Kīngi Tāwhiao (Tūkaroto Matutaera Pōtatau Te Wherowhero Tāwhiao, ; c. 1822 – 26 August 1894), known initially as Matutaera, reigned as the Māori King from 1860 until his death. After his flight to the King Country, Tāwhiao was also Paramount Chief of Te Rohe Pōtae for 17 years, until 1881. A rangatira, and a religious figure – a tohunga ariki – Tāwhiao amassed power and authority during a time of momentous change, to become de facto leader of the Waikato tribes. He was a member of the Ngati Mahuta hapū and the kāhui ariki, the Kīngitanga royal family.
The son of kīngi Pōtatau te Wherowhero, Tāwhiao was elected the second Māori King after his father's death in 1860. Unlike his unenthusiastic father, Tāwhiao embraced the kingship, and responded immediately to the challenge of ongoing Raukawa and Tainui support for Te Āti Awa during the First Taranaki War. In 1863, Tāwhiao was baptised into the Pai Mārire faith, taking his regnal name, before leading the response to the invasion of the Waikato. After the Kīngitanga suffered a heavy defeat at the Battle of Rangiriri and war crimes at the trading centre of Rangiaowhia, Tāwhiao led the exodus of Tainui to the land of Ngāti Maniapoto, establishing a secessionist state called Te Rohe Pōtae (the King Country). Warning all Europeans that they risked death if they crossed the border, he governed Te Rohe Pōtae as an independent state for almost twenty years. Tāwhiao's power began to decline significantly in the 1880s, as his relations with Raukawa ki Ngāti Maniapoto deteriorated. He formally sued for peace with George Grey at Pirongia on 11 July 1881, allowing the construction of the North Island Main Trunk railway line, which first opened the King Country up to the outside world. After the Waikato were defeated by musket-armed Ngāpuhi led by Hongi Hika in a battle at Matakitaki (Pirongia) in 1822, they retreated to Orongokoekoea Pā, in what is now the King Country, and lived there for several years. Tāwhiao was born at Orongokoekoea in about 1825 and was named Tūkaroto to commemorate, it is said, his father's stand at Matakitaki. a name he would repudiate in 1867. Te Ua Haumēne, the Hauhau prophet and founder of the Pai Mārire faith, sought counsel with the king in the 1860s. After the invasion of the Waikato in 1863, Matutaera travelled to Te Namu pā in Ōpunake to meet him. There, Matutaera was baptised into the Pai Mārire faith,
Biography
thumb|Tāwhiao (then Matutaera) as a young man
In 1858 Tāwhiao's father, Pōtatau Te Wherowhero, was installed as the first Māori King (taking the name Pōtatau), his purpose being to promote unity among the Māori people in the face of Pākehā encroachment. Pōtatau was an unwilling ruler, and acquiesced to accept the crown as merely a transitional holder. Several rūnanga were held to discuss the proposal for the elderly Te Wherowhero to ascend to the Kingitanga. One such hui was an 1857 meeting known as Te Puna o te Roimata (the wellspring of tears), at Haurua, south of Ōtorohanga, hosted by Tainui kin Ngāti Maniapoto. Tanirau, a powerful Ngāti Maniapoto chief, announced the iwi's at-large decision to support Pōtatau as king. Pōtatau replied, ‘E Tā, kua tō te rā’ (O sir, the sun is about to set), a proverb commenting on his advanced age and poor health, implying he had not much longer to live. Tanirau replied, ‘E tō ana i te ahiahi, e ara ana i te ata, e tū koe he Kīngi’ (it sets in the evening to rise again in the morning; thou art raised up a king). This referred to the possibility of introducing hereditary rule to the monarchy; Tanirau later espoused support for Tāwhiao (then known as Matutaera) or his siblings to succeed Pōtatau Te Wherowhero upon the latter's death. Pōtatau replied, ‘E pai ana’ (it is good), and ascended to the kingship, and to Waikato the role of kaitiaki of the Kīngitanga. The Kīngitanga remains a hereditary monarchy, and is yet to leave the hands of Waikato Tainui.
When Pōtatau died in 1860, Tāwhiao, his sister Te Paea Tiaho, and Wiremu Tamihana Tarapipipi of Ngāti Hauā were candidates to succeed him. Tāwhiao was chosen and reigned for thirty-four years during one of the most difficult and discouraging periods of Māori history. During this period there were two governments de jure; English law and governance prevailed within the British settlements and Māori custom over the rest of the country, although the influence of the King was largely confined to the Waikato and even there chiefs such as Rewi Maniapoto only cooperated with the king when it suited them. However the Pākehā population was increasing rapidly while the Māori population was unknown as there was no reliable census of Maori and Pākehā / Maori for 80 years. Because Maori separated themselves from Pākehā, many believed, wrongly, that the Maori population was declining rapidly. This was also the period when British industrial, trade and political power was at its height. The presence of an independent native state in the central North Island was officially ignored by the government until it developed the potential to undermine the colonial government's sovereignty.
After Tāwhiao converted to the Pai Mārire faith in early 1863, he and Te Ua Haumene established Te Kīwai o te Kete, the military pact forged between Taranaki and Tainui Māori during the New Zealand Wars. The two iwi had recently allied in 1860, during the First Taranaki War, when Kingitanga forces under the command of Epiha Tokohihi had come to the aid of Taranaki leader Wiremu Kīngi Te Rangitāke. Pōtatau Te Wherowhero had died in June 1860, making the First Taranaki War Tāwhiao's first major challenge. Tāwhiao supported the Kīngitanga's uniting principle of opposition to the sale of Māori land, to prevent the spread of British sovereignty, but as a pacifist he was divided over how to respond. Both Wiremu Kīngi and the Colonial Government had made repeated diplomatic approaches to Pōtatau to ask him for military and diplomatic support, but by early May Pōtatau seemed to have decided to offer at least token support to Taranaki Māori, sending a Kingite war party to the district under the control of war chief Epiha Tokohihi. Tāwhiao eventually opted to maintain this policy.
Invasion of the Waikato
thumb|[[Kauri gum bust of Tāwhiao made during the New Zealand Wars]]
In 1863, after Maniapoto warriors ambushed and killed British soldiers escorting a detained British soldier along the beach to New Plymouth to stand trial, the Government attacked the Kingitanga in Waikato, to suppress the King movement and remove a supposed threat to neighbouring Auckland. Having succeeded the inefficient Thomas Gore Browne as Governor, George Grey had convinced the government of a supposed invasion of Auckland by Waikato Tainui. According to Browne, in response to his belligerence in the First Taranaki War, Kingite leaders formed plans to launch a raid on Auckland on 1 September and burn the town and slaughter most of its residents. This has since been dismissed by such historians as James Belich as being fear-mongering from Browne in order to try and gain military support. Browne's invasion plan was suspended when he was replaced by Grey in September that year, and the Kingites in turn abandoned their plan for their uprising. Grey had held a grudge against the Kīngitanga since falling out with Tāwhiao's father, his old friend Pōtatau Te Wherowhero, with whom he had once had a "wonderful relationship", according to historian Rahui Papa. According to Brad Totorewa, Grey had begged Te Wherowhero to protect Auckland from Ngāpuhi, but Te Wherowhero had refused; after a meeting in which Grey demanded Te Wherowhero to relinquish his power or face seven years of war, Te Wherowhero had threatened to eat him. This name translates as "Area of the Hat", and is said to have originated when Tāwhiao put his white top hat on a large map of the North Island and declared that all land covered by the hat would be under his mana (or authority).
According to Massey University professor Michael Belgrave, the Rohe Pōtae also became "the refuge for Māori who had taken up armed resistance to the Crown". A notable example of this was Te Kooti, who resided under the protection of Tāwhiao from 1872. According to Belgrave: "for years, [Tawhiao] sat audaciously beyond the legal authority of the Queen and the vengeance of those communities he had ravaged on the East Coast... the establishment of the Rohe Pōtae, in the aftermath of the war, created an independent constitutional entity with its own borders and its own centralised authority. Belgrave has compared the invasion of the Waikato to the American Civil War, as it led to the creation of an "independent breakaway state". According to Belgrave, "between the battle of Ōrākau and the mid-1880s, the Rohe Pōtae remained an independent and unified state, but that unity was precarious", owing to the disunity between the iwi of Tainui and the increased resentment of monarchical rule.
For the next twenty years Tāwhiao lived an itinerant lifestyle, travelling among his people in Taranaki and Maniapoto settlements reminding them that war always had its price and the price was always higher than expected. He considered himself the anointed leader of a chosen people wandering in the wilderness. But he also predicted that the Māori people would find justice and restitution for the wrongs they had suffered. He preached that Kingites should keep separate from Pākehā. He was strongly against Maori children going to school to get an education. As a result, when the railway went through Kingite territory Kingites were only able to get unskilled jobs such as bush clearing. This strong anti education stance started a Kingite tradition that led to increasing isolation and lower standard of living than Maori experienced elsewhere in New Zealand. It was not until after the turn of the century that Kingites were finally persuaded to abandon their hatred of formal education in schools.
Tāwhiao was now leader of his own secessionist kingdom, but was utterly isolated. According to Belgrave "the Rohe Pōtae was an enclosed territory surrounded by land with a Crown title,". This stretched from the Aotea Harbour east to the boundary where the land confiscation in the Waikato had occurred, and then "along the boundaries of the Maungatautari and Pātetere blocks, to the Waipapa stream then south to Taupō. After that the line crossed the middle of the lake and ran to the top of the Kaimanawa range, looped through the central plateau between Ruapehu and Ngāruahoe, and then crossed the Whanganui River at Kirikau and headed west until it joined the Taranaki confiscation block." To the west was Kāwhia, Te Rohe Pōtae's major port, and to the east were Te Arawa, who were loyal to the British crown. The kūpapa among their highest ranks had prevented reinforcements from allies on the East Cape coming to support Tāwhiao during the invasion of the Waikato. To the south was the Taranaki confiscation and a largely ambivalent assortment of Māori living in Whanganui, who despite the great friendship Tāwhiao had professed as existing between the Waikato and Taranaki, Thoroughly disillusioned, Tāwhiao tried various initiatives to promote the independence and welfare of his people but he had been effectively marginalized. His problems were not solely due to the attitude of the New Zealand government. The King Movement had never represented all the Māori people and as it lost its mana or standing they became even more disunited.
Undeterred, Tāwhiao resolved to establish a new bank, the Bank of Aotearoa (Te Peeke o Aotearoa), at Parawera in 1886. Quickly expanding to Maungatatauri and Maungakawa. Cheques were issued by customers, but the bank issued no banknotes nor minted coins. It provided banking and monetary services to Māori (particularly those within the King Country). Sample banknotes bore the text "E whaimana ana tenei moni ki nga tangata katoa" (this money is valid for all people). Cheques issued on the Bank of Aotearoa let customers transfer large amounts of money without using cash.
Hui at Pīrongia
On 11 July 1881, Tāwhiao, escorted by between five hundred and six hundred men, many of them armed, rode into Pirongia from the Tainui settlement at Hikurangi, modern-day Taumarunui. A pacifist, Tāwhiao had finally elected to sue for peace. Chiefs accompanying him included Wahanui and Manuhiri. It was Major William Mair, the Government Native Officer in the Upper Waikato, who was sent by Governor George Grey to meet Tawhiao, and there in the main street of the township the Maori King laid down his gun at Mair's feet. Scores of his men followed his example, until seventy-seven guns were lying on the road in front of the Government officer. According to James Cowan, Wahanui came forward and said: “Do you know what this means, Mair? This is the outcome of Tawhiao's word to you that there would be no more trouble. This means peace.” Mair replied that that was self-evident, and said "I call to mind the words that Tawhiao uttered at Tomotomo-waka (Te Kopua) that there would be no more fighting. This is the day that we all have been waiting for. We know now that there will be no more trouble.”
In spite of this, the next decade would result in further impoverishment for Tainui, as the aukati was dissolved and their last stronghold was exposed to European settlers. The construction of the North Island Main Trunk Railway would spell the end of the Rohe Pōtae as an independent state. The establishment of Tāwhiao's Kauhanganui coincided with the formation of a Māori Parliament at Waipatu Marae in Heretaunga. This parliament, which consisted of 96 members from the North and South Islands under Prime Minister Hāmiora Mangakāhia, was formed as part of the Kotahitanga (unification) Movement, which Tāwhiao refused to join.
Death
During the remainder of his life Tāwhiao was respected and treated as royalty by many New Zealanders, both Māori (Kīngitanga-affiliated or not) and Pākehā. But he was allowed almost no influence over political events, as he had no legal authority within English law, which had displaced tikanga.
Tāwhiao died suddenly on 26 August 1894, aged 71 or 72. As is Tainui custom, he was buried at Mount Taupiri in an unmarked grave, as a sign of equality among his people. His tangihanga was held in September and was attended by thousands. In the 1880s, a Wairarapa newspaper quoted Tāwhiao as claiming a belief in Mormonism: "I was some time ago converted to a belief in the Mormon faith, and I now altogether hold to it. My people in the North are believers also in Mormonism, and it is my wish that all the Maori should be of that faith."
Although the LDS Church has no record of Tāwhiao being baptized, other Māori joined the church based on a prophecy they claimed Tāwhiao made in the 1860s—that messengers of God would come from over the Sea of Kiwa (the Pacific Ocean), travelling in pairs and teaching the Māori people in their own language. When some who heard Tāwhiao's prophecy observed pairs of Mormon missionaries from the United States teaching in Māori language, they immediately accepted Mormonism.
It was also claimed by some Māori converts that Tāwhiao accurately predicted the site of the LDS Church's Hamilton New Zealand Temple, which was built in 1958.
There is little direct contemporary evidence of Tāwhiao being a convert to Mormonism. The widely published accounts of his tangihanga make no mention of Mormonism but speak instead of native priests. or tohunga. What is beyond doubt, however, is that he and other Māori leaders of the time did meet with Mormon missionaries.
thumb|Kīngi Tāwhiao in 1884
Family
Tāwhiao had nine children with his three wives and other women. His main wife was Hera Ngāpora, daughter of his advisor Tāmati Ngāpora and his cousin. Their children were:
- Te Rata Tāwhiao (1857–1900). Maori Prince.
- Tāwhiao Te Wherowhero (1860–1911). Maori Prince Regent.
His second wife was called Rangiaho Taimana, and they had two children:
- Pokaia Tāwhiao (1844–1927). Maori Prince, had descendants.
- Haunui Tāwhiao (1882–1945). Maori Prince, had descendants.
His third wife was Aotea Te Paratene, also a cousin. They had only one daughter:
- Te Aouru Puahaere Te Popoke Tāwhiao (1856–1920). Maori Princess, had descendants.
He had a lover, Hinepau Tamamotu, daughter of a Maori Leader. They had two daughters:
- Irihapeti Peeti Te Paea Tāwhiao (1850–1900). Maori Princess, had descendants.
- Hui Hui Tāwhiao (1851–1910). Maori Princess, had descendants.
See also
- Pai Mārire
- Paora Te Potangaroa