The Convert 2024

In 1830, Thomas Munro, a lay minister from Britain, arrives in New Zealand on a storm-stricken ship and, during a clash between two Māori tribes, intercedes on behalf of Rangimai, a young daughter of Maianui, the chieftain (rangatira) of the one tribe, to save her from being killed by the warriors of Akatarewa, rangatira of the other tribe, trading his horse with Akatarewa in return for her life. Having been delivered to a British settlement called Epworth, where Munro is to perform missionary work, he becomes Rangimai’s religion tutor in Christianity.

Although the settlers live on the land of Maianui’s tribe under agreement with the tribe, Rangimai and Pahirua, a young Māori warrior left by Maianui with Rangimai for his daughter’s protection and to assist her in religious studies, face discrimination and prejudice from the rest of the settlement. Pahirua is surreptitiously murdered and Munro refuses to report to Maianui the cover story made by the settlers. He advises Maianui however to raise the rent the people of Epworth pay to his tribe, instead of taking any punitive action against the settlers; he then teaches the Māori warriors a faster way of loading a flintlock musket. In the tribe’s wharenui at a gathering of the elders, Munro tells them about his past as a soldier in the British Army, a charge which he led against what was believed to be an enemy stronghold which turned into a massacre of innocent women and children in a school, and about his subsequent spiritual quest for redemption for his actions.

In an attempt to negotiate reconciliation between the two tribes, Munro sails to Akatarewa’s land in the same British ship that brought him to New Zealand. Akatarewa rejects Munro’s peace overtures and his warriors capture the ship, with a consignment of muskets onboard, in order to use the ship’s artillery in a decisive clash with Maianui’s tribe. Munro joins in that final battle on Maianui’s side, whose warriors defeat Akatarewa’s tribe. Maianui executes Akatarewa; in order to achieve lasting peace between their tribes, Rangimai agrees to marry Akatarewa’s son, whose life Maianui has spared.

Four years later, Munro, with a tā moko on his face, acts as a counsellor to the combined Māori tribe in their negotiations with a British delegation seeking to establish a Customs & Excise post at Epworth.