William Colenso
Sermon Waitangi Weekend Taupo 8 Feb 09
William Colenso
Before looking at his book, let me give a biographical framework
Colenso arrived in the Bay of islands as the Church Mission printer, in December 1834, six years before the signing of the Treaty. After much delay and difficulty in getting printer equipment and paper he began printing. Among his notable printing achievements were the Declaration of Independence of New Zealand (printed in 1836), a complete New Testament in Maori (1838) and Hobson’s proclamations and the Treaty of Waitangi in Maori (all in 1840). He also acted as a part-time translator for the officials and printed not only the proclamations of sovereignty in May 1840 but also the first Government Gazette.
At the Bay of Islands his growing enthusiasm for natural history was boosted by the brief visit of Charles Darwin on the Beagle in 1835.
By 1840 Colenso had tired of both his task as a printer and what he perceived as the high church establishment in the Bay of Islands. His rather dogmatic, self-scrutinising form of evangelism sought an outlet in missionary activity in remote areas. The CMS, fearful of his proselytising zealotry, fobbed off his applications. Bishop Selwyn's establishment of St John's College at Waimate North increased Colenso's persistence, and the bishop reluctantly accepted him as a candidate for ordination.
On 27 April 1843 in Auckland, Colenso satisfied one of Selwyn's prerequisites for ordination by a marriage (arranged and subsequently loveless), to Elizabeth Fairburn, daughter of the CMS lay missionary W. T. Fairburn. In 1844 Colenso was ordained deacon and headed south with his wife and daughter to take over the new mission station in Hawke's Bay.
Colenso's responsibilities in his new job were enormous. His parish stretched as far south as Palliser Bay and beyond the Ruahine Range to the upper reaches of the Rangitikei River. A zeal to convert, to explore and to botanise was behind Colenso's ambition, but many Maori were offended by Colenso's intolerance and haughtiness. In February 1847 Colenso travelled from Ahuriri (in Napier) to Lake Taupo. Heading south from the lake he crossed the Onetapu and Rangipo deserts to the banks of the Moawhango River, reaching the fortified pa of Matuku. He was a great explorer.
A young Maori girl had been brought from Paihia by Colenso as a member of his household. Seeking solace from the coldness of his marriage, Colenso began an affair with the girl, probably in 1848. When Ripeka married Hamuera Te Nehu in 1850 she was already carrying the missionary's child. When Elizabeth Colenso learned of her husband's infidelity in 1852 her own children were taken to Auckland by her brother John Fairburn and she followed with the child, Wiremu a year later. The child was not accepted by the Fairburn family and was sent to relatives in the north before returning to his father's care in 1861. But Colenso did not see his wife and daughter again. In November 1852 he was suspended as a deacon and dismissed from the mission.
The four years before Colenso's suspension in 1852 were times of increasing dissension and difficulty at the Hawke's Bay mission. His inflexible, overbearing and humourless nature led to friction with some of the foremost Maori leaders. His opposition to Maori land sales earned him the hostility of the growing number of settlers in Wairarapa and Hawke's Bay, and threatened conflict with Donald McLean. His relationship with his fellow missionaries and the Anglican establishment deteriorated further after 1845.
When he emerged from obscurity in 1858 Colenso entered the fray of provincial politics, against the local runholders. On 1859 he was elected to the Hawke's Bay Provincial Council for Napier Town, and became provincial auditor and later provincial treasurer, as well as a member of the provincial executive. In 1861 he was elected to the General Assembly, representing Napier, and held the seat until ousted by Donald McLean, backed by the runholders, in 1866. Although a conscientious member of both provincial council and General Assembly, Colenso was a failure as a politician. He lacked tact, an ability to listen and a capacity to compromise.
Although he remained on the provincial council until its abolition, Colenso increasingly turned to writing and botanical work. He published a large number of scientific papers and in 1865 was commissioned by the General Assembly to produce a Maori dictionary, which he did not complete. Much more valuable were the historical pamphlets describing the early years at Paihia, the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi, and his own inland explorations. In his final years Colenso was regarded as something of a character, a man who had outlived his adversaries. In 1894 his suspension as deacon was revoked and he was readmitted to the Anglican clergy. He died at Napier on 10 February 1899.
The anthropologist Joan Metge has said:
“We are fortunate to have a detailed account of the Waitangi gathering in William Colenso's The Authentic and Genuine History of the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi. Along with the Treaty itself every New Zealander should read Colenso's account. It brings the occasion alive, presents us with a cast of colourful characters, to whom we can respond at a personal level, and gives us insight into the underlying issues and the intentions and hopes of the signatories.
Colenso's story covers not one but two days. On 5th February forty odd chiefs and their followers, over 300 in all, gathered on the lawn in front of the Waitangi home of British Resident James Busby, along with Lieutenant Governor Hobson and his officials, local missionaries, settlers and ships crews. Governor Hobson and Rev Henry Williams read the English and Maori texts of the treaty to the assembled chiefs, who spent some five hours debating it at Waitangi and carried on into the night at Te Tii on the south side of the river. On 6 February they returned to Waitangi and signed the Treaty with Hobson representing Queen Victoria. The most interesting, the most revealing part of the two days is not the signing but the debate that preceded it, where participants set out the arguments for and against the Treaty.”
In Colenso’s account he writes this:
“All being now ready for the signing, the Native chiefs were called on in a body to come forward and sign the document. Not one, however, made any move nor seemed desirous of doing so till Mr. Busby, hitting on an expedient, proposed calling them singly by their names as they stood in his (private) list, in which list the name of Hoani Heke (known, too, to be the most favourable towards the treaty) happened to be the first - at least, of those who were this day present. On his being called by name to come and sign, he advanced to the table on which the treaty lay. At this moment I, addressing myself to the Governor, said,-
" Will your Excellency allow me to make a remark or two before that chief signs the treaty ?
The Governor " Certainly, sir."
Mr. Colenso: May I ask your Excellency whether it is your opinion that these Natives understand the articles of the treaty which they are now called upon to sign ?
The Governor: “If the Native chiefs do not know the contents of this treaty it is no fault of mine. I wish them fully to understand it. I have done all that I could do to make them understand the same, and I really don't know how I shall be enabled to get them to do so. They have heard the treaty read by Mr. Williams."
Mr. Colenso: " True, your Excellency; but the Natives are quite children in their ideas. It is no easy matter, I well know, to get them to understand - fully to comprehend a document of this kind; still, I think they ought to know somewhat of it to constitute its legality. I speak under correction, your Excellency. I have spoken to some chiefs concerning it, who had no idea whatever as to the purport of the treaty."
Mr. Busby here said, "The best answer that could be given to that observation would be found in' the speech made yesterday by the very chief about to sign, Hoani Heke, who said, 'The Native mind could not comprehend these things - they must trust to the advice of their missionaries."'
Mr. Colenso: "Yes; and that is the very thing to which I was going to allude. The missionaries should do so; but at the same time the missionaries should explain the thing, in all its bearings to the Natives, so that it should be their own very act and deed. Then, in case of a reaction taking place, the Natives could not turn round on the missionary and say, 'You advised me to sign that paper, but never told me what were the contents thereof.'”
The Governor: “I am in hopes that no such reaction will take place. I think that the people under your care will be peaceable enough. I'm sure you will endeavour to make them so. And as to those that are without, why we must endeavour to do the best we can with them.”
Colenso as a missionary then has a mixed legacy. But his observations of the signing of the Treaty, and his implied criticism of his missionary colleagues, are historically important. But it does underline that the Treaty of Waitangi had Christian influence and that the role of the church was important in our founding constitutional document.
John Howell
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