A Biographical Sketch Wiremu Te Morehu Maipapa Te Wheoro By: Gary Scott
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A Biographical Sketch Wiremu Te Morehu Maipapa Te Wheoro By: Gary Scott Te Wheoro, who was later also known as Wiremu Te Morehu (William Morris) or Rehu, and also as Maipapa, was born in Waikato. His mother was Ngapawa, and his father was Te Kanawa. Through Ngapawa, Te Wheoro was descended from Te Whatu-o-te-rangi and Parengaope. He married Pakia and they had a daughter named Te Pura, who died in April 1879. Te Wheoro succeeded Haripata Te Po as chief of Ngati Naho, who were closely connected to Ngati Mahuta. He was also affiliated to Ngati Hourua. Little is known of Te Wheoro's early life, but his lineage, character and intelligence clearly gave him mana among Waikato people. At a great meeting at Paetai, near Rangiriri, in May 1857, where the proposal to install Te Wherowhero of Ngati Mahuta as Maori king was discussed, Te Wheoro spoke in favour of the Pakeha governor, and against the title of 'King' which appeared to place Te Wherowhero above the governor. He supported F. D. Fenton, who was sent as resident magistrate to Waikato by Governor Thomas Gore Browne, until Fenton was recalled in 1858. He attended the conference of Maori leaders at Kohimarama in 1860, and spoke strongly and optimistically in favour of government policies. Te Wheoro quickly adapted to Pakeha economic concepts and institutions. In 1862 he became the chief assessor, who acted as local magistrate and chief of police, in charge of the official runanga at Te Kohekohe, on the west bank of the Waikato River, south of Meremere. He asked that a wooden court-house be built there for magistrate John Gorst, and suggested that Maori youths be drilled to keep order. However, he was warned by Tawhiao (King after Potatau Te Wherowhero's death in June 1860) that there would be trouble if buildings were erected, and when carpenters arrived from Auckland in March 1863 to begin building a fortified constabulary station at Te Kohekohe, 200 King supporters threw the timber into the river. One pile was saved when Te Wheoro's sister jumped onto it, and the Kingites withdrew. Ten days later, however, 100 of them returned, fully armed, and rafted the timber downstream, where they handed it back to the government at Te Ia (Havelock, near Mer- cer). When war seemed imminent Te Wheoro moved his young men to Te Ia and established a pa there. He could not, however, prevent their supporting the Maori King when British forces invaded Waikato in July 1863. Lieutenant General Duncan Cameron appointed him a captain in the colonial militia, and used him as a guide. Te Wheoro and his remaining men provided an important link, collecting sup- plies from steamers at the Waikato Heads and paddling them upriver to the Camerontown redoubt, until the supply line was severed by a Ngati Maniapoto attack in September 1863. After the battle at Rangiriri in November, Te Wheoro began to act as intermediary between the government and the King movement. He went to Ngaruawahia, under Governor George Grey's auth- orisation, to negotiate peace with Wiremu Tamihana Tarapipipi and Ngati Maniapoto, and in the post- war years worked to reconcile King movement and government. However, the government confisca- tion of Waikato lands remained an obstacle to discussion while the King and his supporters were forced to live on Ngati Maniapoto lands. In April 1869 Te Wheoro was invited to meet leaders of the King movement at Tokangamutu (Te Kuiti). He proposed a meeting between the governor and the Maori King and his supporters at Nga- ruawahia in May, to which the visiting Duke of Edinburgh would be invited, but the King movement leaders did not attend. Te Wheoro became an assessor in the Native Land Court in 1865. He received a salary of £150 a year, but resigned in 1872, dissatisfied with what he later described as the corruption of a court that conferred title on those whom it thought most likely to sell the land. In 1873 he was appointed major in the colonial forces, against a background of increasing nervousness in the lower Waikato region, following the decision of Te Kooti to settle in Tokangamutu. Te Wheoro and 60 Ngati Naho served as armed constabulary. They built and occupied the Ford redoubt, midway between Alexandra (Pirongia) and Kihikihi, commanding two fords on the Puniu River, and formed a road between Alexandra and Orakau. In 1875 Te Wheoro was appointed a native commissioner, and continued to assist in negotiations between the King movement and the government. In February 1875 he met and escorted Donald McLean, the native minister, to his Waitomo meeting with Tawhiao, which Te Wheoro had arranged at Tawhiao's request. 1 At this time Te Wheoro was working with Major W. G. Mair, the resident magistrate at Alexandra, while Tawhiao was living in Waitomo. Te Wheoro was also present at meetings between McLean and Tawhiao in May 1876. In February 1878, at Tawhiao's request, Te Wheoro arranged a meeting with Grey (now premier) at Te Kopua. He escorted Grey and John Sheehan, the native minister, on the final part of their journey, and spent some time at Tawhiao's side, but the meeting was largely un- successful in settling the King's grievances over confiscation. Grey and Tawhiao agreed to meet again at Hikurangi, near Kawhia, but it took much work on the part of Te Wheoro to persuade Waikato to engage in more negotiations with the government. Only when it was agreed that Rewi Maniapoto would host Grey did Tawhiao and his adviser, Te Ngakau, ask Te Wheoro to arrange a meeting. On 9 April government ministers arrived at Hikurangi, but were made unwelcome. They returned to Auckland, where Te Wheoro arrived a week later with a further invita- tion, which he had persuaded Tawhiao to extend. The meeting finally took place on 7 May. Te Wheoro urged the parties to dispense with trivia and speak frankly to one another. Grey proposed that Tawhiao should be a paid administrator within his own district. He offered the King 500 acres at Ngaruawahia, a meeting house at Kawhia, and the return of confiscated land on the west side of the Waikato and Waipa rivers not already sold to Europeans. Road building would be negotiated by both parties, and Tawhiao would decide whether surveying should take place. However, the issue of confiscated lands again prevented much progress. Te Wheoro himself had lengthy but inconclusive discussions in 1878 with F. D. Fenton, now chief judge of the Native Land Court, on the return of his own tribal land, which had also been a part of the Waikato confiscations. In December 1878 Tawhiao and his chiefs embarked on a tour of Waikato and Whaingaroa (Raglan Harbour). Te Wheoro accompanied them as a government representative. Tawhiao and Rewi had arranged another meeting with Grey at Te Kopua in May 1879. There, when Tawhiao reasserted that his title and descent gave him the right of guardianship over the whole of the North Island, not only Waikato, he and Te Wheoro parted company. Grey was referred to in hostile terms and given no speaking rights. Te Wheoro and other chiefs interceded for him, invoking the proposals made at Hiku- rangi, but it was to be the last opportunity for any reconciliation between Grey and the King. Te Wheoro resigned as a native commissioner in 1879, feeling that he was not listened to, and that his people were treated unfairly. On 8 September 1879 he was elected to Parliament as the repre- senttative for Western Maori, on the nomination of Rewi, who helped him secure 1,053 of the 1,494 eligible votes cast. Rewi assumed that Te Wheoro, as a firm friend of Sir George Grey, would support Grey as premier. It was reported, however, that Te Wheoro only took part in the vote for the govern- ment in October after being locked in. His intention had been not to vote at all. In any event Grey lost the election and had only a short time to remain as premier. When John Hall took over as premier in the same month, Te Wheoro refused to join his ministry because Maori mem- bers were not to be given responsible portfolios. In Parliament Te Wheoro became a member of the Native Affairs Committee, and was soon in conflict with the native minister, John Bryce. In 1880 Te Wheoro attacked the working of the Native Land Court, government attitudes towards the Maori, and the structure of the Native Affairs Committee itself. He voted for a new land court bill, which, he felt, though imperfect, must be an improvement on the old. In 1881 he attacked the Crown and Native Lands Rating Bill as contrary to the Treaty of Waitangi and labelled it the 'Mortgage and Confiscation of Native Lands Bill'. On its second reading in 1882 he accused the government of racial hypocrisy and blatant land- grabbing. In September Bryce threatened to disband the Native Affairs Committee. Te Wheoro replied that as the committee was powerless and of no help to the Maori he did not care. He challenged anyone to name a Maori application to government that had been granted. Te Wheoro was well informed and mindful of the interests of his constituents. He succeeded in having the government translate the Hansard reports of the speeches of Maori members back into Maori for distribution among the constituents. He was a supporter of the temperance movement, and entreated the government to ban liquor from Maori districts. He favoured local self-government for his people, and Maori retention of their lands.