Moutoa Gardens

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Moutoa Gardens, also known as Pakaitore, is a park in the city of Wanganui, New Zealand. Named after the Battle of Moutua Island in the Second Taranaki War, it contains a memorial to the battle inscribed “To the memory of the brave men who fell at Moutoa, 14 May 1864, in defence of law and order against fanaticism and barbarism”.^[1] It also contained a statue of John Ballance, organiser of a volunteer cavalry troop in Titokowaru's War and later Premier of New Zealand.

The park was occupied for 79 days in 1995 in protest over a Treaty of Waitangi claim, an action which split the town and the nation. Local iwi claim the site was the location of a pa and trading site, left to Māori in the 1848 sale of Wanganui. During the protest, the statue of Ballance was beheaded and is yet to be replaced.

[edit] References

1. ^ James Cowan (1956). The New Zealand Wars: A History of the Maori Campaigns and the Pioneering Period: Volume II: The Hauhau Wars, 1864–72, Chapter 3: THE BATTLE OF MOUTOA. R. E. Owen, Government Printer, Wellington. First published 1923. Reprinted without amendment 1956. Accessed 2007-06-12.