Whenever I visit my mother in New Plymouth we drive out around the Taranaki coast to visit the old family farms, chugging along the South Road that was built to carry the armed constabulary (AC) and sundry volunteer forces that invaded Parihaka on November 5 1881.
My great-grandfather, who joined the AC in 1877 and served in it for nine years, worked on that road. He was standing alongside 1,588 other men as the sun rose on the morning of te Pāhua (the sacking).
By the time he left the pā three years later he had participated in the assault on Parihaka, the weeks and months of despoliation that followed, and the years of occupation as the colonial government and its forces knelt on the throats of the people led by Te Whiti-o-Rongomai and Tohu Kākahi.
Opinion: It s time for Pākehā Kiwis to own their past
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From Parihaka to He Puapua: It s time Pākehā New Zealanders faced their personal connections to the past
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