Völkner Incident

The Völkner Incident describes the murder of the German-born Protestant missionary Carl Sylvius Völkner in New Zealand in 1865 and the consequent miscarriage of justice by the Government of New Zealand in the midst of the New Zealand Wars.

The Battle of Te Ranga on 21 June 1864 was the last major conflict of the Tauranga Campaign and is said to mark the effective end of the fighting involved with the Invasion of the Waikato. It left an uneasy peace – not so much a peace as an absence of conflict, one that lasted for several months. This period saw two significant changes in disposition of the warring parties.

The Pai Marire (or Hauhau) movement was gaining ground and converts among the East Coast Māori. Pai Mārire began in 1862 as a combination of Christianity and traditional Māori beliefs. Originally peaceful, a sub-branch known as Hauhau became violent after experiencing Christian hypocrisy.

Meanwhile, the Imperial Troops were fighting their last campaign in New Zealand before being withdrawn to garrison duty and then complete withdrawal from New Zealand. At the same time the Colonial Militia were being reorganized and rearmed to take up the slack.

Among the Māori community, Volkner was rumoured to be a government spy. It was thought he sent Governor George Grey a plan of a pa near Te Awamutu where British troops burned women and children alive in a whare that had been converted to a church. The wife and two daughters of Kereopa where among the victims. Pai Mārire (or Hauhau) arrived in the Opotiki area of the Bay of Plenty in February 1865. On 2 March Protestant missionary Carl Völkner discovered that his Māori congregation had moved on from Christianity to Pai Mārire (or Hauhau). Like many Europeans in isolated communities, Völkner had sent reports of anti-Government activity to the governor. Although warned to stay away from the town, on his next visit he was captured, put on trial and hanged from a tree, and his body was decapitated an hour later. Kereopa Te Rau, a Hauhau, was alleged to have re-entered the church and conducted a service with Völkner's head in the pulpit beside him. He was also alleged to have plucked out the dead missionary's eyes and swallowed them. One eye allegedly represented Parliament and the other the Queen and British law. News of the murder caused great alarm and anger among Pākehā.

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