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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…
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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…
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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…
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From the Archives, no. 8
I have taken great pleasure recently in writing a concise narrative of the great sea battle of January 1815 between HMS Endymion and USS President, which took place at the close of the War of 1812 with America – after which the Napoleonic Wars in Europe also drew to a close. I received the other…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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News commentary on ‘leaked treaty principles bill advice’
I gave a pre-recorded interview to a Newstalk ZB journalist last Friday; extracts were included in two news bulletins on Saturday 20 January 2024. They captured probably my main point: that the proposed bill’s reading of article 2 of te Tiriti/the Treaty as a guarantee of chieftainship for all New Zealanders departs from the meaning…
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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…
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Samuel D Carpenter 