Te Whiti o Rongomai

How did Peaceful Maori leaders (Rua or Te whiti) deal with british/Pakeha colonisation?

Te Whiti O Rongomai

Te whiti o rongomai is a leader who is from Otaka pa. His mission in life was to lead the maori people into a spiritual afterlife, after all he was the first one to introduce the bible to the maori people. The three main points i will base on Te whiti was how he dealt with the colonisation and Migration of him and his family.

At the time when the british people flooded into Aotearoa to find land and start life a new. This made the maori people worried about their land and their children. This even made the rangatira very angry because if they lose their land that will also mean losing their mana(Authority). Since Te whiti was converted into christianity he tried to make a deal with the british in order for them to keep their land and mana. But he was turned down, this even led to his property confiscated and his family and himself had to migrate south to find a place to stay.

When Te whiti and his family's land was confiscated anger started to boil up inside him he felt like killing them. Te whiti told his people: “Though some, in darkness of heart, seeing their land ravished, might wish to take arms and kill the aggressors, I say it must not be. Let not the Pakehas (sic) think to succeed by reason of their guns ... I want not war, but they do. The flashes of their guns have singed our eyelashes, and yet they say they do not want war ... The government come not hither to reason, but go to out-of-the-way places. They work secretly, but I speak in public so that all may hear,” in 1880.  So his family migrated south to taranaki or waikanae, where they lived amongst the Patukai people at Hopuhopu and Tarakihi, under the power of Te Whiti's uncle, Paora Kukutai, and Aperahama Te Reke.

So overall what Te whiti did was try to keep the peace in Aotearoa

And make deal with the british people to never interfere with their lands for they could find another place unoccupied by any maoris and live there but still they could both interact, trade and keep their friendship.