Early missionaries, and their families, came to New Zealand with no interest whatsoever in founding anything — except perhaps a few modest congregations and the odd Sunday school. Instead, they played an important role in translating a treaty and helping to found a nation.
Samuel Marsden Arrives and Everything Begins (1814)
In 1814, the Reverend Samuel Marsden (Team Anglican, see below) arrived from New South Wales. There's no law to say you can't be both a man of God and a man who enjoys hitting people with whips, but the Venn diagram overlap there is smaller than Marsden apparently believed. He was known as "the Flogging Parson," which is not a nickname one acquires through being lenient, and suggests his interpretation of "turn the other cheek" was "so I can smack that one too."
He preached the first sermon on New Zealand soil at Rangihoua in the Bay of Islands on Christmas Day, which everyone agreed was both symbolic and convenient for sermon-writing purposes. The sermon was about peace and goodwill, which seems quite a departure from his usual work in Australia.
Marsden brought Christianity, livestock, and several optimistic missionaries who believed they could convert the heathen through the power of example. This example largely consisted of the missionaries bickering amongst themselves and writing letters complaining about NZ to Marsden. The Māori were initially more interested in the livestock than the theology, which showed good practical sense.
The CMS at Cross Purposes?
The Church Missionary Society (CMS) established missions at Kerikeri and other locations, teaching Māori to read, write, farm like Englishmen and, importantly, play cricket. They also set up schools, seeing these as an important part of their civilising mission. The farming was considered a tremendously Good Thing by the missionaries and a useful thing by Māori, who were pragmatic about adopting whatever seemed helpful from the new culture while ignoring the bits they didn't fancy.
The missionaries were mostly sincere but often tremendously confused about Māori customs. They disapproved of warfare and tattooing, which unfortunately, were rather central to chiefly life. The Māori chiefs listened politely and continued doing exactly as they pleased, which demonstrated excellent diplomatic skills. When Māori rocked up in London, they in turn disapproved of complaining about the weather, queuing, and apologising when someone bumped into them - thereby eliminating much of British culture.
A Brief Guide to the 3 Main Varieties of Christianity in NZ in 1840
Before we continue on you need to understand, if superficially, the three main variations of Christianity in New Zealand at the time of the Treaty:
Anglicans (or Church of England) were invented because Henry VIII wanted an annulment and the Pope said no, which is possibly history's most consequential marital dispute. They're essentially Catholics who got tired of being told what to do by Rome, so they kept all the ceremony but made it British, which means more committee meetings and less certainty about anything (see papal infallibility). Their defining characteristic is being terribly polite about theological disagreements while secretly seething.
Roman Catholics believe the Pope is infallible, which is a tremendous responsibility for one gentleman. They have excellent aesthetics - all that incense, gilt, and Renaissance art - but you must feel guilty about everything, which seems exhausting. They invented confession, allowing you to do terrible things and then tell a priest about it, which is either brilliant psychology or encouraging bad behaviour, depending on whether you’re an Anglican or not.
Methodists were started by John Wesley, who thought Anglicans weren't taking Christianity seriously enough, which is rather like complaining that librarians aren't being quiet enough. They're very keen on temperance, good works, and hymn-singing. They invented the Sunday School, which, depending on your childhood, is either admirable or unforgivable. They're basically Anglicans who actually mean it, which must be exhausting for everyone involved
Henry Williams and the Problem of Muskets
Henry Williams arrived in 1823 and was remarkably sensible for a missionary. He learned Te Reo Māori properly and translated bits of the Bible, which the Māori appreciated as they could now check whether the missionaries were telling the truth.
The missionaries faced a moral dilemma: Māori chiefs wanted muskets more than salvation because intertribal warfare, aka the Musket Wars, had become an arms race. The chiefs had worked out - with what one can only call impeccable logic - that eternal life was all very well, but temporal survival required superior firepower. Some missionaries traded muskets for food and supplies, reasoning that one must eat to evangelise, and if one is dead from starvation, one's conversion rate drops to zero. This was either pragmatic or morally questionable, depending on whom you asked. It was definitely profitable, which nobody mentioned in the mission reports sent to London, because the official missionary position (if you’ll excuse the expression) had views about both the propagation of Christianity and the propagation of firearms.
The Musket Wars* (1807-1840 something) made missionary work rather dangerous, as one never knew when a peaceful village might be attacked by a rival tribe with superior firepower. Several missionaries wrote home complaining that converting the heathen was dangerous when everyone was shooting at each other.
The Catholics Arrive and Everyone Gets Competitive
In 1838, French Bishop Pompallier (team Roman Catholic) arrived fashionably late, which horrified the Protestant missionaries who saw punctuality as a Christian virtue and thought they had a monopoly on both converting Māori and on God (who is English as everyone knows). This began a period of religious competition that was unseemly, un-Christian, and remarkably effective at getting Māori interested in Christianity, because nothing makes something appealing like watching two groups of foreigners desperately compete for your attention.
The Catholics brought better wine and more elaborate ceremonies, which appealed to those who appreciated pageantry. The Protestants accused the Catholics of idolatry which is Christian code for "they have better props than we do." The Catholics accused the Protestants of heresy, which is Catholic code for "they don't have a Pope and we think that's important." The Māori watched this theological cage match with interest and sometimes converted to whichever denomination offered better trade goods, which was theologically questionable but economically sound. Some particularly astute chiefs would convert back and forth depending on which mission was offering the best deal that month (rather like chopping and changing your internet provider), which suggests they understood free market capitalism better than either group of missionaries.
The Written Word and Unintended Consequences (1820s-1840s)
The missionaries' great achievement was translating the Bible into Te Reo Māori and teaching literacy. By the 1830s, many Māori could read and write, which was definitely a Good Thing. However, this had unintended consequences which is historian-speak for "this came back to bite them." Reading the Old Testament prophets was especially problematic, as they were constantly banging on about justice for the oppressed and God's anger at the wealthy and powerful, which was tremendously inspiring if you were being colonised and less helpful if you were doing the colonising. Interpreting the Old Testament in ways that weren’t necessarily ‘missionary approved’, formed the basis of many of the prophetic movements we mentioned briefly in our series Protesting The Treaty And All That.
The Treaty of Waitangi and Missionary Involvement (1840)
If we quietly disregard the missionaries' work in saving souls from eternal damnation because, let's be frank, it makes us a little uncomfortable, perhaps their most decisive legacy is their involvement in the Treaty.
Henry Williams was principal among them. He was a thoroughly capable sort of person, which in the early nineteenth century meant he had fought Napoleon and found God, more or less in that order. Having dispatched his naval duties with suitable competence, he arrived in New Zealand in 1823 as an Anglican missionary, whereupon he set about converting Māori with the kind of vigorous enthusiasm that made everyone slightly nervous but produced undeniably impressive results.
By the 1830s, Williams had concluded that the British should formally take charge, mainly to stop other Europeans behaving so badly. When the Treaty of Waitangi needed translating into te reo Māori, Williams obliged heroically, then was called upon to explain it all to the chiefs the following day in a large tent (you’ll recall from our TofW series).
Henry Williams and his son Edward translated the Treaty into te reo, overnight on the 4th of February, because, apparently, nobody had thought of this earlier. Meeting unrealistic deadlines may explain a great deal about why the English and Māori versions say different things. This was either rushed, careless or deliberate depending on your view of the Williams' character. It also calls into question just how accurate the translation of Luke’s Gospel might have been.
The missionaries encouraged chiefs to sign the Treaty, believing British sovereignty would control unruly Europeans, prevent French Colonisation (remember Napoleon) and protect Māori from dodgy land purchases. Whether this was: (a) Naive (b) Well-intentioned but misguided (c) Basically selling out their converts, remains hotly debated by historians who weren't there and probably have a cynical view of missionaries anyway.
Is the Road to Colonial Hell Paved With Missionary Intentions?
By 1850, the initial wave of missionary work was essentially over, replaced by full colonial settlement and government. Some missionaries had become wealthy farmers, which Māori noticed. This wasn’t a good look when the missionaries had spent years preaching about laying up treasures in heaven, and a camel’s inability to go through the eye of a needle. Apparently this applied to everyone except missionaries, who had a special exemption for agricultural land.
The missionaries had achieved the following:
- Converted many Māori to Christianity (Good Thing, if you're Christian; culturally complicated if you're trying to maintain traditional belief systems)
- Taught literacy (Unambiguously Good Thing, though with consequences they hadn't anticipated).
- Created a written form of Te Reo Māori (Good Thing with complicated consequences, as standardising an oral language always is)
- Enabled and encouraged colonisation (Bad Thing, though they genuinely didn't see it that way at the time, believing British rule was objectively superior to independence)
- Acquired large amounts of land (Tremendously awkward thing that rather undermined their credibility on spiritual matters)
- Translated the Treaty ambiguously (Catastrophically important thing that we're still dealing with)
The missionaries were mostly sincere people doing what they thought was right, which is either admirable or proves that sincerity is no guarantee of wisdom or good outcomes. Possibly both. The road to colonial dispossession is paved with good intentions, literacy programmes, and overnight treaty translations that probably needed a second draft.
So: it’s complicated. Which is the only honest conclusion one can reach about missionaries, colonisation, or frankly any historical period where people from one culture arrive in another culture with absolute certainty about what's best for everyone.
*The Musket Wars (1807-1845ish, though historians can never agree on dates, which is Good as it keeps them employed writing learned articles on the matter) were a series of inter-tribal conflicts that occurred when Māori discovered that muskets were considerably more effective than traditional weapons, much like how the English discovered that longbows were better than strongly worded letters