Bringing Christ to Whaingaroa

Te Nihinihi Wesleyan Mission Station at Raglan, New Zealand

Abstract

Te Nihinihi Mission Station was the second of the Wesleyan mission stations at Whaingaroa (Raglan) replacing the earlier station on the north side of the harbour with a dedicated and distinct mission station on the southern side of the harbour in 1839 which operated until 1881. The mission was the third in a chain of missions established by the Wesleyan Mission Society along the west coast of the North Island and in the interior of the Waikato. The Wallises at Te Nihinihi mission were active and popular with Māori, but during their time the environment changed from one dominated by Māori to one colonised with land purchases by Europeans. Shortly after the Wallises left, land confiscation followed the militarisation of the area during the British invasion of the Waikato. The history of the Whaingaroa Mission is, like most of the other west coast Wesleyan missions, only sketchily understood with no archaeological investigations undertaken prior to the work described here. The mission layout itself describes the integrated yet separated nature of Whaingaroa mission and hints at the changing status and relationship of the mission within the colonising process of Whaingaroa/Raglan Harbour.