An Old New Zealander; or, Te Rauparaha, the Napoleon of the South.

Any policy of retaliation which Te Rauparaha and the chiefs who were co-operating with him may have contemplated, as a step towards restoring the equilibrium of tribal honour, had to be indefinitely delayed, owing to the rapidity with which events developed in another direction; and that delay robbed them of future opportunity. The death of Waitohi, Te Rauparaha's sister, and mother of Rangihaeata, had just occurred at Mana, where she had been living with her son. The demise of so high-born a woman necessarily demanded a tangi on an unusually elaborate and extensive scale, and the whole of the tribes who had been associated with Te Rauparaha in his scheme of conquest assembled on the island to attend the obsequies of the honoured dead. Levies of provisions were made upon all the tributary tribes on both sides of the Straits, and for several weeks the peculiar rites of a Maori funeral were continued without intermission.

It is said that, for no other purpose than to appear opulent in the eyes of his guests, Te Rauparaha ordered the killing and cooking of one of the poor slaves who had come from the Pelorus with his people's tribute to the feast. Be this as it may – and it is by no means improbable under the circumstances – the strange admixture of funeral and festival, which marks the Maori tangi, was observed at Mana in all its completeness and elaboration. But the death of Waitohi brought in its train something more than a great tangi; for indirectly it was the cause of the renewal of hostilities between Ngati-Awa and Ngati-Raukawa, culminating in the engagement known in Maori history as Kuititanga, which was fought on October 16, 1839. It is not clear why or in what way the old sore between these comrades in arms was re-opened, but the weight of testimony inclines towards the assumption that Te Rauparaha's irrepressible passion for intrigue was the moving impulse in urging Ngati-Raukawa to take the step they did. Whether he had grown jealous of Ngati-Awa's increasing numbers and power, or whether, having achieved all he could hope to accomplish, he wished to shake himself free from any further obligation to them, cannot of course be asserted with any confidence. Ngati-Raukawa were nothing loath to join in any conspiracy against Ngati-Awa. Living, as they did, north of Kapiti, they began to find themselves somewhat out of touch with the whalers; and probably it was the rapid extension of trade, enabling Ngati-Awa to procure guns as readily as Rauparaha himself, that induced him to instigate Ngati-Raukawa to break the truce which had existed since the battle of Pakakutu. No breach of the peace actually occurred at Mana, but bickerings and threats foretold the coming storm; and when Ngati-Awa returned to their pas on the mainland, it was with the full consciousness that the attack would not be long delayed. The Ngati-Raukawa mourners remained at Mana for some time after Ngati-Awa had left, and it would have caused the latter no surprise had Ngati-Raukawa made an attack upon them – as indeed they invited it – as they passed Waikanae on their way to Otaki. This Ngati-Raukawa did not do, but went on with every semblance of peace, even ignoring the shots of defiance which were fired by Ngati-Awa as they passed. Towards evening, however, they altered their tactics, and, doubling back, surrounded the Kuititanga pa during the night, in preparation for the attack at daybreak. A reconnoitring party was sent out to investigate the state of the defences, one of whom was indiscreet enough to enter a house, and, rousing a boy by his intrusion, attempted to cover his blunder by asking him for a light for his pipe. The boy sharply recognised his visitor as a Ngati-Raukawa; and knowing that no friendly native would be prowling about at that unseemly hour, sprang for his gun, and fired point-blank at the intruder. The echo of the shot rang through the clear morning air, and was the signal for a general movement on both sides. The women and children made a hurried flight to the neighbouring settlements, from which Ngati-Awa reinforcements swarmed up to the assistance of their beleaguered tribesmen; and by daylight the full strength of both forces – variously estimated at between eight hundred and a thousand men – was actively engaged. The pa, which bore the brunt of the first assault, stood close to the seashore on a narrow tongue of sand, between the Waikanae and Waimea Rivers.144 At the inception of the attack it was defended by a slender company of thirty men, who offered so stubborn a defence that the assailants were held in check until assistance arrived. A strong company of Ngati-Awa crossed the Waikanae, and, catching Ngati-Raukawa between two fires at this point, caused them to deploy and so open an avenue, by which the supports reached the pa. Trenches were now hurriedly dug in the loose soil, which, together with the protection offered by the stockade, afforded them a friendly shelter from the fire of the enemy. In this respect they were more fortunate than the aggressors, who, fighting in the open, suffered a greater number of casualties, including several of their principal chiefs.

Te Rauparaha took no part in the battle; but that he anticipated its occurrence is proved by the fact that he landed from his canoe shortly after it commenced. And when, at the close of an hour's desperate fighting, Ngati-Raukawa, who had his silent sympathy, if not his active help, began to waver under their heavy losses, he thought it prudent to get beyond the danger zone, and, plunging into the surf, swam towards his canoe. Ngati-Awa, who knew that he was inside the enemy's lines, saw the movement, and made a spirited effort to frustrate it, in the hope of capturing the man to whose subtle intrigues they attributed all their misfortunes. An equally vigorous rally on the part of Ngati-Raukawa intercepted their rush, and saved the chief, though at heavy cost to themselves. With Te Rauparaha safe amongst the whalers, who were watching the conflict from their boats, Ngati-Raukawa began rapidly to fall back; and, after maintaining a slackened fire, retired from the field altogether, taking their wounded with them, but leaving to Ngati-Awa the victor's privilege of burying the dead. Sixty of the Ngati-Raukawa had fallen, but only sixteen of the defenders. There were, however, many wounded in both camps. These were attended to by the medical men on board the Tory, which arrived at Kapiti on the day that the battle was fought; and, as Dr. Dieffenbach has left a graphic account of what he saw, no better authority can be here quoted: —

"All the people of the village were assembled; and, though grief was expressed in every face, they received us with the greatest kindness and attention, and we were obliged to shake hands with everybody. They regarded us as friends and allies, for we had brought with us from Te-Awaiti some of their relations; and when they saw the medical men of our party giving assistance to the wounded, their confidence and gratitude were unbounded. Some of the women gave themselves up to violent expressions of grief, cutting their faces, arms, and legs with broken mussel-shells, and inflicting deep gashes, from which the blood flowed profusely. We had brought with us E Patu, the son of a chief in East Bay, whose uncle had been killed in the battle. We found the widow standing on the roof of a hut, deploring in a low strain the loss of her husband. When E Patu approached she threw herself upon the ground, and, lying at his feet, related to him, in a funeral song, how great had been their happiness, how flourishing were their plantations, until the Ngati-Raukawa had destroyed their peace and bereft her of her husband. During this time E Patu stood before her, convulsively throwing his arms backwards and forwards, and joining in her lamentations. An old woman, bent down under the burden of many years, had her arms and face frightfully cut; she was painted with red kokowai, with a wreath of leaves round her head, and gesticulated and sang in a similar manner. In this place there were no wounded; they had been carried to the principal and most fortified pa, which lies a little to the northward. This latter village was very large; it stood on a sand-hill, and was well fenced in, and the houses were neatly constructed. Everything was kept clean and in good order, and in this respect it surpassed many villages in Europe. The population seemed to be numerous, and I estimated it, together with that of the first-mentioned village, and a third, about a mile higher up, to amount, on the whole, to seven hundred souls. Several native missionaries, some of them liberated Ngati-Awa slaves, live here; and the natives had built a large house, neatly lined with a firm and tall reed, for their church and meeting-house. At the time of our visit they were expecting the arrival of a missionary of the Church of England from the Bay of Islands, who purposed living amongst them. The medical aid which they had given to their wounded was confined to binding the broken limbs with splints made of the bark of a pine, or of the strongest part of the flax-leaves, and carefully protecting the wounds from external injury by means of hoops. Some of these bandages had been very well applied. I went to the beach on the following day to attend my wounded patients and to visit the scene of battle. This was at the third village, and many traces of the strife were visible: trenches were dug in the sand of the beach, the fences of the village had been thrown down, and the houses were devastated. The Ngati-Awa buried their own dead; and the improved state of this tribe was shown by the fact that, instead of feasting on the dead bodies of their enemies, they buried them, depositing them in one common grave, together with their muskets, powder, mats, &c., a generosity and good feeling as unusual as it was honourable to their character. The grave of their enemies they enclosed, and made it tapu (sacred)."

While this internecine strife raged up and down the coast, its disturbing influence had almost completely suspended the systematic settlement of the land by Europeans. There were many in Australia who, but for the peril of life and uncertainty of title, would long before this have swarmed over to New Zealand and occupied its shores. Only the most wanton and the more adventurous had come, and of these latter a few had been invited by the chiefs to remain, land being given to them on which to reside and establish themselves as traders. In isolated instances attempts had been made, chiefly by some subterfuge, to acquire from the natives large tracts of country for a nominal consideration; but these examples of dishonesty almost invariably brought their own punishment. One of the most unscrupulous of such perfidious transactions was that of Captain Blenkinsopp. He had sailed these seas in command of the whaler Caroline, and had made more than one trip to Cloudy Bay. There he became infatuated with a Maori woman of the Ngati-Toa tribe. His alliance with her gave him influence with Te Rauparaha and Rangihaeata, who, about the year 1834, entered into a bargain with him, the spirit of which was that for the right to procure wood and water for his ship while at Cloudy Bay, the captain was to present the tribe with a ship's cannon,145 which he had then with him at Kapiti. The conditions of this bargain were reduced to writing by Blenkinsopp, but not the bargain Te Rauparaha had counted upon. For wood and water, Ocean Bay and the magnificent Wairau Plain were substituted in the deed; and Rauparaha, with that reckless disregard for the value of his signature which he exhibited at all times when fire-arms were concerned, had signed it with the lines of his moko.

The Wairau Plain is the floor of the valley through which the Wairau River runs. Terminating on the shores of Cloudy Bay, it recedes in ever-increasing elevation and diminishing breadth back for many miles, until it vanishes in the gorge at the foot of the Spencer Range. Covering an area of 65,000 acres, it comprises some of the richest agricultural and pastoral land in the Middle Island, and was at this time treasured by Rauparaha as one of his principal food-producing centres. Eager as he was to procure weapons with which to slaughter his enemies, he was equally sensible of the value of this valley; and it is scarcely reasonable to suppose that he would have parted with so rich an estate for a single piece of rusty artillery, subject to the additional disadvantage of the difficulty involved in its transport. Knowing that he was, for such purposes, ignorant of the English language, Blenkinsopp, with a touch of irony, presented Te Rauparaha with a copy of the deed, and told him to show it to any captain of a man-o'-war who might visit Kapiti. Te Rauparaha did not wait for a naval officer, but gave the document to a whaler protege of his, named Hawes, then living at his island fortress. Hawes explained to Rauparaha that by the deed he had parted with all his land at the Wairau: whereupon the chief, in a fit of anger, tore up the paper, threw the fragments into the fire, and declared that, so far as he was concerned, the contract was at an end. Not so with Blenkinsopp. He sailed to Sydney, and there proceeded to raise a substantial sum of money upon the security of his deed from a solicitor named Unwin, then practising in that city. For reasons which need not be discussed here, Mr. Unwin eventually claimed the valley as his own; and his attempt to occupy the district, its disastrous failure, culminating in the massacre at the Wairau Bar, in 1840, of his manager and all his men, are now matters of history, affording another instance of how the just sometimes suffer for the unjust. Nor were the deception of Mr. Unwin and the death of Mr. Wilton and his fellow employees the full measure of the toll exacted as the result of Blenkinsopp's perfidy. When Colonel Wakefield met at Hokianga the native woman who had formerly been Captain Blenkinsopp's wife, and was now his widow, she showed him a document which purported to be the original deed to which her late husband had secured Te Rauparaha's signature. As a matter of fact, the document was no more than a copy which had been left amongst the captain's papers, but, believing it to be genuine, Wakefield purchased it for £300;146 and it was largely on this spurious foundation that his brother, Captain Wakefield, subsequently, and with such fatal results, sought to build up the New Zealand Company's claim to the Wairau. This transaction, in which Captain Blenkinsopp was so scandalously concerned, was but typical of many another, by which the credulity of the natives was cunningly exploited. Their influence had, however, been so far comparatively harmless, and the measure of injury they had inflicted had told more heavily upon the unscrupulous speculators than upon the natives.

But now Te Rauparaha, and those tribes with whom he was associated, were about to be brought into contact, and to some extent into conflict, with a more persistent earth-hunger, and more powerful land-buyers, than any which had yet operated upon the coasts of New Zealand. The spirit of colonisation was abroad in England, and the restless genius of Edward Gibbon Wakefield147 was busy coining schemes whereby the spirit of the hour might be embodied in action. Canada and South Australia had each attracted his attention; and now his eyes were turned to New Zealand as a field suitable for the planting of his quasi-philanthropic projects. His writings upon the subject of colonisation had drawn within the circle of his influence a galaxy of men, whose liberal education, lofty ideals, and generous impulses had earned for them the title of "philosophic radicals," and with these men, who stood for the most advanced development of English political aspiration, as its sponsors, the New Zealand Company was founded in 1839. With the story of this Company's early political troubles we are not concerned, for they bear only slightly on subsequent events in New Zealand. But the central fact with which we are concerned is that the Company was established for the purpose of acquiring land from the natives and transporting emigrants from England to settle thereon. To this end, the expeditionary ship Tory was hurriedly despatched from the Thames, and arrived safely in New Zealand waters, bringing with her Colonel Wakefield, brother of the founder of the Company, with a staff of officers charged with the duty of conducting the negotiations for the purchase of land and arranging other preliminaries – which appeared to be regarded in the light of mere formalities – incidental to the introduction of a great colonising scheme. In furtherance of her mission, the Tory paid a brief visit to Queen Charlotte Sound and Port Nicholson, and reached Kapiti on October 16, 1839, the day on which Ngati-Raukawa had been routed by Ngati-Awa at the fight of Kuititanga.

The first tidings of this engagement was brought to the officers of the Tory by a canoe-crew of natives who had just left the scene of strife; and although the sea was high, a boat's company had been organised, and was on the point of starting for the battlefield, when a message came from Te Rauparaha, who had returned to Evans' Island, that he wished them to pay him the honour of a visit. Accordingly, the course of the boat was deflected to the island, and there the chiefs of the two races met for the first time. Te Rauparaha was sitting upon the ground beside his wife, a woman who has been described as being of the "Meg Merrilies" type. He was deeply smeared with red ochre, and evidently in an uneasy frame of mind. His manner was restless, his glance furtive, and he was obviously depressed at the result of the battle. As Colonel Wakefield and his party approached, Te Rauparaha rose and hastened to exchange with them the missionary greeting, shaking them by the hand. With equal alacrity he sought to convince them that he had been in no way concerned in promoting the fight. In these protestations it cannot be said that he was in the least successful, for the Englishmen had already been prejudiced against him by the tales of his duplicity told them by both whalers and Ngati-Awas at Cloudy Bay; whilst his wandering, distrustful glances, as he spoke, were not calculated to inspire confidence. Though, on the whole, his conduct was unsatisfactory, the interview was occasionally illumined by flashes of his imperious nature, the inborn power to lead and command momentarily asserting itself, only to be again clouded by a mean cringing, which seemed to bespeak a craven spirit.

Being assured that there were no hostile natives harbouring on board the Tory, Te Rauparaha left Evans' Island for Kapiti, promising to visit the ship on the following morning. Next day he was received by Colonel Wakefield with a salute of guns, which filled him with alarm, until it had been made clear that the demonstration was intended as a great compliment to him and those chiefs who were with him. The preliminaries of the reception being over, the question of the land purchase was introduced to the chiefs; but Colonel Wakefield discovered them to be distinctly hostile to his proposals, an opposition which he attributed to the influence of Mr. Wynen, the agent for a Sydney land syndicate, whose headquarters were then at Cloudy Bay. The energies of this gentleman had been insidiously applied to prejudice the native mind against the Company's scheme of colonisation; and it was only with the greatest difficulty that the Colonel was ultimately able to dissipate these prejudices, and to obtain their consent "to look over their land, and if he found it good, to take it." A gale which raged through the Strait prevented all communication with the shore and suspended the negotiations until the 21st, when Colonel Wakefield made a definite proposal to purchase all the Ngati-Toa possessions, together with their rights and claims on both sides of the Strait. After he had exhibited to their wondering eyes a great portion of the goods – the finery and the trumpery – which he intended to dignify by the term "payment," his proposals were doubtingly accepted, Te Hiko pressing for more soap and clothing, and Te Rauparaha clamouring for more arms. Te Rauparaha dictated to Mr. Jerningham Wakefield the names of the localities involved in the sale; and the binding nature of the bargain was impressed upon the natives as clearly as the linguistic limitations of Dicky Barrett, the interpreter, would permit.

These preliminaries settled, the following day was appointed for the distribution of the goods; but the ceremony was intercepted by the indisposition of Te Hiko, whom Colonel Wakefield regarded as an indispensable party to the transaction, and he refused to proceed without him. This refusal greatly aggravated Te Rauparaha, whose hands were itching to grasp the guns, which had been thrown like leaven amongst the heap of worthless stuff; and he railed bitterly against the deference paid to one whom he designated "a boy," destitute alike of any interest in, or knowledge of, land. "Give us the goods," said he, "with more powder and arms. Of what use are blankets, soap, tools, and iron pots, when we are going to war? What does it matter whether we die cold or warm, clean or dirty, hungry or full? Give us two-barrelled guns, plenty of muskets, lead, powder, cartridges and cartouche boxes." This militant appeal was coldly ignored by Colonel Wakefield, who steadfastly declined to consider the question of distribution until Hiko's return, which did not occur until two days later. On the 23rd, however, the chiefs again assembled, and the merchandise, which the Company offered as payment for the land, was ostentatiously displayed on the deck of the Tory. The consummation of the transaction was, however, still to be delayed. While Te Hiko was busy trying on one of the coats which he had selected from the pile of clothing, Te Rauparaha, Tungia, and several of the warlike chiefs made an unseemly rush to secure some of the fowling-pieces, which were lying on the companion hatch ready for distribution. This exhibition of selfishness so exasperated Te Hiko that he at once threw down the garment, and, calling to Rangihiroa to accompany him, went down over the ship's side and made for the shore in a fit of ill-humour, out of which he could not be cajoled until next day.

Colonel Wakefield immediately suspended the proceedings, whereupon Te Rauparaha again became deeply offended at the consideration shown for one whom he regarded as so much his inferior; but, in spite of importunities and threats which sorely tried his patience, the Colonel refused to recede from his former attitude, and declined to take one step towards the sale in Hiko's absence. As Wakefield was adamant against all their menaces and blandishments, nothing remained but to return on shore for the purpose of placating Te Hiko, which they shortly succeeded in doing. Next day, unsolicited by Colonel Wakefield, both Te Hiko and Te Rauparaha came off to the ship, and, after entertaining themselves for some time with the novelties of the pakeha, they asked that the deed of sale might be read over to them, the map being at the same time consulted. After questions had been asked and answered, and all doubts on either side apparently cleared away, the fateful document was signed, Te Rauparaha making a mark peculiarly his own, and Te Hiko subscribing the sign of the cross. Each then left the vessel, possessed of a gun, promising that the rest of the chiefs would come on board and sign on the next day. This ceremony was duly performed, but only eleven signatures were obtained, Te Rauparaha and two minor chiefs signing as proxy for the natives on the opposite side of the Strait. A share of the gifts was reserved for Te Rangihaeata, who was at Mana, and had taken no part in the negotiations. On Thursday, 24th October, Colonel Wakefield was able to report to his Directors in London that he had acquired by his purchases at Port Nicholson and Kapiti, at a cost of a few guns, some powder, lead, and miscellaneous goods, "possessions for the Company extending from the 38th to the 43rd degree of latitude on the western coast, and from the 41st to the 43rd on the eastern." But Colonel Wakefield still had some reservations as to the completeness and validity of his purchases; for he added to his report this qualifying sentence: "To complete the rights of the Company to all the land unsold to foreigners in the above extensive district, it remains for me to secure the cession of their rights in it from the Ngati-Awa, and, in a proportionately small degree, from the Ngati-Raukawa and Whanganui peoples."