Whina Cooper






Whina Cooper - schoolteacher, historian, activist, president of the Maori women's welfare.





“I should have been a boy because I love men's conversation - I'm not interested in fashion and all that. All men the King, the Governor, the big chiefs they all come out of a woman. Without women they wouldn't even be alive.”



Whina Cooper addressing the Māori Land March at Hamilton in 1975

Biography

EARLY LIFE
Whina Cooper was born Hohepine (Josephine) Te Wake at Te Karaka in northern Hokianga on 9 December 1895. Her father was Heremia Te Wake, a leader of Ngati Manawa and Te Kaitutae hapu of Te Rarawa and the son of an American whaler. Her mother, Kare Pauro Kawatihi, was of Te Rarawa and Taranaki descent. Whina was the first child of her father’s second marriage. Another daughter, Heretute, was born in 1897, and there were four half-brothers and three half-sisters from Heremia’s first family. She had a son and a daughter from her first marriage to Richard Gilbert. She had two sons and two daughters from her second marriage to William Cooper.




LATER LIFE
Whina Cooper was born on December 9, 1895 in Te Karaka, New Zealand as Whina Josephine Te Wake. She was married to William Cooper and Richard Gilbert. She died on March 26, 1994 in Hokianga, New Zealand.


IMPORTANT JOBS
  • president Maori Women's Welfare League 
  • schoolteacher (historian)
  • gum digger
  • shopkeeper
  • cattle
  • pig breeder


IMPORTANT EVENTS
  • She was the Founding president of Maori Women's Welfare League from 1951 to 1957 and New Zealand President of Maori Land Rights from 1975 to 1994.
  • She achieved nationwide fame seven decades later, in her 80th year when, crippled with arthritis, she led 5,000 people on a 700-mile march from her Northland home to Parliament in Wellington, to highlight the fact that Europeans had seized all but 2.5 million acres of New Zealand's 66 million acres of land in 135 years of British colonization
  • She was employed over the years as a gum digger, teacher, shopkeeper, cattle and pig breeder and a leader of Maori land development in the Hokianga.



AWARDS & ACHIEVEMENTS



(I) ACADEMIC AWARDS:


    • the M.B.E. (Member of the Order of the British Empire) in the 1953 Queen's Honours List
    •  the C.B.E. (Commander of the Order of the British Empire) in the 1973 Queen's Honours List
    • Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1980 Queen's Honours List
    •  the Member of the Order of New Zealand in the 1991 Queen's Honours List for her services to New Zealand.
      (II) BOOKS:

                               

      (III) AWARDS OF NOTE
      • she became the twentieth appointee to The Order of New Zealand (New Zealand's highest civil honour.)


      VIDEO

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g5HZTFnafMc

      This video introduced the life of Whina cooper.


      CONTRIBUTION TO NEW ZEALAND
      she was elected first president of the new Māori Women's Welfare League. The league was successful and she became well known throughout New Zealand.
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