whom all Moriori descend today.

— HTGS (talk) 04:54, 5 December 2023 (UTC)