REWI MANIAPOTO

GICLEE PRINT ON CANVAS

Painted by Alvin Pankhurst and commissioned by Kaawhia Te Muraahi and Sir David Moxon for Ngati Maniapoto to commemorate the return after 140 years of REWI'S Kaitaka (cloak) from London in 2021.

In 1840 the father of Rewi Maniapoto had been a supportive signatory to Ti Tiriti o Waitangi. A copy of the Treaty is seen here in his hand. But in 1860 Governor Grey betrayed the Treaty and ordered war on the Waikato. He created a supply line for his troops (to be later known as The Great South Road) from Auckland, down which the British marched to forcibly take 1.2 million acres of land; this created the poverty and displacement we are still dealing with today.

One of the great battles of Māori against the invaders was at Orakau near Te Awamutu. It came to be known as Rewi's Last Stand. The Māori bravely fought with few weapons and no time to prepare against the British, and although Rewi survived, hundreds of women, children and old people as well as the men were run down and slaughtered by the British on horseback.

After Ngati Maniapoto fighting for compensation for decades the government is awarding 177million dollars to the Maniapoto Trust Board in March 2023 as compensation for taking the land and the lives under the name of Queen Victoria.

Supplied rolled in a tube.