Queen Sālote Tupou III — Queen of Tonga

Who is Queen Sālote?

As a child when my mother thought I was being disrespectful she would chide me by saying, Who do you think you are – Queen Sālote? It would make me pause and wonder who was this Queen Sālote and why did my mother hold her in such high regard?

Information or details were not provided, it was expected that I would know. I had heard of Princess Te Puea and pondered if they were related?

Queen Sālote Tupou III was the Queen of Tonga. She was born in 1900 and reigned from 1918 to 1965. This early image of her (above) is said to have been taken when she was residing with the Kronfield family in Auckland.

Sālote was the daughter and only child of King George Tupou II and his first wife, Queen Lavinia Veiongo. The marriage was not well-liked as the lineage of the Queen was considered contentious and she stayed confined in the palace grounds. Sālote's mother passed away from tuberculosis when Sālote was two years old.

The King took a second wife in 1909 when Sālote was aged nine. Weeks later, she was sent to New Zealand to be educated. Margaret Hixon (2000) writes that there was formidable opposition to the reign of the King from Tongan chiefs with the ever-present risk of assassination and the threat of British annexation from Western Powers in the Pacific.

Sālote was escorted to New Zealand by her tutor Lesieli Tonga — a past pupil of Reverend John Moulton at Tupou College, who had taught her English language, etiquette, religious studies and Tongan culture — into the care of the Kronfield family.

Queen Sālote’s life and legacy

Sālote was educated at Auckland Diocesan School for Girls until she was 15. She was now the age of the heir-presumptive to the throne and there was political opposition to her being absent from Tonga. Sālote returned to Tonga.

She married Vilami Tungi Mailefihi when she was seventeen. Sālote was proclaimed Queen on 6 April 1918, following her father's death from tuberculosis the previous day. Sālote gave birth to the first of their three sons in 1918.

Queen Sālote maintained close ties to New Zealand through her lifelong visits to contacts in Auckland. She established a personal residence and Tongan student hostel at Epsom and was visited there by various politicians, dignitaries, and communities.

Queen Sālote helped unify the many small Tongan islands, composed songs and poems of renown, encouraged her people (estimated population 30,000 to 50,000) to retain their tradition and customs and healed the division between two competing Wesleyan factions. Going on to become the head of the Tongan Wesleyan Free Church.

She was tall woman, over 6 feet, as this photo (below) of her inspecting Tongan troops shows.

Being a Royal

I was curious about how my mother from an isolated community on the East Coast knew of Queen Sālote and can only speculate that she read about her in the newspapers which reported royal vists.

Various Māori groups, and Waikato in particular, would call into Queen Sālote's home in Epsom to acknowledge her mana and standing. Certainly Māori were aware of whakapapa connections to Te-Moana-nui-a Kiwa and the Pacific and events like the Opening of Te Hono ki Rarotonga meeting house in 1934 that honoured the Pacific connection and was reported in the Hawera Star.

The Auckland Star records the visit by Queen Sālote to Turangawaewae Marae during a New Zealand tour where she meet with Kingi Koroki, Princess Te Puea and Princess Piki (later Kuini Te Atairangikaahu) of Tainui. It reports:

There was more than a touch of the dramatic in the meeting which took place on Saturday morning at Ngaruawahia between the Queen of Tonga, Queen Salote Tubou, who is visiting New Zealand, and Princess Te Puea Herangi, who has been called the "uncrowned queen" of the Maori people. Queen Salote, who was accompanied by her Consort, Prince Tugi, and her suite, broke her journey to Rotorua at Ngaruawahia for a few hours, in order that she might see Te Puea and the work which she has achieved at Ngaruawahia pa—once the residence of her grandfather, King Tawhiao.
— Auckland Star, Volume LXVII, Issue 236, 5 October 1936, Page 11

Her hosts accepted an invitation to reciprocate in 1947 by attending the double wedding of two of the Tongan Princes. The photo taken at the wedding includes Queen Sālote and In the doorway at left, wearing a white headscarf, is Princess Te Puea.

Queen Sālote attended the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II in 1952. She apparently made a great impression and stole the show.

"She was very tall and regal. Even in the heavy rain she travelled in an open carriage with only a colourful parasol for shelter."

Queen Sālote later hosted Queen Elizabeth and the Duke of Edinburgh during a 1953 Commonwealth Royal Tour that included a visit to the Kingdom of Tonga as seen in this YouTube video. During this tour, the British Royal couple also visited Tainui at Tūrangawaewae marae in New Zealand for the first time.

Researching Queen Sālote

During my research for this post I became very aware of Queen Sālote's life as a working royal and understood that she would have been a famous and prominent Pacific woman of her time. I found the resources below useful and would recommend reading a biography if you are interested in knowing about her life and legacy.

Te Ao Hou magazine published an article in 1954 about Queen Sālote titled A Polynesian Queen whose dream came true.

Digital Pasifik offers a convenient research tool to explore Pacific cultural heritage items held in the world’s museums, libraries, archives, universities, and other institutions.

For example, a search under 'Queen Sālote' shows resources from a range of institutions that have digitised various newspaper articles with images, such as this record from Auckland Libraries — Tongan and Māori royalty exchange greetings — described as "A group portrait of leaders from Tonga who are visiting Ngaruawahia".

In the National Library catalogue, a keyword search of 'Queen Sālote' includes manuscripts, images and ephemera, as well as microfilm copies of Tongan Government Papers relating to the reign of Queen Salote Tupou III.

In 2019, the Pacific Music Awards Trust presented a posthumous Life Achievement award to Queen Sālote to acknowledge her "huge contribution to the preservation and creative use of the Tongan language and recognise her as a celebrated writer of poetry and song."

References

1. Hixon, M. (2000). Sālote, Queen of Paradise / Margaret Hixon. University of Otago Press.

2. Wood-Ellem, E. (1999). Queen Sālote of Tonga : the story of an era, 1900-1965 / Elizabeth Wood-Ellem. Auckland University Press.

3. Wood-Ellem, E. (2004). Songs & poems of Queen Sālote / translated by Melenaite Taumoefolau ; edited by Elizabeth Wood-Ellem ; with essays by HRH Princess Nanasipauʻu Tukuʻaho ... [et al.]. Vavaʻu Press.