John Godley

Ah, it is you again, is it? Your curiosity stirred, no doubt, like a swirl of leaves amidst a norwester. Well, yes, I am indeed pleased you have sought me out once more, for the tale is far from told. And you, I wager, are brimming with questions. Why, for instance, was Wakefield thrown into a prison cell? Or, what peculiar inspiration led me to deem the colonisation of a swamp an enterprise most noble? 

Well, I shall enlighten you. 

I was born upon Irish soil – though do not mistake me for one of the locals, for I am of English stock, a gentleman by birth and a scholar of Cambridge's venerable halls. The Irish tenants who toiled upon my land in the 1840s, endured no small measure of hardship. There are those now who might whisper that they were but victims of the grand machinery of colonisation itself. Such a notion, I assure you, never darkened my contemplations. What I beheld, clear as the noonday sun, was that colonisation – conducted with precision and propriety – held the key to remedying such wretchedness. 

As for Wakefield, well let us just say that his ambition has always been far grander than his actions. So determined was he to find fortune that he concocted an elaborate plan to kidnap a teenage heiress and convince her to marry him based on a pretext of bold lies. He very nearly got away with it, but the father got wind and intervened just in time to send Wakefield off to Newgate prison instead. 

It was there that he first turned his mind – or indeed his pen – to the idea of colonisation. His theory was one primarily of economics. The “waste lands” of the colonies must not be given away for a song – instead, they must be offered at “sufficient price” to fund the transport of workers and for the land to be just out of reach for those workers until such a time that they had offered their toil to the settlement. 

Well, it didn’t work in Wellington of course. Many of his so-called investors were just property speculators who never left the shores of England, and the poor souls who did arrive found great disagreement with Māori over land sales and there was not enough to keep them gainfully employed. The whole New Zealand company venture was failing. But Wakefield was nothing if not persistent. And in me he saw a gentleman who might be convinced of the moral value of his plan and activate my various connections to its success.

I suppose it’s curious that “sufficient price” was not an idea applied to purchasing land from the natives. Let us consider Kemp’s Purchase. It wasn’t so much negotiated as declared. The price was decided well in advance of any talks with Ngāi Tahu. There was a certain bit of theatre in the negotiations as well. I’m not sure whose idea it was, but the proposal was presented to the chiefs aboard a brig moored at Takapūneke. Was that a coincidence? Since the bay of Takpūneke in Akaroa harbour was the exact spot where Te Rauparaha orchestrated a surprise attack on the people of Banks Peninsula by filling a ships’ hold with warriors.

I must say, the whole colonisation idea was underpinned by the firm belief that our capitalist and Christian ways of thinking were correct and proper and that the whole globe could only benefit from taking them on. I will admit it does seem incurious of us now to never have so much as enquired about the native ways of thinking or taking any time to understand their relationship with the land, by which me might have all benefited. I suppose it is too late now to look back and do anything different. Or perhaps it is not?

It might surprise you to hear that I was known as a liberal for my time – described even as weak for showing concern for my Irish tenants. Indeed, my whole life was marked by a determination to do what I thought was moral and proper and correct. 

So this Founder of Canterbury idea…  if not me, then who? Well, Wakefield was pulling all the strings, that’s for sure. I was useful, with my Oxford connections and my high church reputation.

Or maybe Captain Thomas, who chose  the site on the south island - over the original Wairarapa – or even the lawyer Sewell, who arrived with EGW just weeks after I left and oversaw the transition to constitutional government, wound up the Canterbury Association and got the founding ideals of the college and church underway. By the time this statue was erected, my name was all but forgotten except by a few original colonisers – my ever-dying fan FitzGerald who organised the whole thing. I suppose he was upset that the original ideals of the settlement seemed to be vanishing into a more agnostic society that was simply focused on getting ahead.

Eventually, I did have to adjust the sufficient price idea. I could see there was an opportunity to generate wealth from sheep farming. And the succulent price was in the way frankly. Wakefield was very displeased. 

Imagine if we had stuck with the original idea to give Māori one in every 10 parcels of land? Imagine if one in 10 wealthy high-county farmers was Māori? In case you are wondering, this idea was all about forced assimilation, really. We felt Māori would benefit from our culture and the faster they were integrated, the better. It was clear that their shared ownership model for land was communistic and frankly dangerous. The sooner we could shift them to our models of private ownership, the better. That was the thinking. I suppose looking back, we could have been more accommodating to a different way of being. Maybe it was a bit arrogant of us to assume our culture was superior? 

And I suppose if I am saddled with the title of Founder of Canterbury, then you will saddle me with the responsibility for all of that as well?

For my part, I would shift the blame squarely to Governor Grey and the young, ambitious men who executed Kemp’s deed – Henry Tacy Kemp and Walter Mantell. They were very careful in their deceit of Māori. They had receipts and maps that told one story, but even with all the administrative trickery, it’s very clear that Māori were not given what they were promised in the deal – access to their places of food gathering, sufficient land for reserves, schools, hospitals. No, South Island Māori were left landless and destitute and if anyone thinks they brought that on willingly - or out of stupidity- well, that would be … convenient. 

In fact, the first formal letters of protest started in 1849. And that fight carried on until 1998, when Te Kereme, the Ngāi Tahu claim, was settled - with the tribe accepting less than 1% of the proven losses. I believe your culture still has a soft spot for private ownership. I heard your prime minister recently gave landlords a tax cut worth more than all the treaty settlements combined! Oh yes, we do love private ownership of land. I mean, it’s just so… profitable. 

I can say you won’t find a statue anywhere for dear Wakefield. Poor Kemp doesn’t even have a Wikipedia entry. The map maker and deal broker Mantell, however, is a different story. He has an entire book written about him. You won’t believe the title – New Zealand Racism in the making: The Life & Times of Walter Mantell. Mantell was an interesting character indeed and he left detailed diaries which helped historians to put together his life. It was his insufficient setting-aside of reserves and dodgy dealings that left Māori landless, yet he would say later in life that Kemp’s Purchase was a fraud and would protest that the Government had not fulfilled its obligations, when he himself had only just been in a position to fulfil them himself.

I do feel it unjust to give me the glory and responsibility for Founder of Canterbury when I was only in New Zealand for two years. It was Wakefield’s insistence that I come. I was quite ill – always had been quite sickly – something to do with the lungs. I was due a respite in Italy – doctor’s orders. But Wakefield convinced me that New Zealand would be just as healing. And the climate was indeed favourable – if little else was. My poor wife and young child had so little society to keep them entertained. 

I watched the trend for tearing down statues with interest. Oh yes, I wondered if that might cure me of this eternal guilt I feel. But alas, maybe I am doomed to stay here – and maybe it is for the best. For if you can learn more about the truth of my times and share my story and my misgivings, well, then perhaps it is better to build the context up rather than tear the statue down.

Your sincerely,

John Robert Godley