1846: Boulcott’s Farm Raid

May 16, 2022

By AHNZ

Today in history, 16 May, 1846, some 200 Maoris attacked Boulcott’s farm on the Hutt River. The Settlers had been harassed before in an outburst of violence that threatened to make the Wairau Massacre look like The Teddy Bear’s Picnic. So, they were prepared.

Te Rangihaeata was the mastermind behind the attack, just as he had been at Wairau in the South Island. Yes, the man sure got around. In the days of Whaling Era he was one of the most powerful men in New Zealand. His people had been expelled from their own territory some 500km away in the Waikato but they came not as refugees but as conquerors 20 years before. Te Rangihaeata did not take well to his reversal of fortunes in the Colonial Era and ordered the attack on the most northern edge of the Settler territory.

Between 7 and 10 Of the 45 to 50 defenders were killed driving off the Maori raid and even managed to take prisoners. The criminal perpetrators were treated like any other British citizen in being sent to Van Dieman’s Land for their crimes. There were 4 or 5 Maoris singled out as the ring-leaders and Transported. After less than two years to learn their lesson, their debt to society apparently paid, the Maoris were allowed to return home to New Zealand. One died in the process by contracting tuberculosis which, again, is a result of the same equal treatment and possible outcome as any other criminal of any race sent to Tasmania for murder.

“On 16 November 1846 five Māori prisoners arrived at Hobart, having been transported from New Zealand to Van Dieman’s Land (Tasmania) for armed resistance against the Crown. The five Whanganui Māori – Te Umuroa, Te Waretiti, Te Kumete, Matai-umu and Te Rāhui – were sentenced to a penal colony following their involvement in the Wellington campaign of the New Zealand Wars.” – Archives New Zealand, Flickr

“And it’s all that wording and the phrases that are used it’s all colonialism and we just need to have a different look at how things were done.” – Lower Hutt Deputy Mayor Tui Lewis, On Battle of Boulcott’s Farm anniversary, Lower Hutt deputy mayor tries to have Māori remembered, Stuff (2021)

“Historian Warwick Johnston believes some names are incorrectly spelt.” – ibid

AHNZ not the only one remembering the anniversary of Boulcott’s Farm battle. The Lower Hutt Deputy Mayor, Tui Lewis, is apparently interested in our history too. Not, I think, for the sake of history though.

If you wonder why Lewis is piping up now just remember that we are in the run-up to the 2022 Local Body Elections. She’s claiming a campaign platform before someone else gets it. The Council has known about spelling mistakes on these tablets for years and not acted. Promises to contemplate to hope to ‘complete’ ‘the’ ‘project’ by 2026 are also a clue that nobody here wants to actually do something; Just SJW signalling.

Little to do with true history, I’m afraid. The revisionists also throw doubt on the bravery of William ‘Boy’ Allen who died raising the alarm today in 1846. They even go so far as to question the use of the word ‘tomahawk’ to describe the murder weapon as if that were somehow a racist concept of an axe! “Is this a case then of using the American Indian weapon – its name and its ‘scalping’ connotation – in an attempt to promote an image of savagery on the rebel Māori?” writes historian Warwick Johnston. The fact is that New Zealanders use the word ‘tomahawk’ to refer to a small axe in all contexts through our history not just when they’re trying to…um…imply that 1946 Maoris are savages(?) or whatever Johnston is accusing.

Nothing is sacred. Boulcott’s Farm is being raided anew in the 2020s, as we see. Not by open conflict but by Woke revisionist attacks like these.

Liana MacDonald is the latest to put her boot in, as part of the government-funded revisionist history attack called Difficult Histories.

“Difficult Histories” is a new website and Facebook page est (c.Feb 2019.) It has been created by mainstream academics on a mission to think about how others think about ‘The New Zealand Wars’…Vincent O’Malley and his team were granted $859,000 about 10 months (Sep 2018) ago by The State to pursue this purpose.” – 2019: “Difficult Histories: The New Zealand Wars”, AHNZ

“The underwhelming memorial to this event melts into the grey tarmac of the road,… I read the plaque and took some photos. It was muggy, and a constant stream of noisy cars moved past the site. The details of the battle on the plaque are sparse…It’s as if Māori were the villains, the ones responsible for war, who just came along and killed people…the boulder itself, dragged from the Hutt River…” – Monuments that uphold the status quo, E-tangata (April 2022)

MacDonald, a government university teacher, is being paid by the government to think these thoughts and in turn the government (NZ on Air) is paying (twice) to have them published at the above link.

Like the politician, the above attack is all Feels and no Reals. “It’s the vibe, man.” An aesthetic attack on our history rather than any factual disputes. It’s the exact same ethnomasarchism that stripped Hamilton City of its Founder’s statue or one of it’s heroes (von Tempsky’s) street names. To lend more bad vibes to MacDonald’s attack on New Zealand history the article’s lead image is of a Pak’n Save supermarket trolly with the monument off to one side. Rather than revise history with a fresh look or new facts it’s being torn town by throwing mud: It’s in a muggy situation, it’s unappreciated, the cars are noisy, it’s a trap for abandoned trolleys…

Such political attacks without substance are paid for by you, the taxpayer, at a bill of thousands of dollars, disguised as historical investigation. This is how Victimhood Culture people make their raids. Personally, I prefer the honest combat of Te Rangihaeata who fought with dignity and mana to the thousand-cuts femminised back-stabbing reputation-undermining of MacDonald, Johnston, and Lewis. But, then, they’re motivated less by truth and openness as by votes and funding grants.

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Ref. “As we begin to teach our difficult histories in schools, these memorials and monuments will appear increasingly out of place and one-sided to many more of us, and there will be more and more questions about what we do with them.” — Dr Liana MacDonald.

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