Walk #141, 23rd November 2024

These are two beautiful parks in New Plymouth connected to one another. Brooklands park has a rich history. There are historic trees, a 2000 year old Puriri and a very old Ginko tree.

There’s a colonial hospital building from the 1840s, a chimney from a homestead burned down in the Taranaki Land Wars of the 1860s, a zoo, and the Brooklands bowl where people go for outdoor concerts.

Pukekura park has the tearooms, fountains, waterfall and three picturesque lakes framed by trees, gardens and red bridges.

Walk: Taranaki 7

Hospitals

After the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi, Māori leaders petitioned government for hospitals. Funding for Māori hospitals was allocated in 1846 and the first hospitals were commissioned. The first public hospital in New Zealand opened in Wellington in 1847. Māori use of hospitals was evident from the outset.

Te Ara NZ: Establishment of hospitals in New Zealand

The Gables (above) is the sole survivor of four public hospitals built in the period.

History of the land

New Plymouth and Taranaki have a history of conflict. While we hear all about Te Whiti and Parihaka, and the nonviolent protest against land confiscation and colonial domination in the 1860s and 1880s, we never about the massacre at Tataraimaka. Tataraimaka was taken possession of in the early 1860s by right of conquest from the Europeans, who were all driven off.

I think Parihaka is great, it ended non violently and without injury except for a foot which was accidentally stood on. I talked about it with a Ngati Awa man a couple of years ago. He wasn’t aware of the European refugees from Taranaki who’d been driven off their farms and wound up in Nelson. We need history from both sides.

The following was taken from a letter by the Rev. Samuel Ironside and reprinted in the Taranaki Herald 27 June 1863;

In 1838 the whole district in question, embracing 100 miles of coastland, was depopulated. There were not more than twenty to thirty souls left there. The Waikato tribes and those further north, had overrun the place ; hundreds of the people had been killed and eaten, hundreds more had been carried into slavery by their victors, hundreds more had been driven into exile towards Cook’s Strait and Queen Charlotte’s Sound. The above twenty or thirty were all that were left in occupation.

The chiefs all signed the deed of sale. Among the parties to the sale was Wiremu Kingi who turned violent and rebellious. He was then called E Witi. They were all too glad to sell the land, and get payment for it, as they dare not return to occupy it for fear of Waikato.

Waikato

When the Waikatos heard of the sale of land which they claimed by right of conquest, they threatened vengeance against the remnant of Taranakis, and a war party of several hundreds started off to exterminate them. The missionaries including Ironside succeeded in preventing bloodshed; but the Waikato chiefs then and there asserted and maintained their rights of ownership of the conquered territory. His Excellency Captain Hobson, then Governor, in satisfaction of their claim, gave Potatau (afterwards Potatau I) £400.

So abundant payment had been made for the disputed lands — first, by the New Zealand Company to the original owners, and afterwards by the New Zealand Company to the Waikato chiefs.

In the years 1843-44, Mr Spain, then Queen’s Commissioner, after careful and patient investigation, determined that the district of Taranaki had been fairly purchased and accordingly awarded to the province the whole block extending north and south of the town, including both Waitara and Tataraimaka.

New Plymouth

The settlers came, and New Plymouth was built.

But the natives, exiled by war, returned home by degrees, now that Europeans were there as a
protection; and the Waikato chiefs allowed many of their Taranaki slaves to return. These persons began to clamour and dispute, a thing they dared not before. Ample reserves, suitably situated, had been made for the native residents but the Taranaki natives were dissatisfied, and threatened to drive all the settlers from their holdings.

In the early 1840s Captain FitzRoy, then Governor, partly in pursuance of the mischievous policy of puffing off the evil day, and partly to embarrass the New Zealand Company, that was not in high favour at home, arbitrarily set aside the award of the Queen’s Commissioner, gave back the land to the natives, and told every settler in the Waitara and neighbourhood that they remained there at their own peril — he could not and would not protect them from the natives.

The settlers were driven off their farms.

Captain FitzRoy was sacked and George Grey inherited the mess. He was instructed to take steps at once, by further payments, to acquire these lands for the province. Some of these lands were so acquired, by a further purchase; among them was Tataraimaka, where a massacre of officers and men of the 57th would later take place.

The pressure on the Maori to sell land

But the violent natives had found out their power, and ably have they used it. A large proportion of the natives were peaceable and friendly, and were anxious to sell some of their lands, in order to have European neighbours, and a profitable market close to their doors, for their pigs, potatoes, and corn. These have been overawed, and, to use an expressive, but appropriate term, bullied by the rebels, and thus prevented from exercising their rights of ownership.

As the Pākehā population of New Zealand increased during the 1850s, Māori faced growing pressure to sell their land.

In 1852 a league was formed by these overbearing natives, binding each other not to sell lands to the Government, and threatening death to any chief who should dare to do so. The peaceable natives refused to enter into this league, and have from time to time urged the Government to purchase, saying that the land was the fruitful source of quarrel among themselves, and for peace sake they wished to alienate. The league, however, have ever been strong enough to prevent Government from entertaining their proposals.

War

War broke out between the league and those who wanted to sell. Sometimes the farms of the settlers were made the battleground of the parties. The unoffending settlers were in continual anxiety and fear, and frequently suffered loss.

In 1859 Governor Gore Browne got involved. He had a large meeting of natives in the town of New Plymouth; declared that as British Governor he would protect all of them, in their rights; that he had no wish to purchase any of their lands about which they were quarrelling; that he would not buy any lands, the title of which was disputed; but that if any of them were anxious to sell and could prove their title, they certainly should sell; he would protect them.

Wiremu Kingi (E Witi) of the league blocked the sales. He said ‘that no Maori owned land, the land was owned by all the people to be used communally and individually and not to be possessed. Under Maori custom no land could be sold without the consent of all the people. As leader he must make a decision in accordance with the people’s demands.

The Governor had paid £100 as part purchase money, and surveyors were sent to lay the block out. The land leaguers resisted the survey, and appealed to the native king, Potatau, who espoused their cause.

By 1863 the former productive farms had became overrun with Scotch thistle and other noxious weeds because the natives were not being able to cultivate one-tenth of the land.

Tataraimaka

The Tataraimaka pā was left empty after the pā was sacked by a party of northern Māori during the Musket Wars, shortly before 1820. The Tataraimaka Block of land was purchased from Māori in 1847, and was the location where 200 men of the 65th Regiment were stationed during the First Taranaki War, from April to June 1860.

Martial law was declared and the settlement of Tataraimaka, twelve miles south of the town, was taken possession of by the natives, by right of conquest from the Europeans, who had all been driven off. Many settlers were murdered, some killed in war, a large number died through disease and exposure, and the district was held since 1860 by the rebel tribes.

Tataraimaka was returned to government control in early 1865.

Source: Appendix 1, The War in New Zealand, page 282 to 286.

Related post

Pukerangiora Pa, Taranaki – another battle ground

Confiscating land to pay for the war in the 1860s was a really bad idea, but in 1878 an offer was made to return the confiscated land to Waikato Maori. The offer was refused.

Source: Kapiti Coast Independent: Revising NZ History 5: Wiremu Kingi at Waitara

Links

Pukekura Park and Brooklands Park

Pukekura Park and Brooklands

Pukekura Park Planting Timeline