Departures and Arrivals for the Marist Māori Mission

442 Pages·2010·3.25 MB·English

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thesis.
THE STRUGGLE FOR SUCCESS:

A Socio-Cultural Perspective on
the French Marist Priests
and their Māori Mission
(1838-1867)

A thesis
submitted in fulfilment
of the requirements for the degree
of
Doctor of Philosophy in French
at
the University of Waikato
by
SANDY HARMAN

___________

University of Waikato
Te Whare Wānanga o Waikato
2010
ABSTRACT

THE STRUGGLE FOR SUCCESS:
A Socio-Cultural Perspective on the French Marist
Priests and their Māori Mission
(1838-1867)

Sandy Harman

The nineteenth-century Roman Catholic missionary endeavour in New Zealand had
its origins in a society of priests from Lyon, known as the Marists. The Maristsř
mission has been deemed a failure due to its ongoing financial problems, its
reputation for having abandoned Māori adherents, and its less visible impact
compared to the Anglican Mission. This thesis examines the challenges facing the
pioneer Marist priests in New Zealand and asks the question: was the Mission indeed
a failure? The answer lies in the correspondence of the French Marists themselves, a
largely untapped historical source which contains a different view of early New
Zealand contact and religious history from that of the Church Missionary Society
(CMS) evangelists.

ŘThe Struggle for Successř consists of three parts examining the Mission before,
during and after the pioneer phase. The first describes the Maristsř early influences
and religious formation in France, which serve to elucidate the missionariesř raison
dřêtre and provide an historical context for the Mission. It is also an important
attempt at a prosopography of men whose early lives were barely documented, and
whose connection with contemporaneous and historical France, and the Lyon area in
particular, would greatly affect the missions in Oceania.
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The subsequent comparative mission history in Part Two highlights the difficulties
and conflicts that affected the progress of the Marist Māori Mission in New Zealand
compared with other Christian missions in Oceania, notably the CMS in New Zealand
and the early Marists in Wallis, Futuna, Tonga and New Caledonia. It describes the
factors leading to the alleged failure of the Marist Māori Mission and demonstrates
that hardships and struggle were the common lot of pioneer missionaries in Oceania.
But the Marists on the Māori Mission had the added obstacles of being Frenchmen in
a British colony, ascetics surrounded by and dependent on commerce, and dutiful
religious under the authority of overburdened bishops. Irish immigration into New
Zealand distorted the original aims of the French Marist missionaries, and Māori
politico-religious initiatives to combat the devastating impacts of British colonialism
essentially quashed Marist hopes that Māori would become a decidedly Catholic
people.

Having considered the obstacles to success, the thesis discusses in Part Three how the
pioneer Marists understood success and conversion. In retrospect, it is clear that the
missionaries underestimated the tenacity of early Māori catechists, but the CMS in
New Zealand and Marists throughout Oceania were equally insensible in this respect.
Finally the thesis offers an assessment of the missionřs overall success taking into
account the revival of the Marist Māori Mission in the late 1870s and its continuation
into the twentieth century. The social, cultural and political complexities of
missionary endeavour demand a less rigid evaluation of missions than has been
previously offered; and success and failure are problematic terms for the pioneer
Marist Māori Mission because evangelisation was and is a work in progress.

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RÉSUMÉ

Les origines de la mission catholique romaine en Nouvelle-Zélande au XIXème siècle
se retrouvent dans une société de prêtres de Lyon, à savoir les Maristes. On jugea que
leur mission ne fut quřun échec, car ils furent en proie à des problèmes de fonds, on
les accusa dřavoir abandonné leurs adeptes, on déclara quřils eurent moins de succès
visible par rapport à la mission anglicane. Notre thèse examinera les défis que les
premiers missionnaires maristes durent affronter en Nouvelle-Zélande et posera la
question: la mission mariste fut-elle vraiment un échec? Les réponses se trouvent
dans la correspondance des missionnaires, source historique à peine utilisée et qui
contient une perspective sur lřhistoire de contact culturel et de religion en Nouvelle-
Zélande autre que celle des missionnaires de la Church Missionary Society (CMS).

Notre thèse est une étude en trois parties dont la première décrit les influences sur les
Maristes en France ainsi que leur formation religieuse ; celles-ci illumineront pour
nous la raison dřêtre de ces missionnaires et nous donneront le contexte historique de
la mission mariste. Il sřagit aussi dřune prosopographie sur ces hommes dont les
premières années de leurs vies sont à peine documentées ; de plus, il est important de
considérer le lien entre les missionnaires maristes et la France, et plus spécifiquement
la région lyonnaise, car ce lien eut un impact important sur les missions dřOcéanie.

Ensuite nous examinerons lřhistoire missionnaire en soulignant les difficultés et les
conflits qui touchèrent les progrès de la mission mariste en Nouvelle-Zélande, en les
comparant avec dřautres missions chrétiennes en Océanie, surtout celles de la CMS
en Nouvelle-Zélande ainsi que celles des premiers Maristes à Wallis, Futuna, Tonga
et en Nouvelle-Calédonie. Cette histoire comparée cherche à comprendre les facteurs
qui conduisirent à lřéchec présumé de la mission māorie. De plus, elle démontre que
les épreuves et la lutte font partie de la portion des pionniers missionnaires en
général. Mais les Maristes dans les missions māories se trouvèrent confrontés à
dřautres obstacles, en tant que Français dans une colonie britannique ; en tant
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quřascètes dépendants du commerce ; en tant que religieux obéissants sous lřautorité
dřévêques accablés et tout-puissants. Lřimmigration des Irlandais en Nouvelle-
Zélande déforma les buts originels de ces missionnaires français ; puis des initiatives
politico-religieuses māories, dont le but commun était de lutter contre les effets
ravageurs du colonialisme britannique, anéantirent les espoirs des Maristes que les
Māoris allaient se faire définitivement catholiques.

Nous expliquerons dans la troisième partie comment ces missionnaires maristes
comprenaient le succès et la conversion au christianisme. Il est évident aujourdřhui
que les missionnaires sous-estimèrent la détermination des premiers catéchistes
māoris, mais on trouve le même manque de perception chez la CMS en Nouvelle-
Zélande ainsi que chez les Maristes partout en Océanie à cette époque. Nous
évaluerons ensuite le succès à long terme des missions maristes, en tenant compte de
leur renaissance dans les années 1870 et de leur continuation au XXème siècle.
Lřeffort missionnaire se caractérise par des complexités sociales, culturelles et
politiques, il faut donc une évaluation moins rigide que celles qui existent ; le succès
et les échecs sont tous les deux des termes problématiques pour décrire la mission
pionnière des Maristes, car évangéliser est un travail progressif.
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PREFACE / ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Many people and organisations contributed to the creation of this thesis. I would first
like to recognise the support and generosity of the University of Waikato in selecting
me as a recipient of the University Doctoral Scholarship and the Tertiary Awards in
Pacific Ako. I would also like to acknowledge the sponsorship of Education New
Zealand and the New Zealand Federation of Graduate Women, whose grants enabled
me to carry out doctoral research in France.

To the French and New Zealand Marists of today who view the pioneer Marist
missionaries as their tūpuna, I extend my humble gratitude to those of you who
showed me your kindness and hospitality. Without your participation, this thesis
would not have been possible. Thank you for sharing your wisdom and experiences.

A special thank you to the staff at the Marist Archives in Wellington: Brother Gerard
Hogg SM and Mr Ken Scadden. I thoroughly enjoyed my visits to Thorndon and am
grateful for their hospitality and assistance. Many thanks also to Padre Carlo-Maria
Schianchi SM at the Marist Archives in Rome.

The Marist I am most indebted to is the editor of Lettres reçues d’Océanie par
l’administration générale des pères maristes pendant le généralat de Jean-Claude
Colin: édition critique, Father Charles Girard SM, who made it possible for
Francophone researchers such as myself to gain electronic access to the early Marist
missionary letters. Girard not only compiled and transcribed these letters but also
provided detailed annotations. I would like to acknowledge his ten-volume work as
an exceptional resource which I have had the privilege of using for the foundation of
my doctoral thesis.

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My gratitude goes out to the inspiring scholars/historians Jessie Munro and Kate
Martin, whose knowledge and enthusiasm have brought Mother Aubert and Bishop
Pompallier to life. I would also like to thank Giselle Larcombe, another inspiring
scholar, for her help and encouragement and for sharing her extensive knowledge on
Father Garin.

Many thanks to the amazing staff at the University of Waikato, including Dr Mark
Houlahan, Nepia Mahuika, and Gwenda Pennington. I would like to acknowledge Dr
James Beattie of the Department of History for his advice and expertise, and for
offering a historianřs perspective on my supervisory panel. Above all I would like to
thank my chief supervisor Dr Nathalie Philippe and secondary supervisor Dr William
Jennings for their guidance, patience and unwavering support. Mille fois merci! Je
vous suis très reconnaissante de tout ce que vous avez fait pour moi pendant ces trois
années. Vous êtes des professeurs formidables.

Finally, to my family in Rotorua, Canberra, Hamilton and Papakura, I would not have
survived this journey without you. Thank you, Mum, Rebecca and Nathaniel, for your
support. To my tane Mahu and to the Rawiri whānau: ka nui te mihi, ka nui te aroha.
And to my PC whānau (Rowena, Tihema, Maria, Te Aomarama, Tori, Hira, Sami and
Keryn): thank you for keeping me grounded and for loving me unconditionally. You
have been the guiding light in my own personal struggle for success.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Abstract ......................................................................................................................... ii
Résumé ........................................................................................................................ iv
Preface / Acknowledgements ...................................................................................... vi
Table of Contents ..................................................................................................... viii
Table of Figures ........................................................................................................... xi
Table of Abbreviations ................................................................................................ xi

INTRODUCTION ......................................................................................................... 1
0.1 Historiography ................................................................................................ 1
0.2 Research methodology .................................................................................. 12
0.3 Hypothesis and format .................................................................................. 15
0.4 Translation methodology .............................................................................. 18
0.5 Justifications ................................................................................................. 20

PART ONE - ORIGINS AND FOUNDATIONS ....................................................... 23

Chapter 1: French Catholicism and Foreign Missions ................................................ 26
1.1 Early French Catholic missionaries in Asia and the Americas ..................... 26
1.2 Post-revolutionary France ............................................................................. 30
1.3 Lyon and Nantes ........................................................................................... 32
1.4 Lyonřs Catholic heritage ............................................................................... 36
1.5 The Pope and the Virgin Mary ..................................................................... 37
1.6 Charity in Lyon ............................................................................................. 40
1.7 Missionaries from Lyon ................................................................................ 43
1.8 Lyon: Missionaries and imperialism ............................................................. 47

Chapter 2: Religious Formation, the Society of Mary and the Mission to Oceania .... 49
2.1 Rural milieu .................................................................................................. 49
2.2 Maternal influence ........................................................................................ 51
2.3 Early education ............................................................................................. 53
2.4 From seminarian to parish priest .................................................................. 54
2.5 The Major Seminary and Belley College ..................................................... 57
2.6 Literature and martyrs ................................................................................... 61
2.7 The foundation of the Marists ....................................................................... 64
2.8 The Mission .................................................................................................. 66
2.9 The CMS and LMS in Oceania ..................................................................... 69

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PART TWO - OBSTACLES TO SUCCESS: A COMPARATIVE HISTORY OF
THE FRENCH MARIST MĀORI MISSION AND OTHER PIONEER MISSIONS
IN OCEANIA ............................................................................................................. 71

Chapter 1: Establishing a Foothold ............................................................................. 75
1.1 Missionaries in New Zealand, 1814-1838 .................................................... 75
1.2 Dependence and trade................................................................................... 78
1.3 Reception of missionaries ............................................................................ 88
1.4 Language ...................................................................................................... 93
1.5 Literacy and literature: the CMS .................................................................. 99
1.6 Literacy and literature: the Marists............................................................. 102

Chapter 2: Protestants, Politics and Nations ............................................................. 107
2.1 Catholic versus Protestant .......................................................................... 107
2.2 French naval vessels ................................................................................... 122
2.3 The colonising attempt at Akaroa............................................................... 125
2.4 The Treaty of Waitangi .............................................................................. 129
2.5 Racial tension and war ............................................................................... 135

Chapter 3: Funding and Expenditure ........................................................................ 141
3.1 Funding and supplying the missions .......................................................... 141
3.2 1842: The mission in crisis ......................................................................... 151
3.3 Government funding ................................................................................... 158
3.4 Pompallierřs administration ....................................................................... 162
3.5 Purchases and upkeep in the Bay of Islands ............................................... 168
3.6 Subsistence and economic ventures ........................................................... 174

Chapter 4: Isolation and Disillusionment with the Mission ...................................... 181
4.1 Shortage of missionaries ............................................................................ 182
4.2 Expansion in the 1840s ............................................................................... 190
4.3 Isolation and loneliness .............................................................................. 196
4.4 Spiritual hardships ...................................................................................... 204
4.5 Disillusionment under Pompallier .............................................................. 209
4.6 Disillusionment under Viard ...................................................................... 217
4.7 Resigning from the Māori Mission ............................................................ 219

Chapter 5: Internal Conflict ...................................................................................... 224
5.1 Discord within the CMS ............................................................................. 225
5.2 Discord between Marist Fathers and Brothers ........................................... 232
5.3 Catechist or labourer .................................................................................. 237
5.4 The Catholic Bishop versus the Marists ..................................................... 242
5.5 The two sides of Bishop Pompallier ........................................................... 249
5.6 Provincials and procurators ........................................................................ 258
5.7 The ŘResolutionř ......................................................................................... 262

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