Moriori genocide

The Moriori genocide was the mass murder, enslavement, and cannibalism of the Moriori people, the indigenous ethnic group of the Chatham Islands, by members of the mainland Māori New Zealand iwi Ngāti Mutunga and Ngāti Tama from 1835 to 1863. The invaders murdered around 300 Moriori and enslaved the remaining population. This, together with diseases brought by Europeans, caused the population to drop from 1,700 in 1835 to 100 in 1870. The last full-blood Moriori, Tommy Solomon, died in 1933.

The Moriori are the indigenous population of the Chatham Islands (Moriori: Rēkohu), specifically Chatham Island and Pitt Island. It is thought that Moriori have the same Polynesian ancestry as Māori people. According to oral tradition the Moriori came to the Chatham Islands from Eastern Polynesia around 1500 AD, a couple of hundred years after Māori first arrived on the mainland, and that later migration came from mainland New Zealand. Mainstream academic opinion holds that Moriori did arrive around 1500, but from New Zealand. By the time of invasion, Moriori had formed their own culture adapted to their isolated island environment and its marine resources. The Moriori population peaked at around 2,000 people, divided among nine tribes.

After bloody inter-tribal conflict on the islands, high-ranking Moriori chief Nunuku-whenua introduced a philosophy of non-violence in the 16th century, known as Nunuku's Law. This law became engrained in Moriori culture.

In November 1791, the British survey brig, HMS Chatham, was blown off course to the islands which were then claimed for Britain in a formal flag raising ceremony by the ship's commander, Lieutenant William Broughton. In a misunderstanding with the ship's crew, a Moriori man, Tamakaroro, was shot dead. Moriori elders believed Tamakaroro was partly at fault for the shooting and planned appropriate visitor greeting rituals.

The two invading Māori tribes, Ngāti Mutunga and Ngāti Tama, were originally from Taranaki. They had been driven out of their homeland during the Musket Wars against other iwi and had settled around Wellington Harbour.

In 1835, with the forced assistance of the crew, several hundred Māori, mostly of Ngāti Mutunga and Ngāti Tama at Port Nicholson, sailed to the Chatham Islands aboard the brig whaler Lord Rodney in two sailings. The hijacked ship carried 500 people on the first sailing, which arrived on 19 November 1835. The second sailing arrived on 5 December 1835. With the arrival of the second group "parties of warriors armed with muskets, clubs and tomahawks, led by their chiefs, walked through Moriori tribal territories" and "curtly informed the inhabitants that their land had been taken and the Moriori living there were now vassals." When some Moriori argued back, they were killed.

Due to the new arrivals' hostility, a council of 1,000 Moriori was convened at Te Awapātiki, on the eastern side of the island, to debate possible responses. Younger members argued that the Moriori should fight back as they outnumbered Māori two-to-one. Elders, however, argued Nunuku's Law should not be broken. Despite knowing Māori were not pacifist, Moriori ultimately decided to stay pacifist against the invaders, describing Nunuku's Law as "a moral imperative".

Although the council decided in favour of peace, the invading Māori inferred that the meeting was a prelude to war. They launched a pre-emptive attack on Moriori in their homes as soon as they had returned from the council. Around 300 Moriori were killed, with hundreds more enslaved. The Māori ritually killed around 10% of the population. Stakes were driven into some of the women, who were left to die in pain.