How Four Murders Made New Zealand

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RIP Old Zealand

British Parliament: "I am altering the deal. Pray I don't alter it any further."

as a student in NZ, i knew hardly anything to do with any of this. they dont teach us the important stuff, just that there was a “mistranslation that may or may not have been deliberate” and personally im fed up with only being taught the bare minimum of our own country’s history

as someone of ngāpuhi and someone who grew up in tai tokerau where all these events took place and their effects are still felt today, i appreciate a light being shined on the flagstaff war - it's a super important chapter in the history of ngāpuhi and tino rangatiratanga that often gets forgotten - but there's some pretty glaring omissions and mistakes in this video that need addressing:

Te Tiriti and The Treaty of Waitangi:
This is a debate that's still very hot in NZ politics today, so I'll give the cliff notes here and try not to inject my own opinion. There are two "versions" of Te Tiriti - the English document and the Reo Māori document. The reo Māori document promised "-ki ngā tāngata katoa o Nu Tirani te tino rangatiratanga o ō rātou whenua, ō rātou kainga me o rātou taonga katoa", which roughly translates as promising "to all the people of Nu Tirani (New Zealand, specifically Māori as outlined by He Whakaputanga) tino rangatiratanga (highest authority or soverignty) of their lands, their homes, and all their taonga (important treasures such as language, cultural practice, religions, etc.), and to the Queen of England "te Kawanatanga katoa o ō rātou whenua"; "All governership of [the rangatira's] lands". The english document, however, states "The Chiefs of the Confederation of the United Tribes of New Zealand [...] cede to Her Majesty the Queen of England absolutely and without reservation all the rights and powers of Sovereignty".
I won't get further into the nitty gritty of this - whether the treaty was deliberately mistranslated or not, whether the rangatira who signed it were aware of the British interpretation, etc. - it's a complex issue that's currently in the spotlight of NZ politics, but it's important to note this difference, and also important to note that Te Tiriti - the reo Māori document - was the one most rangatira Māori signed; only 39 rangatira of about 500 signatories put their signature to the english document.

Maketū's execution being the cause of the war:
While it's a good framing device for a story, reducing the causes of the flagstaff war purely to Maketū's execution by the British is a bit reductive. Whilst important to Māori as a sign that they no longer held the power to practice tīkanga and that their mana was waning, it's more the straw that broke the camel's back than the main cause of war. Issues between the crown and Māori existed long before this incident - the capital being moved from Kororāreka and the Wairau affray are good examples of this. Unlawful selling of land was a major factor in strained Crown-Māori relationships - one that Te Tiriti was said to address, but ultimately would be exacerbated in the English version.


Te Ruki Kawiti:
While he gets only one mention in this video, Kawiti - a rangatira of Ngāpuhi - is just as important to the story of the flagstaff war as Hone Heke. One of the original dissenters of Te Tiriti at Waitangi - partly due to his dislike for Heke and partly due to fears of British deception due to his own land being unlawfully taken from him by a Paihia missionary - was one of the main engineers behind the modernisation of the pā (also known as "gunfighter pā") that would allow the anti-crown Māori to come out of the flagstaff war without a single military loss against the British. Kāwiti was a seasoned commander from the musket wars, and he'd seen firsthand the benefits and drawbacks of modernised warfare during his campaigns. There are some historians who even attribute Kawiti's design to contributing to the invention of trench warfare - veterans and military historians allegedly drew inspiration from the designs of Kawiti's pā in the latter half of the 19th century into the 20th century.

The purpose of Ruapekapeka:
Though I'm not sure if this is the video's intention, it feels like Ruapekapeka is wrongly implied as having strategic importance to anti-crown Māori.This isn't really true; Ruapekapeka was a purely military construction, aimed to bait Governor Grey into sending troops into unfavourable siege conditions to damage British morale and numbers, to then be abandoned when it had served its purpose. This was part of the design of the pā at Ōhaeawai, and there's even a short song written by British troops about this sort of strategy:
"Sing a song of sixpence a tale about the war,
Four and twenty n****rs cooped up in a pā,
When the pā was opened not a n****r there was seen,
Is not that a jolly tale to tell before the Queen?"

Kūpapa:
Though Kūpapa has now become a derogatory term within Te Ao Māori, Kūpapa - crown-allied Māori - played an important part in the flagstaff war as
military advisors and soliders. Though their advice was often ignored, such as Governor Fitzroy insisting on charging the pā at Ōhaeawai against the warnings of Tāmiti Wāka Nene, their military role was important in the more forgotten about battles in the war, such as the battle of Te Ahuahu (which I'll touch on later). This also ties in to an idea that isn't in this video: Māori are not one whole unit, and neither is Ngāpuhi (and neither is any group of people, really). Tāmiti Wāka Nene joined forces with the British crown as he saw anti-crown Māori's rejection of British rule as an insult to his mana - he was a staunch advocate for the signing of Te Tiriti, and his considerable mana was a factor in getting a lot of rangatira to sign. The rejection of British governance was seen as an insult to this, and so he took up arms.

Te Ahuahu:
Due to the battle at Te Ahuahu being a purely Ngāpuhi vs. Ngāpuhi conflict, there's not a lot of written history about it, and I urge those watching to seek out info about it if they're interested, but it's a very important battle in the Flagstaff War, as it was the only one that was a clear defeat for anti-crown Māori, putting Hone Heke out of action with injuries for months on end, and forcing Kawiti to rethink his approach to the war, hence the battle at Ruapekapeka.

The Flagstaff war being a Māori last chance:
This is a pretty flawed interpretation of the history of tino rangatiratanga. The flagstaff war was the first of many crown-Māori wars in Aotearoa, with many other campaigns such as the Hutt Valley and Whanganui campaigns, the two Taranaki wars, the invasion of the Waikato, and Te Kooti's war (and that's not even a comprehensive list). Reducing the fate of Māori to the uncertain outcome of the Flagstaff war and the fate of Ngāpuhi is reductive both historically and culturally, and its important that people understand that the Flagstaff War is a chapter of the history of Te Tiriti, and not the whole story itself.

Of course, none of this is to imply that this video was made with ill intentions. It's good to have discussions about these events so that people can be educated on the history of tino rangatiratanga and an introduction to the long-term causes of racial inequality in NZ. Thanks for making it, and I hope everyone watching and reading has learned something new about the ground under their feet and its whakapapa.

Hey! Resident of Aotearoa New Zealand here with a handy pronunciation guide for Te Reo Māori:
A = cAr
E = Egg
I = frEE
O = OAr
U = trUE
NG = thiNG
WH = gaFF (this one is confusing, I understand)

If you see an accent over a vowel, or a double vowel (ie Kākā or Kooti) simply elongate the sound.

Te Reo Māori is really easy to learn once you know these basic rules, as it's one of the only languages in the world that's 100% phonetically consistent, meaning once you know how to pronounce all the letters, you can confidently pronounce every word in the Māori dictionary!

I hope you enjoyed my fun little lesson about our beautiful corner of the world. Ka pai, kia kaha!

im a kiwi and every new zealander should watch this. really puts things into perspective

Took a pause from work as soon as I saw the notification. We got to lift this channel up, the quality behind these videos (graphics, research, narration) is up there with the best of them.

The whole time I was watching I assumed this was a super large channel with millions of subs. I did not expect this to only have 8.5k views. This is quality content! You deserve 1000x that!

Hey Spectacles! Just wanted to let you know that as a Kiwi it means the world for anyone to acknowledge our country! And a high quality video on a part of our history I've never heard about is even better!

This is such a great video! Te Tiriti o Waitangi is covered a lot here in New Zealand, but not the events following it. The Māori pronunciations are quite painful, but this is really well researched and shows a great respect for the culture. You've gained a subscriber!

Te Reo Māori is in my opinion the easiest language of an English-colonised people for an English speaker to pronounce, though the vowels are a bit harder for most Americans. It just takes a little care, e.g. your pronunciation of Aotearoa is excellent. One thing many people even in NZ screw up is stress placement, which is with the first long vowel/diphthong and otherwise on the first syllable

1:56 There is one biiiig thing Spectacle got wrong about the Treaty of Waitangi (Source, I live in New Zealand, doesn't mean I'm more knowledgeable but the treaty is a unavoidable topic in NZ history and is still considered a founding document)

The treaty of Waitangi, I'll call it "TOW", was a document that was written in two languages; English and Maori. The intention of it was the English side of the treaty, which goal's Spectacle got spot on, however the translation into Maori was perfectly awful. As in, it was translated well enough to read but translated into something else entirely.
The english side of TOW said in a TDLR fashion "The crown would have the land"
The Maori side of TOW said in a TDLR fashion "The tribes would have the land" because the Maori language had no concept of what the crown was, so rather than use use the english word they translated to it. And you might think "Oh, but that's your TDLR summery of the whole cluster fuck, surely the whole document wasn't like that"... the whole document was like that. Instead of using the plain english words, the treaty used words which the Maori would conceptually understand, which rewrote their side of TOW into giving the maori all the land.

Effectively, TWO promised in two different ways that both the british and the Maori would own all the land, not that they'd have their own separate areas as Spectacle suggested.

Tbh, I'm still on the fence if it was a genuine mistake or the british being dicks again, but when explaining it to others I try to make it out as a mistake, because often where there seems to be malice is usually just idiocy.

Have to switch from the phone to the big screen when the spectacles comes on

You should give a retelling of chunuk bair in WW1 which showed the distinctive differences that were present of how NZ and Austrailia weren't considered an extension of the British empire but simply a part of it.

the waitangi treaty is perhaps one of the most well known events in NZ history, a perfect example of how peaceful doesn't always mean kind.

Insane how good this channel is. Better than anything Netflix makes

Thanks for covering an incident during the New Zealand Wars. These conflicts consolidated settler control over New Zealand and laid the foundations for the development of NZ as a settler colony.

The quality of your videos is incredible. Can't wait until you get the gold button too!

I love the fact that you travel the world for your Videos, so much effort and love goes Into them and one can really feel that, absolutley great work, keep it going please 😊