Samuel D Carpenter

Category: AotearoaNZhistories

  • Commentary on Waitangi Tribunal urgent report on Treaty Principles Bill

    I gave an interview on Newstalk ZB on Friday 16 August 2024 about the Waitangi Tribunal’s report, released at midday, on the proposed Coalition Govt’s Treaty Principles Bill. The report is around 200 pages, and it contains some great summaries of existing treaty principles frameworks and a fair, even-handed examination of the implications of such…

  • treaty stories #3 – Jane Fletcher

    This is the third in a series of conversations with colleagues and friends from the treaty sector in which we discuss treaty settlements and their significance. This time I speak with Jane Fletcher, a former Deputy-Director at the Office of Treaty Settlements (now part of Te Arawhiti: The Office for Māori Crown Relations), and a…

  • The Church Missionary Society settlement at Paihia, 1820s-40s

    Recently I’ve been seeking to understand the core mission ideas, practices and day-to-day realities of the Paihia mission – the leading mission station of the Church Missionary Society (CMS) in the period from 1823-40. This research has also revealed the dynamic interactions and relationships between Māori and Pākehā that made this place tick. I gave…

  • Review of Jeffrey Sisson’s Forgotten Prophet

    Samuel Carpenter, Review of Jeffrey Sissons, The Forgotten Prophet: Tāmati te Ito and His Kaingārara Movement (Bridget Williams Books, 2023), in Anglican Journal of Theology in Aotearoa and Oceania 3/1 (2024): 121-23. An excerpt from my recent review and the review itself for download below: “… this book is a significant contribution to the literature…

  • From the Archives, no. 7

    Microcosm of a missionary library – Church Missionary Society, New Zealand, 1824. Yesterday, I came across this fascinating little insight into the reading world of an early nineteenth century, evangelical missionary. Recorded in Missionary Committee minutes of meeting is the following little window on this world: Mr [Henry] Williams reports that Mr [Thomas] Kendall has…

  • Do we need the English text of the treaty too?

    An imagined conversation: Yes, we need the English text, because the Māori text came from the English text… Hang on, the English text says Māori ceded sovereignty – but they didn’t! This confuses people visiting Te Papa museum. They didn’t cede their hapū rangatiratanga, yes, but they ceded to the Crown the kāwanantanga (government) of…

  • From the Archives, no. 6

    Research at Alexander Turnbull Library (Wellington) last week delivered some remarkable documents and taonga, including this whakapapa showing descent from Hoturua (leader of the Tainui waka) and baptism registers revealing some significant rangatira names of Te Atiawa, Ngāti Raukawa and other hapū. The whakapapa was literally inside the back cover of a Church Register, and…

  • From the Archives, no. 5 –

    Memorial to Henry Williams from the Māori Church, 1876. As I’m nearing the end of a draft of a new biography of Henry Williams, I’m reading some fascinating newspaper material on the final period of his life and the memorials to him that came afterwards. The two main ones were the new Trinity Church at…

  • Te Whānau Wiremu ki Aotearoa: How the Williams’ story has shaped Christianity, Culture, and Nation in Aotearoa, New Zealand

    Just published in Stimulus: The New Zealand Journal of Christian Thought and Practice, vol. 30, no. 1, 2023: Te Whānau Wiremu ki Aotearoa: How the Williams’ story… This article is a slightly abbreviated version of my talk at the Williams family 200-year reunion, which took place at Waitangi in April this year (2023). (The reunion…

  • Op-Ed: understanding “the Doctrine of Discovery” in context

    I was recently asked to contribute an opinion piece on the recent discourse surrounding “the Doctrine of Discovery”. I attempted to locate the “doctrine” in context by explaining what it was (and what it wasn’t). I argued that it has little direct relevance to New Zealand history, while also acknowledging that an assertion of sovereignty…