Talk:First Taranaki War

Geographical Description
I have removed the below

Early in June 1860, he began building a pa, Puketakauere, which was only a mile away from the British base at Waitara (easily visible today to the south of the main highway immediately to the west of the bridge over the railway at the top of Big Jim's Hill.

as I feel it detracts from trying to follow what happened

Aatomic1 14:03, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

Belich's "erroneous" descriptions ...
There are significant problems with this edit (plus this one that adds sources) in which certain claims by Belich about the battle of Waireka are described as incorrect. The problematic edit is by the IP user who describes herself as "Claudia". This user has been asked many times to improve the standard of her citations and to cease injecting personal opinion in her edits. I will remove the edit and suggest that Claudia discuss here, on the talk page, the references she is using, after which I will help her to add the information about the views of Pugsley and Taylor. BlackCab ( TALK ) 22:55, 20 March 2016 (UTC)
 * An encyclopedia cannot baldly say that "Historian James Belich has incorrectly claimed ..." This is an expression of opinion and very clearly breaches Wikipedia's policy on a neutral point of view.
 * The statement "According to military historians Chris Pugsley and Richard Taylor Belich erroneously described the 'legend' of Waireka as a classic example of the construction of a paper victory..." is both inappropriate and inadequate. Belich's observation is perfectly valid and deserves to be included in this article. If Pugsley and Taylor disagree, their view should be expressed after Belich's as a dissenting opinion, and an explanation given for their objection to Belich's opinion. The way this sentence has been written (the lack of a comma after Taylor's name aside) is effectively an attack on Belich without any supporting information at all.
 * The citation "R.Taylor.NZ War lectures. Massey University.2009." is just hopeless. As the policy on verifiability explains, the purpose of citing sources is to allow the accuracy of statements to be verified; it "means that anyone using the encyclopedia can check that the information comes from a reliable source." That citation is meaningless and useless, and the Pugsley one, which also apparently incorporates the view of Richard Taylor despite the fact he is evidently not a co-author, is little better.


 * The editor living in Australia, seems unaware that in NZ Belich is considered unreliable (some would say VERY unreliable) as a source for NZ history.As a revisionist he clearly allowed his passion for the subject to over come any objectivity. He wrote is an era which was anti military(post Vietnam), anti establishment and anti government. His knowledge of the mechanics of warfare or military operations was abysmal.(for example he did not know the difference between tactics and strategy or gunpowder and ammunition and had a particular hang up about the British surrounding Maori pa-something that was SOP in the British army even then to AVOID because of the danger of blue on blue.   Nearly everything that Belich wrote in NZ wars has been shown to be wrong, badly distorted or seriously misguided. Belich has not even attempted to defend his book despite being approached directly by reputable historians, beyond admitting to having an anti British attitude. You missed the point that Belich's viewpoint is NOT valid because it is factually inaccurate and wrong in nearly every instance. For example: he did not mention that 3 key chiefs were killed in the battle and that Wiremu Kingi was wounded. Taranaki were so dispirited by these deaths that next day many left never to return to the battlefield. Belich made what was a  defeat for Maori into a victory! The Waitangi tribunal accepted Belich's distortion as the truth which pretty much proves it was wrong.(joke!!)


 * I will however improve the source as far as possible,some are from Ph D's which I have access to which Im not sure are available to the public but I will check when I have time.Thanks for your interest. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 115.188.178.77 (talk) 23:30, 20 March 2016 (UTC)


 * Claudia, your attacks on Belich's scholarship are repetitive and tedious and are really quite irrelevant to this discussion. I suspect the outrage about his views that you claim comes from academia is vastly exaggerated and is just an overblown representation of your own highly coloured view. In the past I have challenged your sloppy sourcing of material, and on many occasions you have not been able to provide any page numbers; other times you have admitted your edits have been just a summary of what you recall reading at some point in the past. The fact that you do not have immediate access to any of these new sources, despite just now basing claims on those very sources, reinforces my concern over your disregard for accuracy while you seek to broaden your platforms for your peculiar views of history. Your contributions to Wikipedia really are a worry. BlackCab  ( TALK ) 02:01, 21 March 2016 (UTC)


 * It's probably worth taking this to the BLP notice board so uninvolved editors can have a look at it - if I get time over the long weekend I might draft something myself. Belich is one of the most highly regarded historians in this country - it may be that Claudia is misinterpreting academic debate as criticism. Daveosaurus (talk) 10:52, 23 March 2016 (UTC)


 * Without actually knowing just what the opposing claims are, it's difficult to discuss anything. I removed Claudia's edit and it can stay out of the article until she produces something more substantial we can actually look at and weigh up. BlackCab  ( TALK ) 11:29, 23 March 2016 (UTC)

If anything my edits under play the very strong criticism that has been directed at Belich by military historians since the 1990s. I do not hold any strong views one way or the other but it is critical to point out when information shows a noted historian (Belich) writes information that is factually incorrect- it should be so indicated. Reading through my notes from Lt Col Taylor's lectures it is hard to find anything from Belich's book that is accurate or reliable- he got so much wrong.I know of no NZ historian other than Belich who has not only put his hand up to revisionism but has openly admitted he had an anti British attitude when he wrote NZ wars back in the 1980s. One kiwi historian recently wrote "You cannot criticize Belich in NZ" -it seem he needs to add "or Melbourne" as well. I am busy at the moment but will dig out the historians details etc when I can. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 115.188.178.77 (talk) 06:48, 23 March 2016 (UTC)

Writing of the treaty
Hobson did not bring a copy of any treaty with him to Waitangi. The document he had was a proclamation of sovereignty which was read out at Waitangi. It had already been published in Sydney. Both the English and the Maori version were hurriedly written in NZ at Waitangi. The best European Maori speakers were used to write a Maori translation that the chiefs could understand, as the English version contained terms unfamiliar to Maori, most of whom had a smattering of spoken English but could not understand any written English or Maori. Missionary Henry Williams selected terminology that Maori were more familiar with from religious texts which were their only source of literature at that time. Both versions were written in less than a week.115.188.178.77 (talk) 08:19, 31 March 2016 (UTC)
 * The Maori version was written in one night. I have restored the original text that said the translation was done in haste. BlackCab  ( TALK ) 09:06, 31 March 2016 (UTC)

On reflection I'm not sure that "hastily" is the correct phrase. The original English version (based on the proclamation) was written in about 4 days.The Maori version was written "over night"by two fluent Maori speakers and writers. It was recently pointed out that Henry Williams was probably the most fluent Maori writer in NZ in 1840, as few Maori could write at all. His son who helped with the translation was also very fluent.The treaty is not very long at all so a few hours would easily be enough to do a translation ."Hastily " suggests it was perhaps full of errors, whereas most historians now recognize that Williams was deliberately using the sort of  Maori language that was most frequently in written use -the language of the bible-to explain concepts that no Maori were familiar with. Claudia Orange, our most notable treaty historian, says she is convinced Maori knew and understood what they were signing. Later events showed some Maori wished to change their minds-largely due to the fact that far more Europeans came to NZ than what they had imagined. Maori complaints about the treaty itself are non existent even in the 1860s. Their complaints were of a more specific nature.115.188.178.77 (talk) 09:53, 1 April 2016 (UTC)
 * Utter bullshit. Chapter 3 of Claudia Orange's Treaty of Waitangi book lays out in great detail the inadequacies of the Maori translation of the treaty; on page 115 she explains the difficulty many Maori had in grasping the full consequences of selling land. As usual, you are plucking the expert backing for your notions out of the air. You have zero credibility. BlackCab  ( TALK ) 10:16, 1 April 2016 (UTC)

section needs more references
The Battle of Puketakauere section has several long paragraphs that are entirely lacking in citations. — howcheng  {chat} 06:59, 15 March 2017 (UTC)


 * In fact just two paragraphs, one of them very short, lacked citations. The descriptions of the battle are both drawn from the same sources, both cited repeatedly through that section of the article, so there is no need to pepper the paragraphs with identical citations when there is little likelihood of their veracity being challenged. (Wikipedia's content guideline states that inline citations are required "for any material challenged or likely to be challenged".) However to satisfy your niggling request I have added two more citations. BlackCab  ( TALK ) 05:20, 16 March 2017 (UTC)
 * Thanks. If I had included that in OTD for the Main Page, someone else would have complained about the same thing. — howcheng  {chat} 03:54, 17 March 2017 (UTC)

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