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

Three days later he had an interview with the Ngati-Awa people at Waikanae, and they, being excited by the spirit of war and fearful of another attack by Ngati-Raukawa, were easily tempted by the sight of guns and the prospect of powder. Several of the elder chiefs addressed the assemblage, and urged their followers to acquiesce in the Colonel's proposals, conditionally upon their receiving arms and ammunition. To this stipulation Wakefield felt no reluctance in agreeing, and, for the purpose of giving it effect, a conference was arranged to take place on board the Tory. On the appointed day (8th November) the natives were astir bright and early; soon after daylight they "began to come on board, and by 12 o'clock more than two hundred had assembled on the deck, including all the principal chiefs of the Sounds." To these unsophisticated dealers in real estate was produced the deed, phrased in stilted terms, which purported to convey to the Colonel, as agent for the Company, and in trust for the Company, a vast area of country, over much of which the signatories had absolutely no authority whatever.

"Know all men that we the undersigned chiefs of the Ngati-Awa tribes, residing in Queen Charlotte's Sound, on both sides of Cook Strait, in New Zealand, have this day sold and parted with, in consideration of having received, as full and just payment for the same, ten single-barrelled guns, three double-barrelled guns, sixty muskets, forty kegs of powder, two kegs of lead slabs, two dozen pairs of scissors, two dozen combs, two pounds of beads, one thousand flints, the land bounded on the south by the parallel of the 43rd degree of South latitude, and on the west, north and east by the sea (with all islands), and also comprising all those lands, islands, tenements, &c., situate on the northern shore of Cook Straits, which are bounded on the north-east by a direct line drawn from the southern head of the river or harbour of Mokau, situate on the west coast in latitude of about 38 degrees South, to Tikukahore, situate on the east coast in the latitude of about 41 degrees South, and on the east, south and west by the sea, excepting always the island of Kapiti, and the small islands adjacent thereto, and the island of Mana, but including Tehukahore, Wairarapa, Port Nicholson, Otaki, Manawatu, Rangitikei, Whanganui, Waitotara, Patea, Ngati-Ruanui, Taranaki, Moturoa, and the several sugar-loaf islands and the river or harbour of Mokau."

The goods which were specified in the deed as the price of the land were carefully arranged on deck; but during the process of distribution a violent altercation took place, which was only quelled by a threat from the Colonel to send the wares below and proceed to sea, if peace was not immediately restored. Advantage was taken of the "momentary calm" thus secured to obtain the coveted signatures, and consenting chiefs to the number of about thirty appended their marks to the document. Scarcely had the distribution of the beads and bullets recommenced than another mêlée, even more violent, took place. "In a moment," says the Colonel in his report to the Company, "the most tumultuous scene we had ever witnessed took place, in which many blows were exchanged: never did a ship witness such a scene of violence without bloodshed." A similar, "if not more unfriendly," riot occurred on shore amongst those natives who had first conveyed their goods to land before they commenced their peculiar method of division; but it mattered nothing to the Company's representative how the natives abused their goods or each other so long as they had put their marks to his deed. Equally was it a matter of indifference to the Maoris how many deeds they signed, so long as they became possessed of arms and ammunition. It was sufficient for the one that he had outwitted his rivals, and appeared to be doing well for his employers, and for the other that they had satisfied the most pressing need of the moment. Neither looked beyond the immediate present, or took a single thought for the long years of mistrust and misunderstanding that were to follow upon their hasty and ill-considered transactions. Confident that he had made "a full and just payment" for the land described in the deed, Colonel Wakefield on 9th November went on shore and took possession of the estate, in the name of the Company; and, in order to distinguish their possessions, "which so greatly predominate in this extensive territory," from those of other buyers, he designated them North and South Durham, according to the respective islands in which they were situated. Having completed his purchases at Kapiti to his own satisfaction, Colonel Wakefield, on 18th November, sailed northward, intending to call in at Whanganui for the purpose of perfecting his purchases there, as he regarded that district as one of some importance. But before he left he had received a glimmering that his proceedings had not been perfectly understood, and the first shadow of doubt must have crossed his mind when Te Rauparaha calmly informed him that he (Te Rauparaha) wanted more guns, and, in order to get them, intended to make further sales, embracing territory which the Colonel believed he had already bought. Language of the most reproachful character was used towards the chief, and his speedy repudiation of a solemn bargain was characterised in unmeasured terms; but Te Rauparaha steadfastly maintained that, so far as he was concerned, the sale in the Middle Island had not included more than D'Urville Island and Blind Bay at Nelson. Subsequent investigations proved that Te Rauparaha was right and the Colonel was wrong; but it is doubtful whether, when he left for Whanganui, the latter had realised the full extent of his error, and therefore he parted from the chief with bitterness in his heart and an angry word upon his lips.

While these events were in progress in New Zealand, the operations of the Company and its contemporary land-speculators had not passed unnoticed in England. The British authorities were beginning to regard those islands with an anxious eye, but they displayed a painful indecision in adopting measures to meet the political emergency which they were commencing to realise was inevitable. As a tentative step, Mr. Busby was sent from New South Wales in the capacity of British Resident; but his usefulness was shorn down to the point of nullity by the purely nominal nature of the powers with which he was endowed. Negative as the results of this experiment had been, it nevertheless encouraged the British authorities to take a still bolder step in the appointment of Captain Hobson, R.N., as the accredited British Consul, who was authorised to negotiate with the chiefs, and, if possible, to acquire the country by cession, preparatory to annexing it as a dependency of New South Wales. Even Hobson's position was extremely anomalous until the now famous Treaty of Waitangi had been formulated and successfully promulgated amongst the tribes. The ratification of this document by the chiefs was a severe blow to the New Zealand Company, while it is doubtful whether the Maoris had more than a nebulous idea of its real meaning. It, however, gave the British Government the colour of right to institute the principles of established authority in those islands, where it had become their imperative duty to control the colonisation which their indifference had not been able to thwart. With the policy of the Treaty of Waitangi we are not now concerned, beyond recording the fact that, in order to give effect to that policy, it became necessary to procure the signatures of all the principal chiefs, as acknowledging their assent to the solemn obligations involved in the covenant. To this end Archdeacon Williams came southward, and in due course reached Kapiti, where, on May 14, 1840, he succeeded, but by what means we are not told, in inducing Te Rauparaha to sign the treaty. Similarly, Major Bunbury, an officer of the 80th Regiment, had been despatched by Captain Hobson in H.M.S. Herald, charged with the mission of securing the assent of the chiefs in the Middle Island to the proposals of the Government. After having visited all the southern pas of importance, and proclaimed the sovereignty of the Queen both at Stewart Island and Cloudy Bay, he arrived at Kapiti on June 19th, and to him we are indebted for the following account of what there occurred: —

"When we arrived off the island of Kapiti several canoes were leaving the island, and on my preparing to go ashore, fortunately the first canoe we met had on board the chief Rauparaha, whom I was anxious to see. He returned on board with me in the ship's boat, his own canoe, one of the most splendid I have yet seen, following. He told me the Rev. Mr. Williams had been there, and had obtained his signature to the treaty, and on inquiring for the chiefs Rangihaeata and Te Hiko, I was informed that we should meet them both, probably at the island of Mana, and, as this lay on our route to Port Nicholson, thither we proceeded, the chief Rauparaha remaining on board the Herald, his canoes following. On our arrival, the Herald having anchored, I went on shore, accompanied by Mr. Williams and Rauparaha. We learnt that Hiko, son of the late chief Te Pehi, had gone out on a distant expedition. The other chief, Rangihaeata, after some time returned with us on board, accompanied by Rauparaha, when both signed the treaty."

What arguments or other inducements were held out to the chiefs to lead them to append their marks to the document is not clear. Rauparaha subsequently boasted that he had received a blanket for his signature, but whether this gift, or bribe, was tendered by the missionary or the Major is equally a matter of doubt. It would, however, be safe to assume that the blanket was a more potent factor in securing the allegiance of the chief to the policy of the treaty than any arguments that could have been pressed upon him. It is certainly asking much of the intelligence of Te Rauparaha to assert that he was seized with the full significance of the step he had taken, seeing that the terms and intentions of the treaty were afterwards so diversely interpreted by cultured Englishmen.148 Major Bunbury, when being sent out on his southern mission, was instructed by Captain Hobson to assemble the chiefs, to explain the provisions of the treaty to them, and further, to give them "a solemn pledge that the most perfect good faith would be kept by Her Majesty's Government, that their property, their rights and privileges should be most fully preserved." In direct conflict with this official view, which was an accurate reflex of the instructions given to Captain Hobson himself by the Marquis of Normanby, the then Secretary of State for the Colonies, Lord Howick persuaded a Committee of the House of Commons to condemn the treaty as "a part of a series of injudicious proceedings," and with a light-hearted ignorance of Maori reverence for landed rights,149 to assert that the acknowledgment of Maori property in wild lands subsequent to the Queen's assumption of sovereignty was "not essential to the construction of the treaty, and was an error which had been productive of serious consequences."

Whether or not Te Rauparaha and his fellow-signatories were able to analyse the language of the treaty with the precision of an English statesman, they had certainly never placed upon it such a loose interpretation as this. And when tidings of the Committee's deliberations reached the colony, the alleged "serious consequences" which had followed upon the observance and administration of the treaty as laid down by Captain Hobson were safety itself compared with the catastrophe which might have followed from this rash attempt to repudiate, in the interests of the New Zealand Company, the essential principle of the treaty – that the "full, exclusive, and undisturbed possession of their lands and estates, forests, fisheries, and other possessions" was guaranteed to the natives by the Queen. Fortunately, at this time there was at the head of Britain's Colonial Department a Minister who held national honour to be dearer than personal gain. Lord Stanley, to his credit, refused to comply with the recommendations of the Committee to confiscate the native land "without reference to the validity or otherwise of its supposed purchase from the natives," and at the end of the famous three days' debate induced the House of Commons to adopt his view of the nation's obligations to the Maoris.

The Crown having now assumed sovereignty over New Zealand, it became necessary to administer its affairs impartially in the interests of both Maori and pakeha population; and, in this connection, one of its first and most pressing duties was to make an honest effort to unravel the complex web of land claims, in which both races had become unhappily entangled. The Government of Lord John Russell accordingly appointed as a commissioner to adjudicate upon claims of all classes of buyers Mr. Spain, an English lawyer, who, it is said, had been a prominent electioneering agent on the side of the Liberals. Mr. Spain arrived in New Zealand on December 8, 1841, and immediately took steps to establish his court. He has been described as a man of solid intelligence, but burdened with a good deal of legal pedantry; slow in thinking and in his apprehension of ways of dealing with new emergencies; steady and plodding in his methods, thoroughly honest in his intentions, and utterly inflexible to threats, though, perhaps, not unsusceptible to flattery. Considering the magnitude of their alleged purchases, the claims of the New Zealand Company naturally took precedence over all others in the business of the court; and, having regard to the temperament of the Commissioner, an inauspicious start was made by the representatives of the Company metaphorically shaking their fists in his face. In some degree their annoyance may have been pardonable, for they, believing themselves to be the pioneers of a great colonising scheme, had flattered themselves that not only the merit of their cause, but the fact that they had made their purchases prior to the proclamation of the Queen's sovereignty, would have placed them outside the exacting conditions of the Treaty of Waitangi.

The coming of Mr. Spain, and his insistence upon an exhaustive examination of their titles, was a heavy blow to them, which they at first thought to ward off by affecting an attitude of amused indifference. They laughed at the treaty, with its engagement to respect Maori rights in land, and its elevation of the Maori to a civil status equal to themselves. But amidst this simulated merriment they exhibited an ill-concealed chagrin that the little self-governing community, which they had hoped to set up on the shores of Cook Strait, had been so unceremoniously superseded by the sovereignty of the Queen, and they resented with fear and anxiety the appointment of a commissioner, who might deem it his duty to ask awkward questions regarding their titles. Their policy was, therefore, one of delay and evasion, which was inaugurated by their raising technical objections to the constitution of the court, its jurisdiction, and its forms of procedure, but, most of all, to Mr. Spain's determination to call native evidence. That was surely an unnecessary elevation of the savage, and a corresponding degradation of the white man. In fact, they openly asserted that to put the testimony of the one against the other was a gratuitous insult to the dignity of the British subject. But this was not the full measure of Spain's offending in the eyes of the Company's champions. He was audacious enough to ask Colonel Wakefield to submit proof that those natives who had signed the Company's deed had the right to sell the land which they thus purported to convey to the Company; and some of them made themselves conspicuously offensive in the manner in which they ridiculed this demand as preposterous and ridiculous.

The proceedings of the court at Wellington150 do not materially concern our purpose, for Te Rauparaha took no part in the sale of Port Nicholson, nor need we burden the narrative with the interminable finesse which took place before the court was able seriously to attack the work which lay before it in other districts. When this condition was at length reached, Spain soon saw that he was faced with a most serious problem. That the Company's purchases were in most instances bad he had little hesitation in declaring. But there was no blinking the fact that hundreds of settlers had risked their all on the assurances of the Company that they could give them a title, and it would have been cruel indeed to visit the sins of the Company upon the unfortunate colonists. Spain, therefore, halted between justice to the Maoris and equity to the settlers, satisfying the requirements of his office by issuing interim reports, hoping that in the meantime some workable compromise might be evolved. This was ultimately found in an arrangement whereby Mr. Clarke and Colonel Wakefield were to agree upon what additional compensation was to be paid for the land purchased, and, failing their arriving at an understanding, Mr. Spain was to be the final arbitrator. At the outset of these negotiations, Mr. Clarke stipulated that the natives were not to be evicted from their pas or their cultivations, nor were their burial-places to be disturbed; but to these reasonable reservations Colonel Wakefield could not at first be induced to frankly agree, while his unwillingness, or his inability, to comply with the ultimate awards tended to accentuate rather than to soothe public irritation.

Meanwhile, Rangihaeata had been busy entering his practical protest against what he believed to be a violation of his rights at Porirua. He, in conjunction with Te Rauparaha and Te Hiko,151 stoutly contended that Porirua, like the Wairau, had never been sold; and when, in the early part of 1841, the Company's surveyors went there to survey, Rangihaeata blocked up the forest track, levelled the surveyors' tents to the ground, and, at the end of each day, undid all the work which they had performed. This interference with the survey was obviated by an assurance being given to the chief, that, even if the land were surveyed, the Company's title must still be investigated by Mr. Spain before the settlers would be permitted to enter upon it. But, in defiance of this assurance, Colonel Wakefield, in April, 1842, issued leases to four settlers – Joseph Hurley, Thomas Parry, Benjamin Lowndes and Josiah Torr – who at once proceeded to erect houses and occupy their holdings. Two of the houses were nearly finished when the intelligence was brought to the chief. Rangihaeata immediately gave the settlers notice of his intention to pull their houses down; and this threat, so chivalrously declared, was duly executed next day, without any unnecessary violence, by the chief and a band of fifty men. The indignation which followed this assertion of native authority found expression in a public meeting at Wellington, at which the arrest of Rangihaeata was violently demanded, and those present declared their readiness to assist the Sheriff in effecting his capture. With the mandate of this meeting Mr. Murphy, the magistrate, refused to comply,152 and when, in the following June, the huts were again demolished, he wrote to the Governor declaring his determination not to interfere "to prevent any natives keeping land which they state they have not sold, until Mr. Spain decides upon the claims." This determination to regard the Porirua land claims as sub judice met with the entire concurrence of Captain Hobson, but was as bitterly assailed by Colonel Wakefield, who committed the indiscretion, almost criminal under the circumstances, of declaring, when speaking at Wellington, that he had not treated with the natives for a settlement of their claims, but preferred to employ the inconvenience created by these claims as grounds of complaint against the Government, and as arguments in aid of his efforts to secure the removal of the Governor. With such a feeling of declared insincerity pervading Colonel Wakefield's conduct, it is small wonder that the differences between the natives and the Company were slow of settlement, or that the efforts of Spain and Clarke to that end were unduly protracted. Equally true is it that thereby the cares and worries of the Governor were unnecessarily aggravated, while both brown and white populations were exasperated almost to the point of desperation by the vexatious delays. The irritated state of the public temper thus engendered not only made acts of violence possible, but even encouraged them, and these only added fuel to the threatened conflagration. A native woman was found by her friends murdered at Wellington, and suspicion fell upon a European. Only a few months later a settler was discovered lying upon the Petone road with his skull fractured, and questioning eyes were at once turned in the direction of the Maoris. The burial-grounds of the natives were being repeatedly desecrated by pakeha looters in search of greenstone ornaments, and in the prosecution of this shameful traffic, deep offence was given by the secret exhumation of the body of Te Rauparaha's brother, Nohorua, at Cloudy Bay. For this act of violence to the honoured dead the natives would at one time have taken swift vengeance; but, acting under the restraining counsel of Mr. Clarke, they consented to refer their complaint to the Government for settlement, a forbearance which the Protector, in his letter to Captain Hobson, assured the Governor greatly surprised him.153 The weight of these and other accumulating troubles began to tell heavily upon the frail physique of Captain Hobson, and borne down by the stress of his increasing responsibilities, he died at Auckland in September, 1842. Before his successor, Captain Fitzroy, arrived in the Colony, the tragedy for which the country was being rapidly prepared had been enacted, and the faithlessness of the New Zealand Company had been written in letters of blood on the floor of the Wairau Valley.

CHAPTER VII

WAKEFIELD AND THE WAIRAU

Amongst the many unsatisfactory negotiations for the purchase of land entered into between Colonel Wakefield and Te Rauparaha, few seem to have been so ill-defined as that relating to the Wairau Plain. Whether Wakefield really believed that he had bought it, or whether Rauparaha was equally confident that he had not sold it, will never be known. Certainly it is difficult to understand how such a wide difference of impression could have arisen between them, had they both been sincere in the transaction. It is true the Colonel might have considered that the plain was included in the purchases made in 1839, when he bargained for four hundred miles of country, extending from the 38th to the 43rd degree of latitude on the west coast, and from the 41st to the 43rd degree on the east coast. But he knew that the plain had never been specifically named, and in his heart he must have felt that no valid title could rest upon a purchase made as this one was, its full purport not being clearly explained by Dicky Barrett, who acted as interpreter, and the signatures of three chiefs only being obtained to the deed, when thirty thousand natives had, by native law, a voice in its disposal. That Colonel Wakefield did have some reservation, later on, about his right to the land is almost certain, for, after the settlement of Nelson had been in progress about a year, he strongly opposed the suggestion of his brother, Captain Wakefield, to include the Wairau in the district to be surveyed, partly because he considered that its occupation might militate against the success of the Wellington colony, but chiefly because he anticipated that the Company's title would be disputed by other claimants and by the natives. It would therefore seem that Captain Wakefield, the resident agent of the Company, was the more to blame for the improper occupation of the valley and for all the subsequent trouble, which he expiated with his life. He was as conversant as the Colonel with the whole circumstances of the case, perhaps more so; and, had it not been that he had no alternative between opening up the Wairau and acknowledging the ignominious failure of the Nelson settlement, he would hardly, in the face of so many warnings, have persisted in his high-handed and injudicious course.

The story of the Nelson settlement repeats the tale of undue haste, imperfect preparations, a disposition to make florid promises and hold out inflated inducements, that characterised all the New Zealand Company's attempts at colonisation. One of the essential features of this settlement was that each settler should receive 150 acres of rural land, 50 acres of suburban land, and one town acre. But after the most thorough exploration of the region round Blind and Massacre Bays, it was found that, although a great deal of inferior country had been included in the sections laid off by the surveyors, there was still an enormous deficiency in the area required to provide for all the settlers who had either paid for their land in advance or were waiting to settle on it. Misled by the reports of some of his officers, Captain Wakefield had caused it to be broadly published that there was more than sufficient land at Port Whakatu to meet the requirements of the settlement, and it was while looking round for some tangible fact to justify his assertion that he bethought him of the Wairau.