University of Canterbury Thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of M.A. (and Honours) in Historye by Margaret E. ~ajor 1964. CHRISTIAN MISSIONS IN THE SOUTH ISLAND IN THE 1840's. - ii - TABLE OF CONTENTS Preface iv Note on Abbreviations, etc. CHAPTER I: The South Island Maoris Before 1840. 1 .. Pre-European s: tribal history; distribution of the Maori population; the classic Maori. 1 2. ers, Traders Vrhalers: the development of race relations; changes Maori society. 11 The Influence of Early Maori-European Intercourse: decline of the Maori population ~nder the impact of war and ease; the condition of the Maoris 1840. 21 CHAPTER II: A Comparison Between Missionary Work in Otago anc1 the Marlborough­ Nelson Area in the "1840's. "1. Otago 1840-43: establishment of the first mission station; difficulties of the Rev. J. ·watkin 1 s work; significance of books. 2. The Marlborough-Nelson Area 1840-43: preparation for the missionaries by Maori preachers; variety of Maori settlement; reasons for the success of Ironside; tragedies of 1843. ~5 3. The Otago Marlborough-Nelson Missions after "1843: the work of the Rev. C. Cre at Waik:ouaiti; the Rev. C.L. Reay at Nelson; contrasting attitudes of Wesleyan and Anglican ssionaries to their work. 57 - iii - CHAPTER III: Itinerants and Bishops. '1 • Itinerant Maori Preachers: pre­ paration for the European mission­ aries; sectarianism as a temporary source of strength to Christianity. 65 2 .• Bishop Pompallier and Bishop Selwyn: the hardening of sec divisions under scopal influence. 74 CHAPTER IV: Ruapuke-Southla..nd and the Chathams. '1. Wohlers Ruapuke: ssionary work in a tribal situation attitude to the ~ and to sect divisions; Maori attitudes to missionaries. 86 2. The Chathams: Morioris Maoris; brief of the • J. Aldred; the German Mission; shop Selwyn's sit , similar reaction of Maoris to onaries at Ruapulce and Chathamse 98 The of Colonization. threat to the Maoris of organized and permanent European colonization. 109 A: Dec of Whaling Stations. 12'1 GLOSSARY 122 A NOTE ON CERTAIN MISSIONARIES 124 BIBLIOGRAPHY - iv - PREFACE ••• in works which profess to describe New Zealand, the largest island of the three is not described at all. It is passed over sub silentio. But it seems never to have occurred to the gentlemen who have published their 'New Zealands', that it was necessary to see more than a very small portion of it, in order to describe the whole ••• D. Monro, "Notes of a Journey through a Part of the Middle Island of New Zealand."1 My aims in writing this thesis are to draw attention to race relations in the South Island in the 1840's, and to investigate the initial impact of missionary work. Although the title refers only to the South Island I have ext.ended the study to the Chathams, Stewart Island and Ruapuke for purposes of comparison. Because the South Island contained barely a twentieth of the total Maori population, New Zealand historians have tended_ to concentrate on racial conflicts in the North Island. As a result Te .Wai Pounamu has been something of a Cinderella awaiting her prince. The condition of a few thousand South Island Maoris who, in half a century, were catapulted from the neolithic into the Victorian age is of more than 1. NE 20 Jul 1844. - v - academic interest. In several respects I have attempted an extension of Harrison Wright's1 work on the early years of western contact the North Island to the southern islands of New Zealand. Although there are many :predictable reactions between Maori and pakeha there are a number of important contrasts between northern and southern Maori. In the North Island the missionaries were contemporaries of explorers, whalers and traders, and they built up their considerable :political :power alongside, though not as allies, of these Europeans engaged in secular pursuits. In the South Island, on the other hand, the ssion- aries came years after the less cultured and dedicated Europeans and had to establish their influence in competition them. It is not easy in a study of race relations to strike a balance between the good yarn the conven- ient labels of the sociologists. While c ain patterns and izations do emerge, Harrison Wright's 'confusion' and 'conversion' cannot be applied as representing a sequence of psychological developments. PJl undercurrent of confusion elements of a clairvoyant fear are discernible in the ----------------------- 1. Wright, H.M., New Zealand, 1769-1840 Early Years of Western Contact. - vi - Maoris' attitude to Europeans from the days of the sealing gangs to the period of organiz colonization in the mid-century. The Maori 'conversion' to Chri ianity the 1840's was not different in kind from the earlier response to the whalers and traders. It involved a profound mental disruption since the values and morality of the whaling station and the mission station were far apart, but it was not deep rooted. The missionaries had so short a time in which to launch their work that the Maoris' conversion could be litt more than an attraction to the person of the ssionary and above all to his most signific­ ant credenti s, books. By this interpretation the falling away of the Maoris from Chri ianity in the late 1840's and the 1850's was not the result of a sudden wave of disillusionment after the glad morning of conversion, but the almost inevitable outcome of an uncertainty more fundamental than the attraction of the trappings of European civilization. Te Wai Pounamu was far from being a Christian Mecca even for missionaries. The South Isl~Dd missions V\f~E3:re regarded by most as an appendage of those in the North and,by some as posts of penance for men who wandered from·~ the of duty in more populous places. - vii - ause the mis onaries were so few those who were resident for several years one place seem an integral part of that area. One thinks of the stench squalor of Waikouaiti terms of James Watkin's mel- ancholy; of the Rev. Reay establishing the work of the Church Missionary Society against the background of the newly founded Nelson settlement; and of Johann Wohlers' blithe sanctity like a breeze from the Baltic amid the decadence and lethargy of Ruapv~e Island. I have adopted a regional approach to this survey comparing the impact of Christianity and race relations in areas where resident missionaries worked. However this method was not satisfactory for assess the influence of that little knovm b of itinerant Maori preachers who roamed the country preparing their fellowmen for the European Gospel. I surveyed their influence, and that of Bishops Selwyn Pom- pallier in a separate chapter devot to sectarianism in the South Island. Histories of mis onary work t to fall into two categories: the scathingly critical, an~ the sentimental with accompanying hosannas. While I hope above all se to have escaped the latter I am con­ vinced that in the South Island the charges by modern - viii - anthropologists are not entirely justified. When the missionaries arrived the e~~~~mic, social and religious bonds of tribal life had already decayed and the Maori population was in decline. However de~astating the moral implications might be, tribal institutions could not survive if the Maoris were to aspire to anything like equality with the £akeh~ in a European New Zealand. The missionaries knocked do~n some of the remaining props of Maori life, especially the ta.£.3, but they offered literacy, the passport to the future. I am grateful to those who by their enthusiasm and advice have assisted me in this study. My thanks are due to members of the staffs of the Canterbury University Library, the Alexander Turnbull Library, the Christchurch Public Library, and to the staff of the Methodist Connexional Offices, Christchurch. I acknowledge Mrs. Margaret Pana's work in translating the almost indecipherable Gothic script of Wohlers' journal. Finally, thanks to my typist for her excellent work and co-operation. NOTE ON ABBREVIATIONS, ETC. JPS Journal of the Polyne Society .. LT ~lttelton Times. NE Nelson Examiner. The Transactions Proceedings of the New Zealand itute. i. signifies volume 1, page p. page has been used only where necessary e.g. following a title which ends in a date or where the reference is to several pages of a book. Unless e stated recipients of the letters of the missionaries were the s of sleyan Missionary Society. Where the letters to the secretaries consist of extracts from a journal the date of the entry has been cited rather than that on the covering letter. - 1 - CHAPTER -I THE SOUTH ISLAND MAORIS BEFORE 1840. Much may also be traced as the natural consequence of a barbarous people being suddenly intermingled with a highly civilized race. James Mackay, Junr., 1 to the Native Secretar2, Auckland, 3 Oct 1863. 1. Pre-European Times. When Te Rauparaha extended his visitations to the South Island in 1827 he fou._nd the Rangitane tribe occupying the Pelorous, Wairau and Awatere districts, and the Ngaitahu predominant to the south.3 The Ngaitahu were originally a ha:pu of the powerful North Island tribe the Ngatikahungunu. According to traditional evidence they crossed over to the South Island about the year 15704 and drove the Ngatimamoe, who were then in occupation of most of the Island, southwards out of Canterbury.5 The Ngatimamoe were obliged to accept 1. Assistant Native Secretary. 2. A Compendium of Official Documents relative to Native Affairs in the South Island, ii. 138. 3. Mackay, A., "The 1l'raditionary History Of The Natives Of The South Island Up To The Time Of Their Conquest By The Northern 1rribes Under ~re Rauparaha", Official Documents re Native Affairs in the South Island, Part iii, vol.