Te Whiti was born in Ngamota, near Taranaki in 1830 around the musket wars. He was the son of Rangiawau (his mum) and Tohukakahi (his dad). His dad was the chief of the Patukai Hapu Ngati Tawhirikura branch, Te Whiti Lived peacefully on the coast near parihaka, until he was 35 in 1865. When he was older he attended Reimenschneder Mission School at Warea. Te Whiti proved himself excellent at bible studies. People at his school saw him becoming a teacher or a possible prophet. After school Te Whiti began a flour mill in Warea.
By 1870 Parihaka had become the biggest village in the country. Te Whiti was a spiritual man, with this he Preached to people. In 1879 the Europeans invaded the Maori’s land, in 1881 Europeans decided that they wanted to begin taking the Maoris land and punish people unfairly. Te Whiti and Tohu (his cousin) were leaders of the Parihaka movement. They were peaceful protesters. They believed in non violence. The movement then inspired people of Parihaka to challenge the Europeans for taking there land unfairly. Te Whiti and Tohu then had to have meetings with two European police people. They had to go to jail for no reason, while in jail Te Whiti was instructing people to keep ploughing the fields to have food to eat, but the Europeans keep destroying it. When he was in prison he tried to make the prison guards go insane by playing mind games with them.The only good things about prison were that he started to learn about European technology.Te Whiti was thought to be the first person to use a telephone in a Christchurch railway.
When Te Whiti was four days away from being released his wife died and he was not allowed to go to her funeral, or go back to his land. Te Whiti returned home to Parihaka with his son in law Tare Waitara. The whole town then started to modernise itself. Parihaka was thought to be ahead of it’s time. It had lighting, drainage and running water. After Te Whiti was let out of prison Parihaka had ended a 19 year imprisonment of people and all were let out of prison.
On the 18 November, 1907 Te Whiti and Tohu died within a few months of each other. Te Whiti’s followers adopted a symbol which was a white albatross feather. They thought that it would protect the mana of Parihaka settlement, the Maori’s all continued the peace protests, and the meetings. The Maori’s lived simply and encouraged peace, industry, and sobriety among people.
Te Whiti was an inspirational leader because of his, courage, religion, trust, and faith.I think that all of these reasons make him a great leader. I think his courage came from his dad, and his trust and faith from his mum, but I think that his religion came from the Europeans, from being in war so long with the Maoris. He learnt to be religious and war was wrong. This is why I think Te Whiti was a great leader and a great person.
By Drew Cullen
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