Dancing with the King by Michael Belgrave

Author:Michael Belgrave
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, Māori
Publisher: Auckland University Press
Published: 2017-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER EIGHT

‘In the place of the King’

Bryce and the Leaders of the Rohe Pōtae

WHAT WAS LITTLE APPRECIATED BY MANY AT THE TIME WAS HOW Tāwhiao’s dramatic sidestepping transformed the whole tenor of negotiations between the government and the Rohe Pōtae. Rewi and other Ngāti Maniapoto chiefs had been considering this question for some time: how could they maintain tribal cohesion in direct negotiations with government officials and so prevent the wholesale disintegration of collective tribal identity, which appeared to be occurring everywhere before the Native Land Court? For more than a year following the Whatiwhatihoe hui, Ngāti Maniapoto leaders and some of their neighbours would attempt to develop a common front, not only striving for a tribal consensus in their dealings with Bryce, but also attempting to knit together with him a new pathway along which negotiations could take place. Through to the end of 1882 and for much of 1883, the tribe held a series of hui where all of the pressing issues of the age were discussed without being resolved: whether to allow a railway or not, how to control the Native Land Court and surveying, and how to stall Bryce’s ever insistent urgency.

When all authority had been focused on the King, despite the lack of results, the process of negotiation had been relatively easy. However much the King’s power was diffused through a series of tribal leaders, the colonial government still had to present their offers to the King and, in the end, it was the King and his constitutional processes that would decide whether to accept or decline. In reality, of course, the actual negotiations, whether through McLean, Grey or Bryce, had always been focused on a settlement with Waikato, rather than with the Rohe Pōtae. The King’s ability to negotiate on behalf of Ngāti Maniapoto or the other tribes had never been tested, because settlement of the confiscation of Waikato land had proved an impossible hurdle.

With the King no longer at the centre of negotiations, who had the authority to make a commitment on behalf of the different tribes of the Rohe Pōtae? Even within the large tribes, how did the different chiefs reconcile their sometimes very different interests? At Mōkau, Wētere played the progressive, anxious to negotiate economically advantageous agreements with European entrepreneurs, welcoming roads and even a dribble of settlers. Ngāti Maniapoto near Whatiwhatihoe were still attempting to deal with the difficult question of what to do about Waikato. In the interior, at Tūhua and Mōkauiti, there were groups much more hostile to any involvement with the European world than Wētere, Rewi and Wahanui. Te Whiti’s Twelve Apostles, although Ngāti Maniapoto, were primarily influenced by what was occurring in Taranaki, seething at the suppression of Te Whiti, Tohu and their followers. These regional differences were only part of the problem. Rewi or Wahanui or Wētere could not simply speak unchallenged on behalf of their communities. Other chiefs also retained a substantial degree of independent mana. Ngāti Maniapoto were as well aware of these

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