History was made when the British High Commissioner to New Zealand issued a moving statement of regret to iwi in Gisborne 250 years after the first interaction between Māori and the crew of Captain Cook’s ship, Endeavor, which saw nine mana whenua killed.
The expression of regret, signed off by foreign office ministers and directly expressed to the descendants of the men, was an acknowledgment of something previously ignored in a region where Captain Cook's arrival has often been celebrated.
One of their descendants, Charlotte Gibson of Ngati Oneone, called yesterday's meeting with High Commissioner Laura Clarke "very moving".
"It's just one of those things that you never think you'll see in your lifetime," Ms Gibson told TVNZ1's Breakfast this morning, "so it was a big, big moment for us".
Another of their descendants, Moera Brown of the Turanga iwi collective, told Breakfast the day was "significant in the sense that, firstly, we have a representative of a country that recognised that we lost nine people with our encounter with Cook".
"I'm not sure, for the rest of the population of New Zealand, that that's a well-known fact, but yesterday certainly, that was expressed beautifully by the High Commissioner of Britain, and we thank her for acknowledging the loss of our tīpuna," Ms Brown said.
Ms Gibson said the descendants wanted acknowledgment of the lives lost during Captain Cook’s encounter, noting that there was no sign of Māori living in Gisborne.
"With all the physical things that are around our town, there's a clock that tells you we're in Gisborne, there's a statue of Cook that tells you we're in Gisborne, there are Endeavour model replicas hanging around that tells you we're in Gisborne – there was nowhere here in town that says, actually, you're in Gisborne and Māori live here," she said. "Apart from that, the story's never written."
Ms Brown said the 250-year commemoration of the first encounter between Māori and Pākehā "has been an opportunity to say, actually, 'We have a story to tell, and we have a story to tell that's not been heard before.'
"We have a whole lot of oral history that has been handed down from our tīpuna that connects with the arrival of Cook … but we also have a whole history of mātauranga [knowledge] that was thriving when Cook first arrived with our relationship with the whenua, with our knowledge and respect of navigations," she said.
"We have lost some of that in the 250 years since the encounter and the opportunity for us to be able to re-establish that mātauranga, re-establish all that knowledge so that the next 50 years, this story will actually be common knowledge to all of New Zealand."
The unprecedented move came as the British high commissioner visited iwi in Gisborne today. (Source: Other)
While she didn't believe yesterday's meeting with the High Commissioner could be described as "empowering", Ms Gibson said "shackles definitely dropped away".
"It recognised our people have a story to tell, and it recognises that that story is the right story, and it is our story," she said. "It gives mana back to our people, it gives confidence to our people that actually, we're right.
"For 250 years, we were told no, we were wrong. I think now, we've been told we were right and we're happy with that. Now, we're just going to look forward and say, 'Right, what does that look like for our hapū going forward?' We're really pleased we've fulfilled wishes of our parents that, in their time, could never do this, what we did."
The British High Commissioner to New Zealand, Laura Clarke, told Breakfast yesterday's meeting was "really about reconciliation".
It comes after the High Commissioner was visited by representatives from three iwi and Ngati Oneone last December to seek a process of reconciliation.
Laura Clarke discussed the British Government’s expression of regret over the deaths of Māori during encounters with Captain Cook’s crew. (Source: Other)
"If you want to look to the future and build a positive future, you also have to look back and acknowledge the past and acknowledge the wrongs of the past," Ms Clarke said. "And the fact that it went so tragically wrong, the fact that nine tīpuna were murdered was really devastating and I know that that hurt.
"That pain has been passed on from generation to generation, so yesterday really was about hearing that story, hearing about that pain and acknowledging the loss of those tīpuna, of those ancestors, and expressing regrets so that then, we can look to the future and build a relationship that is more positive going forward."
While she "wasn't caught up in the terminology" over the meeting being labelled an expression of regret rather than an apology, "what matters is the sentiment, and it's a sentiment of reaching out - reaching, really, across generations – and saying this was a wrong," she said.
"The crew of the Endeavour shot and killed nine ancestors and that was a wrong that hasn't been acknowledged until now, and so really, what matters, I feel, is the sentiment. It's that acknowledgment of the pain, and then it's the desire to build a relationship going forward and I think that's what matters to the iwi, too."
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