Interview: Ron Crosby on writing stories back into history
Ron Crosby is the author of Te Kooti’s Last Foray (Oratia Books). An historian, lawyer and long-time bush man, Ron conducted meticulous research to dispel accounts by previous historians about the 1870 abduction by Te Kooti of two Whakatōhea communities into the Waioeka Gorge during the New Zealand Wars. Here, he shares his thoughts on why stories ‘get lost from history’ and some of the research he did to write this story back into our history.
I suspect two factors have resulted in events like the Waioeka abduction by Te Kooti of 218 Whakatōhea people back into Te Urewera, and their release, being downplayed in the record of the New Zealand Wars. Both are indirect but probably related causes.
One is the heavy focus in recent histories on the north Taranaki/Waikato and Tauranga campaigns involving British Imperial troops from 1860 to 1864. They involved the clearest examples of breaches by the Crown of its guarantee under the Treaty to protect Māori lands and other interests.
That appears to have resulted in a ‘downplaying’ of the second phase from 1865-1872. Yet that period of warfare, involving settler and Māori forces aligned with the Crown, was longer and involved many other iwi. They suffered the effects of war and land confiscation in the central, south west and eastern North Island. The second cause is the unintended emphasis that has arisen from the Treaty breach process.
‘A massive effort has gone into careful historical research under the Treaty of Waitangi Act which only enables relief to be recommended to compensate for Crown breach and prejudice. In that setting the Crown is always the villain. Perforce anyone associated with the villain becomes tarred with that brush.’
By contrast Māori who saw benefits that flowed from the Treaty, and aligned themselves alongside the Crown in the NZ Wars, received nothing for their activities. Large numbers of those iwi have not had their histories, or reasons for their alignment, researched to the same degree. The concentration has been heavily focussed on those events where Māori suffered from Crown breach.
After the Waioeka events in 1870, 1100 Māori walked for two days down the Waioeka river. As well as Whakatōhea, Whanganui & Ngāti Porou, there were smaller groups of Ngāi Tai, Ngāti Awa and Whānau a Apanui involved. Tūhoe and Te Arawa also had some involvements earlier on.
Yet two recent histories of the New Zealand Wars have omitted any mention of these Waioeka events, which were of real significance for those iwi.
A diary kept by an ex-Imperial Army NCO Samuel Austin made it appear likely that the record accepted by past historians, based on writings by Lt Porter with the Ngāti Porou, had wrongly given them credit for the release of the Whakatōhea, rather than Whanganui. His diary referred to another pā called Waipuna being the location where the release occurred. That lay 14 kilometres, about 6-8 hours river walk, upriver from Maraetahi pā, which Ngāti Porou had attacked. Coupled with other research documents, ground-truthing verified Austin’s account as precise and accurate.
‘I had the advantage of having hunted and fished in the heavily bushed lengths of the Waioeka river from the late 1960s till 1987. So, as I read the various Whanganui, Ngāti Porou and Ngāi Tai accounts I had a mental picture of the gorgy steep country they were describing.’
The first priorities were to work out where Te Kooti had taken his 218 captives and where their destination was located. (They had to build Waipuna pā. It was burnt on their release only three weeks later and memory of its location lost.) Another was to work out where Te Kooti went when he escaped from Maraetahi pā.
The captives comprised 57 older men, 83 women, and 78 children. They were finally released from Waipuna pā 55kms inland. The only key to their route lay in Austin’s diary.
Myself and two ex-special forces soldiers, Chris Gray and Mark Law, followed his description along a bush-covered route over Raupō ridge. We walked 25.5kms one day, climbing 1350m. That had taken us 10.5 hours, but we only walked the harder part of the route – enough to amaze us at the toughness of the average Māori of old, and prove Austin’s description was accurate.
Another walk up the Waioeka proved key. A critical distance Austin had recorded was 8 miles from a particular river junction to Waipuna pā. That did not fit with where we thought we had found a pā site with numerous whare sites. It was only 4 miles from the junction. However, my military friends pointed out Austin would have been counting his steps. When we measured the river distance from the junction to the probable pā site, it was 4 miles exactly. Austin had counted both out and back!
Then finally one wet day, together with Eugene Hunia another ex-special forces soldier, we walked over 21kms from the Waioeka catchment into the Waimana catchment to prove that was possible in one long day for Te Kooti. The elevation gain over 15.5 hours in heavy bush country was 1315m. We concluded that they were tough people.
Te Kooti’s Last Foray by Ron Crosby (Oratia Books, $49.99) is out now: See https://www.ketebooks.co.nz/all-new-books/te-kootis-last-foray-crosby for more.
