Mount Taupiri, rising above the Waikato River, is considered an ancestor of Waikato-Tainui iwi. The Waikato was the scene of clashes between British troops and Māori in 1863. Photo / Mike Scott
Mount Taupiri, rising above the Waikato River, is considered an ancestor of Waikato-Tainui iwi. The Waikato was the scene of clashes between British troops and Māori in 1863. Photo / Mike Scott
Whenua is a New Zealand Herald project to show and tell stories of our land and explain how our history affects the present day.
The New Zealand Herald urged on British troops against alleged “rebel” Māori during the 1863 invasion of Waikato.
The newspaper was founded on November 13, 1863, four months after the war began, as a rival publication to The New Zealander, which was more sympathetic to Māori.
The paper made its early editorial stance clear from the first edition, which described Māori as “rebellious natives” and “the enemy”. British troops, on the other hand, were “calm, reasonable and long-suffering”.
According to the Herald’s correspondent within the British camp, Auckland “was thrown into feverish excitement” after the “rebels” were overthrown at Rangiriri.
Historian Vincent O’Malley said the paper’s coverage proved popular with its Auckland settler readership – the Herald saw off its rivals The New Zealander and the Southern Cross – but gave a distorted picture of the conflict which has affected our national memory.
O’Malley, author of the landmark 2016 history The Great War for New Zealand: Waikato 1800-2000, described the Herald as a “cheerleader” for the Waikato war. The newspaper inaccurately framed it as a just war, fought in response to a perceived Māori threat to the settlers of Auckland, he said.
The victims of the invasion were held to be responsible for starting the war, which began after Governor Sir George Grey insisted all Māori between Auckland and Waikato swear a pledge of loyalty to the Queen or be expelled to the south.
O’Malley described the Herald at the time as a “mouthpiece for settler interests”, with little acknowledgement of the Māori perspective. Sometimes the paper denied or downplayed key events in the invasion, he said.
New Zealand Governor Sir George Grey (left) and Kīngi Tāwhiao, the second Māori King.
In April 1864, for instance, the British invaded Ōrākau, greatly outnumbering Māori.
Reports estimate between 160 and 200 Māori were killed, including women and children, many while trying to flee.
O’Malley said The New Zealander reported on the atrocities at Ōrākau, including the women and many children killed, but believed the Herald “kind of [went] out of their way to deny this, to deny the reality of what took place”. Instead, the paper presented the battle and the whole war as a “very chivalrous and noble conflict”, an “alternative reality” that had contributed to shaping our understanding even today.
”That becomes the sort of prevailing Pākehā narrative for the next century or more, that’s embedded in the way that Pākehā remember these wars, to the extent that they do at all.”
Herald editor-in-chief Murray Kirkness said it was expected in 2024 that media would be balanced, accurate, impartial and would challenge power, not be its mouthpiece.
”We didn’t fulfil that role in our early years and as such didn’t meet the standards to which we try to hold ourselves today,” Kirkness said.
“Our history, and the Herald’s role in reporting the situation in Waikato in the 19th century, at times makes for difficult reading.
”We know Whenua could raise uncomfortable issues for some in our society and believe it is important to address our own history. As we say in the introduction to the project, ‘to face what’s ahead as a country, we must first know our past’ – and that is true for the Herald as well.”
Whenua is a New Zealand Herald data-led project, supported by the Public Interest Journalism Fund, in association with Māori land legal expert Adrienne Paul (Ngāti Awa, Ngāi Tuhoe) from the University of Canterbury law school.
