Dr. Samuel Carpenter, "A New Biography of Henry Williams: Missionary, Peacemaker& Treaty Translator"

Wānanga-Symposium, Waitangi, 17 November 2023 ABSTRACT It has been exactly 50 years since Lawrence Rogers published Te Wiremu: A Biography of Henry Williams. Since that time, treaty claims research alongside a Māori renaissance of mātauranga (knowledge) and a global postcolonial scholarship, has made this proficient biographical effort seem outdated, even though it was built on detailed archival research. A new biography of an evangelical missionary (such as that I am currently attempting) must engage with these various literatures whilst remaining archivally rigorous. This is not enough, however. A new biography of Henry Williams should locate him in his own world of texts and contexts, within the energy of a global missionary movement closely allied with anti-slavery and humanitarianism, and within a Māori world that was itself becoming entangled with European trade and agriculture, military technology and European ideas – most especially those pertaining to politics and religion. This new biography – and this paper – will intermix historiographical reflection, narrative, and intellectual and cultural analysis. It re-reads Henry Williams as a missionary of Nonconformist (Puritan) whakapapa who introduced new ideas and tapū rhythms to te ao Māori (the Māori world), as a peacemaker who mediated in Māori inter-hapū and inter-iwi warfare, and as a treaty interpreter who anchored his translation – te Tiriti o Waitangi – in a new world of scriptural (and western) texts and practices relating to ture (law) and kāwanatanga (government). Above all, this paper re-presents this missionary as enmeshed in Māori tribal politics, recalibrating Māori language to new Christian meanings, and identifying with his Māori congregations and members of his extended missionary whānau (family) over against the incoming colonial-imperial regime. BIO Samuel Carpenter is a Research and Professional Teaching Fellow at Laidlaw College and a scholar-in-residence at St John’s Theological College (Tāmaki/ Auckland). His 2020 PhD focussed on early political thought in Aotearoa New Zealand. He is a founding trustee of Karuwhā Trust and worked in the Wellington treaty sector for over a decade. This wānanga-symposium, held at Waitangi, was supported by Te Tii marae, Te Pihopatanga o te Tai Tokerau, Karuwhā Trust, Laidlaw College, St John's Theological College, NZ Church Missionary Society, and Ngā Wai Hōhonu.