Dunedin’s Rongo Memorial to the Parihaka Prisoners
Channel: Difficult Histories: The New Zealand Wars
Date: 2021-05-26

In 1987 Governor-General Sir Paul Reeves unveiled the ‘Rongo’ memorial at Andersons Bay in Dunedin in remembrance of the more than 130 men from Parihaka who were sent to Dunedin and imprisoned without trial between 1879-80, and forced to undertake hard labour – all because they had been part of a non-violent campaign of resistance to the confiscation of their lands, led by Te Whiti-o-Rongomai and Tohu Kakahi. 

The memorial, made of carved stone taken south from Taranaki, serves as a further reminder that the story of the New Zealand Wars is not just a northern one.