The History of Australia and New Zealand from 1606 to 1890

by Alexander Sutherland

  CHAPTER XXIV.

  NEW ZEALAND COLONISED.

  1. Kororarika.—All this fighting of the Maori tribes made them more dependent on the trade they had with white men. They could neither make guns nor powder for themselves, and the tribe that could purchase none of the white man’s weapons was sure to be slaughtered and eaten by other tribes. Hence white men were more eagerly welcomed, and in course of time nearly two hundred of them were living Maori fashion with the tribes. But it was at the Bay of Islands that the chief trading was carried on. For it was there that the kauri timber grew; it was there that the pigs were most plentiful and the cargoes of flax most easily obtained; and when a man named Turner set up a grog-shop on the shores of the bay all the whaling ships made this their usual place for resting and refitting. Behind the beach the hills rise steeply, and on these hills a number of white men built themselves homes securely fenced, and defended, sometimes even by a cannon or two. But down on the little green flat next to the beach, rude houses were more numerous. In the year 1838 there were about 500 persons resident in the little town, which was now called Kororarika, but at times there were nearly double that number of people resident in it for months together. A wild and reckless place it was, for sailors reckoned themselves there to be beyond the reach of English law.

  At one time as many as thirty-six ships lay off the town of Kororarika, and in a single year 150 ships visited the bay; generally staying a month or more at anchor. The little church and the Catholic mission station up on the hill did less good to the natives than these rough sailors did harm, and at length the more respectable white men could stand the disorder no longer. They formed an association to maintain decency. They seized, tried, fined or sometimes locked up for a time the worst offenders, and twice they stripped the ruffians naked, gave them a coat of tar, stuck them all over with white down from a native plant, and when they were thus decorated, expelled them from the town, with a promise of the same treatment if ever they were seen back in it.

  2. Hokianga.—Long before this the capacities of New Zealand and the chances of making wealth there became well known in England, and in 1825 an association was formed to colonise the country. It sent out an agent, who reported that Hokianga, a deep estuary on the west coast, just opposite to Kororarika, and only thirty miles away from it, was a charming place for a settlement. The agent bought a square mile of land from the Maoris and also two little islands in the harbour. The company fitted out a ship the Rosanna, and sixty colonists sailed out in her to form the pioneers of the new colony. They landed, and liked the look of the place, but they were timid by reason of the tales they had heard of Maori ferocity. Now at this time the Ngapuhis were at war with the Arawas, and the latter were getting up a war dance, which the settlers were just in time to see. Five or six hundred men stood in four long rows, stamping in time to a chant of their leader. It was night, a fire lit up their quivering limbs and their rolling eyes; they joined in a chorus, and when they came to particular words they hissed like a thousand serpents; they went through the performance of killing their enemies, cutting up their bodies and eating them. The settlers fell into deep meditation and departed. Not half a dozen remained in New Zealand, the others went to Sydney, and so after an expense of £20,000 this association, which had been formed for the kindly purpose of putting people in lands less crowded than their own, failed and was disbanded.

  3. Settled Government.—Between 1825 and 1835 the Maoris of the North Island were in a miserable state. Wars and massacres and cannibal feasts made the country wretched, and though the missionaries were respected they could not secure peace. But they persuaded the chiefs of some of the weaker tribes to appeal to England for protection against the conquering warriors who oppressed and destroyed their people. It was in 1831 that this petition was sent to King William, and about the same time the white men at Kororarika, terrified at the violence with which the Waikato men were ravaging the surrounding lands, asked the Governor at Sydney to interfere. The result was that although the English would not regularly take possession of New Zealand, they chose Mr. Busby, a gentleman well known in New South Wales, to be the Resident there, his business being, so far as possible, to keep order. How he was to keep order without men or force to make his commands obeyed it is hard to see; but he was expected to do whatever could be done by persuasion, and to send for a British war-ship if ever he thought it was needed.

  The first war-ship that thus came over did more harm than good. Its visit was caused by a disastrous wreck. The whaling barque Harriet, under the command of a man named Guard, a low fellow who had formerly been a convict, was trading among the islands when she was wrecked off the coast of Taranaki. The Maoris attacked the stranded ship, but the crew stayed on her and fired into the assailants, and it was not till after quite a siege, in which twelve seamen were killed, that the rest fled from the wreck, leaving Mrs. Guard and her two children in the hands of the Taranaki tribe. Guard and twelve seamen, however, though they escaped for a time were caught by a neighbouring tribe, to whom he promised a cask of gunpowder if they would help him to reach an English ship. This they did, and Guard reached Sydney, where he begged Sir Richard Bourke to send a vessel for the rescue of his wife and children. Bourke sent the Alligator, with a company of soldiers, who landed and demanded the captive seamen. These were given up, but the captain of the ship supported Guard in breaking his promise and refusing to give the powder, under the plea that it was a bad thing for natives. The Alligator then went round to Taranaki for the woman and children. The chief of the tribe came down to the beach and said they would be given up for a ransom. The white men seized him, dragged him into their boat to be a hostage, but he jumped out of the boat and was speared with bayonets. He was taken to the ship nearly dead. Then the natives gave up the woman and one child in return for their chief. After some parley a native came down to the beach with the other child on his shoulders. He said he would give it up if a proper ransom was paid. The English said they would give no ransom, and when the man turned to go away again, they shot him through the back, quite dead. The child was recovered, but Mrs. Guard and the children testified that this native had been a good friend to them when in captivity. Nevertheless, his head was cut off and tumbled about on the beach. The Alligator then bombarded the native pah, destroyed all its houses to the number of 200, with all the provisions they contained, killing from twenty to thirty men in the process. This scarcely agreed with the letter which Mr. Busby had just received, in which he was directed to express to the Maori chiefs the regret which the King of England felt at the injuries committed by white men against Maoris.

  4. Captain Hobson.—But there were many difficulties in securing justice between fickle savages and white men who were in general so ruffianly as those who then dwelt in New Zealand. The atrocities of the Harriet episode did some good, however, for along with other circumstances they stirred up the English Government to make some inquiries into the manner in which Englishmen treated the natives of uncivilised countries. These inquiries showed much injustice and sometimes wanton cruelty, and when a petition came from the respectable people of Kororarika, asking that some check should be put upon the licence of the low white men who frequented that port, the English Government resolved to annex New Zealand if the Maoris were willing to be received into the British Empire. For that purpose they chose Captain Hobson, a worthy and upright sea-captain, who in his ship of war, the Rattlesnake, had seen much of Australia and New Zealand. It was he who had taken Sir Richard Bourke to Port Phillip in 1837, and Hobson’s Bay was named in his honour. After that he had been sent by Bourke to the Bay of Islands to inquire into the condition of things there, and when he had gone home to England he had given evidence as to the disorder which prevailed in New Zealand. He was sent in a war-ship, the Druid, with instructions to keep the white men in order, and to ask the natives if they would like to become subjects of Queen Victoria and live under her protection. If they agreed to do so, he was to form New Zealand into an Engl
ish colony and he was to be its Lieutenant-Governor under the general control of the Governor of New South Wales.

  Hobson reached Sydney at the end of 1839 and conferred with Governor Gipps, who helped him to draw up proclamations and regulations for the work to be done. On leaving Sydney, Hobson took with him a treasurer and a collector of customs for the new colony, a sergeant of police and four mounted troopers of the New South Wales force, together with a police magistrate to try offenders, and two clerks to assist in the work of government. It was the 29th of January, 1840, when he landed at the Bay of Islands. Next day, on the beach, he read several proclamations, one of which asserted that all British subjects, even though resident in New Zealand, were still bound to obey British laws; and another declared that as white men were tricking the Maoris into selling vast tracts of land for goods of little value, all such bargains made after that date would be illegal, while all made before that date would be inquired into before being allowed. It was declared that if the Maoris in future wished to sell their land the Governor would buy it and pay a fair price for it. All white men who wished for land could then buy from the Governor. Three days later the respectable white men of Kororarika waited on Captain Hobson to congratulate him on his arrival and to promise him their obedience and assistance.

  5. Treaty of Waitangi.—Meantime Hobson had asked the missionaries to send word round to all the neighbouring chiefs that he would like to see them, and on the 5th of February, 1840, a famous meeting took place on the shore of the Bay of Islands near the mouth of the pretty river Waitangi. There on a little platform on a chair of state sat the new Governor, with the officers of the ship in their uniform, and a guard of mariners and sailors; while beside the platform stood the leading white men of Kororarika. Flags fluttered all round the spot. At noon, when Hobson took his seat, there were over five hundred Maoris, of whom fifty were chiefs, in front of the platform. Then one of the missionaries rose and in the Maori tongue explained what the Queen of England proposed. First, that the Maoris, of their own accord, should allow their country to be joined to the British Empire. Second, that the Queen would protect them in their right to their land and all their property, and see that no white men interfered with them in it, but that if they chose to sell any of their land, then the Governor would buy it from them. Third, that the Queen would extend to the Maoris, if they so desired, all the rights and privileges of British subjects and the protection of British law.

  When these proposals had been fully explained the Maoris were asked to say what they thought of them. Twenty-six chiefs spoke in favour of accepting, and so bringing about peace and order in the land. Six spoke against them, declaring that thus would the Maoris be made slaves. The natives seemed very undecided, when Waka Nene arose and in an eloquent address showed the miseries of the land now that fire-arms had been introduced, and begged his countrymen to place themselves under the rule of a queen who was able and willing to make the country quiet and happy. The Maoris were greatly excited, and Hobson therefore gave them a day to think over the matter. There was much discussion all night long among the neighbouring pahs and villages; but the next day when the Maoris gathered, forty-six chiefs put their marks to the parchment now always known as the treaty of Waitangi.

  This treaty was taken by missionaries and officers from tribe to tribe, and in the course of two or three months over five hundred chiefs had signed it. On the 21st May, Hobson proclaimed that the islands of New Zealand were duly added to the British Empire, and that he would assume the rule of the new colony as Lieutenant-Governor. Meantime houses had been built at Kororarika for the Governor and his officers; a custom-house had been set up, and taxes were levied on all goods landed, so as to provide a revenue with which to pay these and other Government expenses.

  6. Auckland.—But the people at Kororarika had bought from the natives all the level land in the place, and thinking their town would soon be a great city, and the capital of an important colony, they would not sell it except at very high prices. Now Captain Hobson had seen at the head of the Hauraki Gulf a place which seemed to him to be more suitable for the capital of the future colony. To this lovely spot he changed his residence. He bought from the natives about thirty thousand acres, and on an arm of the gulf, where the Waitemata harbour spreads its shining waters, he caused a town to be surveyed and streets to be laid out. In April, 1841, after he had reserved sufficient land for Government offices, parks and other public purposes, he caused the rest to be offered in allotments for sale by auction. There was a general belief that now, when the islands were formally annexed to the British Empire, New Zealand would be a most prosperous colony, and that land in its capital would go up rapidly in value. Many speculators came over from Sydney. The bidding was brisk, and the allotments were sold at the rate of about six hundred pounds per acre. A few months later a sale was held of lands in the suburbs and of farming lands a little way out from the town. This was again successful. Houses began to spring up, most of them slender in structure, but with a few of solid appearance. Next year ships arrived from England with 560 immigrants, who rapidly settled on the land, and before long a thriving colony was formed. The little town was very pretty, with green hills behind the branching harbour that lay in front, dotted with volcanic islets. The whole district was green; and the figures of Maoris in the grassy streets, their canoes bringing in vegetables to market, their pahs seen far off on the neighbouring hills, gave the scene a charming touch of the romantic. A company of six soldiers with four officers came from Sydney to defend the settlers, and barracks were built for them. The name chosen for the city was Auckland, after a gentleman named Eden, who had taken for half a century a deep interest in colonising experiments, and who had been raised to the peerage with the title of Lord Auckland.

  Auckland from the Wharf.

  7. New Zealand Company.—Meantime another part of New Zealand had been colonised under very different circumstances. The English association, which in 1825 attempted to form a settlement at Hokianga and failed, had consisted of very influential men. They had not given up their plans altogether, and in 1837 they formed a new association called the New Zealand Company. That restless theorist Edward Gibbon Wakefield, who had already sent out the settlers who had just founded Adelaide, joined this association, and impressed the members with his own idea already described on page 67. It was arranged that a colony should be sent out to New Zealand on the plan of a complete little community. There were to be gentlemen and clergymen and teachers; so many farmers, so many carpenters, so many blacksmiths; every trade was to be represented so that everybody would have something to do, and there would be none too many of any one kind. A bill was brought before Parliament for the purpose of establishing a colony after this fashion, and at first Parliament was inclined to favour the bill. But the missionaries in New Zealand were hostile to the proposal. They were steadily converting the Maoris to Christianity. They hoped to turn them into quiet, industrious and prosperous people, if white men did not come and take away their land from them. Parliament, therefore, refused to pass the bill. But the company had gone too far to retreat. It had already arranged with many settlers to take them and their families out to New Zealand, and had begun to sell land at so much an acre, nobody knew where except that it was to be in New Zealand. They therefore quietly purchased and fitted out a vessel named the Tory to go to New Zealand and make arrangements. The party was under the charge of Colonel Wakefield, brother of Edward Gibbon Wakefield; and he took with him surveyors to lay out the land, farming experts to judge of the soil, and a scientific man to report on the natural products. This vessel sailed away quietly in May, 1839, hoping to reach New Zealand unnoticed. The English Government heard of it however, informed the company that its action was illegal, and immediately afterwards sent off Captain Hobson in the Druid, as has been already described, to take possession on behalf of the British nation. The New Zealand Company then apologised; said that they would direct their agents who had gone out to New Zealand to obey t
he Governor in all things, and promised that the new settlement should abide by the law.

  8. Wellington.—Meantime the Tory was ploughing the deep on her way to New Zealand. Her passengers first saw the new country on the west coast of the South Island. They were then very much disappointed, for the shore was high and wild, the mountains were close behind it, and their lofty sides were gloomy and savage. The whole scene was grand, but did not promise much land that would be suitable for farming. They turned into Cook Strait, and anchored in Queen Charlotte Sound, a lovely harbour, but surrounded by high hills clothed in dark and heavy forests. When they landed, they were amazed at the depth and richness of the black soil and the immense size to which the trees grew. Such a soil could grow all sorts of produce in rich abundance, but it would cost forty pounds an acre to clear it for ploughing. Boats were got out, however, and parties rowed up into all the branches of the beautiful harbour, but without seeing any sufficient extent of level or open land. Then they crossed the strait, and sailing in by a narrow entrance, viewed all the wide expanse of Port Nicholson. It was a great harbour with a little wooded island in its middle; it opened out into quiet arms all fringed with shelly beaches, and behind these rose range after range of majestic mountains. The trouble was that here too the land which was fairly level was too limited in extent to satisfy the colony’s needs; for already in England the company had sold 100,000 acres of farming land, and the purchasers would soon be on their way to occupy it. After examining the shores with care they chose the beach of the east side as the site for their town. Behind it stretched the beautiful valley of the Hutt River, enclosed by mountains, but with broad grassy meadows lying between. Here they started to build a town which they called Britannia, and they made friends with the Maoris of the district. A Pakeha Maori named Barrett acted as interpreter. The natives went on board the Tory, were shown 239 muskets, 300 blankets, 160 tomahawks and axes, 276 shirts, together with a quantity of looking-glasses, scissors, razors, jackets, pots, and scores of other things, with eighty-one kegs of gunpowder, two casks of cartridges and more than a ton of tobacco. They were asked if they would sell all the land that could be seen from the ship in return for these things. They agreed, signed some papers and took the goods on shore, where they at once began to use the muskets in a grand fight among themselves for the division of the property. It was soon discovered that the site of the town was too much exposed to westerly gales, and the majority of the settlers crossed Port Nicholson to a narrow strip of grassy land between a pretty beach and some steep hills. Here was founded the town called Wellington, after the famous duke.