Volkner Incident

The Volkner Incident describes the murder of the missionary, Karl Volkner, in New Zealand in 1865 and the consequent reaction of the Government of New Zealand in the midst of the Maori Wars.

The Battle of Te Ranga, June 21, 1864, was the last major conflict of the Tauranga Campaign and is also said to mark the effective end of the fighting involved with the Invasion of the Waikato. It left an uneasy peace, not so much a peace as an absence of conflict, one that lasted for several months. This period saw two significant changes in disposition of the warring parties.

The Imperial Troops were fighting their last campaign in New Zealand before being withdrawn to garrison duty and then withdrawn from New Zealand completely. At the same time the Colonial Militia were being reorganized and rearmed to take up slack.

Meanwhile the Pai Marire movement (or Hau Hau) was gaining ground and converts among the East Coast Maori. The Pai Marire Movement began in 1862 as a combination of Christianity and traditional Maori beliefs. Originally peaceful, it had soon changed to become a violent and vicious anti-Pakeha creed.

Pai Marire evangelists arrived in the Opotiki area of the Bay of Plenty in February 1865. On March 2 the missionary, Karl Volkner, discovered that his Maori congregation had moved on from Christianity to Hau Hauism. He was dragged from his church and hung from a tree; after an hour or so he was decapitated. Then the Hau Hau prophet, Kereopa te Rau re-entered the church and conducted a service with Volkner's head in the pulpit beside him. At a suitably dramatic moment he plucked out the missionary's eyeballs and swallowed them. The news of this brutal murder caused great alarm and anger among Pakeha populace who demanded immediate retribution, eyeball eating was not to be tolerated.

It was suggested at the time that Volkner was spying for the government and this explained his murder. However the allegation was never proven, and it was immediately dismissed as being irrelevant.

That said, the New Zealand government was in no position to do anything about it--the Imperial Troops under General Cameron were virtually on strike. There was active conflict in Taranaki (on the opposite side of the Island) which had to be resolved before anything could be started in the Opotiki region. For several months nothing happened--then came the capture of Wereroa Pa--the relief of the siege of Pipiriki in August, 1865 that virtually ended that phase of the Second Taranaki War. This freed up the militia for action elsewhere.

In September, 1865, the forces then available to the New Zealand government, some 500 men, were transported by ship from Wanganui through Cook Strait, around the East Cape to Opotoki. The composition of this force was significant. There were four companies of militia, a troop of cavalry and a contingent of Ngati Hau (not to be confused with their enemy, the Hau Hau) warriors lead by Kepa te Rangihiwinui. These were the units that had already been campaigning together during the Taranaki War and had a history of successful cooperation and mutual respect.

The landing at Opotiki was accomplished with difficulty. One of the ships ran aground on a falling tide and came under fire from the shore. Eventually it had to be abandoned and the crew and militia waded ashore but it was another twenty four hours before the other ships were able to land their men and supplies.

As soon as they were established and the snipers driven away the militia occupied the church where Volkner had been murdered. While some of the Pakeha soldiers worked at turning this into a fortress the others with Kepa and the Ngati Hau were turned loose on the countryside. There followed a season of pillage, rape and murder. Within two weeks they had stripped the countryside of all available food supplies, keeping what they needed and destroying the rest. Beyond a few muskets the local Maori lacked any weapons with which to defend themselves. It was made clear to them that these depredations would continue until the men responsible for the murder of Volkner were captured or surrendered. But the man responsible, Kereopa was not available for capture and had no intention of surrendering.

By the end of October the tribe's position was desperate. Some twenty of its chiefs surrendered. They were shipped to Auckland for trial, five of them received the death penalty and were hung the following year. Large areas of land around Opotiki were confiscated and sold to settlers.

In 1998 the New Zealand government offered the Opotiki Maori $NZ40 million as compensation for the confiscated land. The offer was rejected as inadequate; the land is currently valued at about $NZ20 billion.

Further reading

• Barthorp, Michael (1979). To face the daring Māori. Hodder and Stoughton.
• Belich, James (1988). The New Zealand wars. Penguin.
• Belich, James (1996) Making peoples. Penguin Press.
• Cowan, J., & Hasselberg, P. D. (1983) The New Zealand wars. New Zealand Government Printer. (Originally published 1922)
• Maxwell, Peter (2000). Frontier, the battle for the North Island of New Zealand. Celebrity Books.
• Simpson, Tony (1979). Te Riri Pakeha. Hodder and Stoughton.
• Sinclair, Keith (ed.) (1996). The Oxford illustrated history of New Zealand (2nd ed.) Wellington: Oxford University Press.
• Vaggioli, Dom Felici (2000). History of New Zealand and its inhabitants, Trans. J. Crockett. Dunedin: University of Otago Press. Original Italian publication, 1896.
• "The people of many peaks: The Māori biographies". (1990). From The dictionary of New Zealand biographies, Vol. 1, 1769-1869. Bridget Williams Books and Department of Internal Affairs, New Zealand.