The Wairau 1843: New Zealand's First Post-Treaty Conflict

  • Date: 9 February
  • Time:

    12.15pm–1.00pm

  • Cost:

    Free

  • Location:

    Te Wehenga and Malaga Pasifika Rooms, Ground Floor, National Library

The creation of Coates’s Māori portraits is bound up with the Wairau Affray in 1843, the first violent clash to take place between Māori and Pākehā after the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi. Following the incident, as one history put it, ‘the slow-growing friendly confidence between the two races received a lasting interruption.'

In this seminar, historians Hilary and John Mitchell will survey the events at Wairau, the aftermath and Coates’s portraits of some of the Māori who were involved. This includes an intriguing mystery about the identity of a woman painted by Coates who may or may not have been killed at the Wairau.

The speakers

Hilary and John Mitchell are the authors of the award-winning three volume work Te tau ihu o te waka: a history of Māori of Nelson and Marlborough, and founders of Mitchell Research consultancy.

Part of the Turnbull Gallery exhibition, Head and shoulders: Portraits of Māori by Isaac Coates.