Social Science

• The South African War (Second 'Anglo-Boer' War)


  1899 - 1902
• In the late 1800s, Britain asked New Zealand to send military troops to help extend its Empire
• The Boer War in South Africa was the first overseas war to which New Zealand sent soldiers
• Prime Minister Richard Seddon, an ardent Empire supporter, sent the first of 6 500 New Zealand men and 8 000 horses


  1899
• British industry owners wanted to mine the gold and diamonds that were discovered in South Africa
• This triggered protests from some in New Zealand
• Anti-war


  • Grey urged New Zealand to focus on its own defences instead of sending troops to Africa
  • He questioned why 'self-governing colonies thousands of miles from South Africa would send men to fight people with whom they had no quarrel'
  • There was no organised anti-war movement in New Zealand in the 1800s, but some, including those in the New Zealand Women's National Council, spoke against the war
• The women asked for cooperation to promote permanent and universal peace, solving disputes by arbitration rather than with weapons
• Patriotism


  • There was a rising tide of patriotic militarism in New Zealand
  • However, a New Zealand school headmaster was fired for refusing to salute the New Zealand flag or order students to do so
  • Charlotte Benwicke publicly raised money for wounded and sick Boers
  • With no TV crews reporting in 1900, few people in New Zealand knew what was happening in South Africa
• To win the war, Britain ordered New Zealand forces to help destroy 30 000 Boer homes, implements and livestock, effectively depriving families of food and shelter
• Looting of precious possessions was rife
• Distressed women and children were rounded up and confined in squalid British concentration camps where tens of thousand died of starvation and illness with children being the most vulnerable
• Māori forces were not sent to South Africa due to being rejected by the British based on racist grounds
• These views changed, however, during WWI when military support was sought and brought from wherever it could be found
• Mandate


  An official order assigning authority to another state to implement policy over a territory
• Banished


  Forced to leave one's home village to a remote area for an extended period
• Exiled


  Expelled and barred from one's native country, for political and punitive reasons
• Mau


  • An unarmed opposition movement asserting the right to Samoan self-governance against New Zealand's colonial 'mandate' by passive resistance, such as refusing to pay taxes
  • Uniform of blue lavalava with a white band insignia made their cause highly visible, especially in public parades
• NZ sent a replacement Relief Force of 360 men unsuitable for frontline war work to Samoa


  1915
• NZ authorities allowed a ship with influenza sufferers let passengers off in Apia, triggering a preventable epidemic causing death to 22% of Samoans (30% of Samoan men died). Offer of medical help by American Samoa was rejected by Colonel Robert Logan, New Zealand's first administrator


  1918
• League of Nations allocated the mandate of Samoa to New Zealand, despite Samoan opposition


  1920
• 28 Samoan MPs on a powerless Advisory Council petitioned for self-governance. Rejected!


  1921
• Samoan Offenders Ordinance Act banished 50 Samoan leaders including Tupua Tamasese from their villages and removed esteemed traditional titles for refusal to comply with New Zealand administrators


  1922 to 1926
• George Richardson became New Zealand's third Administrator in Western Samoa. Ignoring Samoan culture and its land system, he tried to replace Samoan villages with 'model villages' of his design


  1923
• 'Maintenance of Authority in Native Affairs Ordinance' made it illegal to 'endeavour to incite disaffection' towards New Zealand authority. A Citizen's Committee meeting and wide Mau opposition led to 59 banishment orders and two years exile for Olaf Nelson and two other European supporters


  1927
• Exiled Olaf Nelson tried to present a Samoan petition to the League of Nations Mandates Commission, asking them to end New Zealand's mandate. He was denied a hearing. New Administrator, Colonel Stephen Allen, arrived with 74 armed SMPs (Samoa Police Force). Hundreds of Mau arrested, filling prisons and detention centres until they had to be released. Refusal to pay taxes was a key Mau strategy; Tama Tamasese was sent to New Zealand for a six-month jail sentence


  1928
• Black Saturday! Began with a Mau welcome parade for the returning exiled people. Mau opposition to a police arrest was met with police gunfire and a WWI machine gun, killing 11, including Mau leader Tupua Tamasese while he urged 'filemu', peace. Fifty others were injured and one New Zealand constable died. As Tamasese died he urged: "My blood has been spilt for Samoa. I am proud to give it. Do not dream of avenging it, as it was spilt in maintaining peace. If I die, peace must be maintained at any price."

  1929
• Samoa Seditious Organisation Regulations made it illegal to identify with or express approval of Mau. The penalty for appearing to do so was a year in prison


  1930
• Olaf Nelson was tried and found guilty of 'aiding and abetting the Mau'; exiled for 10 years


  1934
• Labour PM Savage's Samoa administrator rejected Samoa's request for protectorate status to give Samoa autonomy over its internal affairs, but by 1936 the Mau was recognised as a legitimate political organisation, electing their own representatives. Nelson's exile was overturned and he was welcomed back to Apia by 15 000 people. As conditions improved, Mau 'faded from the scene'


  1935
• Samoa achieved political independence and signed a Friendship Treaty with New Zealand. It's 60th anniversary was celebrated by both Prime Ministers and others in Apia in 2021


  1962
• PM Helen Clark apologised in Apia on the 40th anniversary of Samoa's independence, for harm during New Zealand's rule, particularly mismanagement of the 1918 flu epidemic, banishment of Mau leaders and police shootings on Black Saturday 1929. She also thanked Samoans for their many valued contributions to New Zealand


  2002
• Samoa's 60th anniversary of independence and the Friendship Treaty with New Zealand was celebrated by both Prime Ministers and others in Apia

  2021
• Tupua Tamasese, Mau leader: '"It is the wish of the Mau that Samoa be controlled by Samoans"'
• Samoa has a proud 3 000 year history and wanted 'Samoa mo (for) Samoa'
• "This is our country. Other residents are only guests – welcome or not. We wish to govern ourselves, according to our own customs rather than authoritarian dictates by outsiders. Laws imposed by New Zealand make 'criminals' of us for actions not illegal in any country except where selfdom prevails."
• The New Zealand government saw its mandate over Samoa as a WWI 'spoil of war' to enhance New Zealand prestige, a reward for supporting Britain
• Despite imperial aspirations, some felt 'New Zealand was struggling for its own identity and was in no fit state to run nations of people who had a rock firm notion of their own'
• Administration of Samoa, modelled on Britain's colonial management, as characterised by racism, paternalism, minimal understanding of different cultural values, anti-democratic attitudes, and militarist policies towards Samoans and Chinese
• New Zealand laws undermined Samoan cultural customs; prevented genuine political representation; and instituted one law for 'whites' and another (with added penalties) for Samoans and Chinese