E nga rau rangatira mā, e huihui mai nei i tēnei po, tēnei aku mihi nunui ki a koutou. Kia ora tātou katoa.
I’d like to specifically acknowledge: Charlotte Macdonald, author and historian; Bridget Williams, Bridget Williams Books; Honiana Love, Chief Executive of Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision; Lucy Mackintosh, historian and curator; Tom Rennie, publisher, Bridget Williams Books.
I am pleased to be here this evening to congratulate both Charlotte Macdonald and Bridget Williams Books on another successful milestone publication.
When Garrison World arrived on my desk, the first thing that struck me was its sheer size – clearly the culmination of many years of interest, care and attention towards this topic. Upon opening it, I was greeted with pages and pages of stunningly reproduced images bringing to life the history which Charlotte so brilliantly tells.
I found that one of the most illuminating aspects of Garrison World is Charlotte’s astute recognition that we are more inclined to be curious about the life of the individual, rather than the broader and more well-known ideals of empire that they serve. I was especially taken by the care with which Charlotte uncovers the lives of redcoat soldiers and treats them, as, she writes as “individuals caught up in events larger than themselves”. Understanding redcoat soldiers as more than simply cogs in the imperial machine challenges our thinking about who these people were and the space they occupied in colonial New Zealand.
If the lives of redcoat soldiers in New Zealand have been mostly absent throughout histories of the nineteenth century, then the women that accompanied them are almost entirely obscured from view. Charlotte pays careful attention to the lives and experiences of the women who lived alongside soldiers, and in many instances were left behind when regiments departed the colonies.
I was particularly interested in the wāhine Māori, who not only lived alongside soldiers but found agency in fighting with and against them. For example, Kaarana, sister to the “Queen of Nukumaru”, photographed in 1868 with a raft of weapons, shows the quintessential figure of a formidable wāhine toa.
Throughout her pioneering academic career, Charlotte’s work has always called attention to the experiences of women at the centre of what have traditionally been male-centric spaces. In her seminal work on histories of sport, women featured prominently – emerging in brilliant detail out of a topic that is often dominated by male figures.
Garrison World does exactly what a new entry into the historical canon should do – it challenges us. As readers, we are forced to confront the idea that the historical antagonist – the redcoat soldier – were not nameless, faceless, “enemies” – but complex figures of diverse experiences, outlooks and motives, deeply intertwined with our national history. As Charlotte puts it so well, redcoat soldiers “are connected to us by family, by place, by the consequences of their actions, by the material things they left behind, and by memory."
Charlotte brings to life redcoat soldiers who lived, loved and died on New Zealand soil - who walked our streets, and left their indelible mark on our country. As Garrison World makes apparent, “For all that we might act as though the past lies dead behind us, there is a thin line which separates us from what has been and what is now”. And, as always with Charlotte’s work I found myself entranced with your unerring ability to weave historical fact into enthralling narrative.
Garrison World revises the way we think about people and place in the colonial world. By delving into the lives of the redcoat soldier, Charlotte allows the voices of the colonial antagonist to be heard more clearly and fully as part of our nation’s complex and difficult history.
Charlotte, I congratulate you once again once again revealing the layered landscape of meaning that weaves together our history.
Kia ora e huihui mai tatou i tenei waa.