By this time the settlers were arriving thick and fast. The first came in the Aurora, which reached the settlement on 22nd January, 1840; other ships came at short intervals, till there were twelve at anchor in Port Nicholson. The settlers were pleased with the country; they landed in good spirits and set to work to make themselves houses. All was activity—surveyors, carpenters, bricklayers, blacksmiths, every one busy, and rapidly a smart little town of some hundred houses rose behind the beach. The Maoris came and helped in the work, getting three or four shillings a day for their services, and proving themselves very handy in many ways. All were in sanguine spirits, when word came from Governor Hobson at Auckland that, in accordance with his proclamation, all purchases of land from the natives were illegal, he having come to protect the Maoris from imposition.
9. The Land Question.—Now Colonel Wakefield had fancied that he had bought 20,000,000 acres for less than £9,000 worth of goods, and he was assigning it as fast as he could to people who had paid £1 an acre to the company in England. Here was a sad fix. The Governor sent down his chief officer, Mr. Shortland, who rode across the island with the mounted police, and told the settlers not to fancy the land theirs, as he would ere long have to turn them off. Disputes arose, for it seemed absurd that fifty-eight Maori chiefs should sell the land on which many thousands of people dwelt, the majority of these people never having so much as heard of the bargain. The settlers talked of starting for South America and forming a colony in Chili, but more kept on coming, so that they had not ships enough to take them across. And, besides, they had paid a pound an acre to the company and demanded their land. Colonel Wakefield went off to Auckland to talk the matter over with Governor Hobson, who left the difficulty to be settled by his superior, Governor Gipps, at Sydney.
Wakefield then went to Sydney to see Governor Gipps, who said that the whole thing was irregular, but that he would allow the settlers to occupy the land, supposing that every Maori who had a proper claim to any part of it got due compensation, and if twenty acres of the central part of Wellington were reserved for public buildings. These conditions Wakefield agreed to, and, very glad to have got out of a serious difficulty, he returned with the good tidings. Shortly afterwards Governor Hobson himself visited Wellington, but was very coldly received by the settlers there.
In the next two years 350 ships arrived at Wellington, bringing out over 4,000 settlers. Of these about 1,000 went up into the valleys and made farms; but 3,000 stayed in and around Wellington, which then grew to be a substantial little town, with four good piers, about 200 houses of wood or brick and about 250 houses of more slender construction. More than 200 Maoris could be seen in its streets clad in the European clothes given as payment for the land. In all there were about 700 Maoris in the district, and for their use the company set apart 11,000 acres of farm lands, and 110 acres in the town. Roads were being made into the fertile valleys, where eight or ten thousand acres were occupied as farms and being rapidly cleared and tilled. Parties were organised to go exploring across the mountains. They brought back word that inland the soil was splendid, sometimes covered with forests, sometimes with meadows of long grass or New Zealand flax, but always watered by beautiful rivers and under a lovely climate. The Maoris were everywhere friendly throughout their journey.
10. Taranaki.—In the beginning of the year 1840, an emigration society had been formed in the south-west of England to enable the farm labourers and miners of Cornwall, Devon, and Dorset to settle in less crowded lands. The Earl of Devon was its president, and Plymouth its headquarters. They chose New Zealand for the site of their colony, and understanding that the New Zealand Company had bought half of the North Island they gave that company £10,000 for the right to select 60,000 acres of it. It was in March, 1841, that the pioneers of this new colony arrived at Wellington under the guidance of Mr. Carrington, a surveyor in the ship William Bryant. The exploring party had just come back, and its report of the Taranaki land was very tempting. Immediately after receiving that report Colonel Wakefield had gone off to purchase it. He found a few natives left there, the remnant of the tribes whom Te Whero Whero had either destroyed or carried into slavery. These few people had taken refuge up in the awful solitudes of the giant Mount Egmont, but had come back to dwell, a sorrow-stricken handful, in the homes of their fathers. Barrett was left to arrange a bargain with them, and in return for a quantity of goods they sold all the land along sixty miles of coast with a depth of fifteen miles inland. This was the land which Wakefield recommended for the new settlers, and he lent them a ship to take them round. There they landed, and in spite of their disappointment at the want of a safe harbour, they set to work and built up their little town, which they called New Plymouth.
In September of the same year the main body of settlers arrived for this new colony, and were landed at Taranaki, when they immediately scattered out over the country, as fast as Carrington could survey it for them. But there was now a difficulty. For Te Whero Whero and his tribe had released many hundreds of the Taranaki natives who had been carried off as slaves. Whether it was because they had now become Christians or because the slaves were more in number than they could use, it was not easy to determine; but at any rate, in that very month of September when hundreds of white men were arriving to occupy the land, hundreds of Maoris were coming back to re-occupy it. They begged the settlers not to fell their big trees, but were very mild in their conduct. They chose places not yet claimed by the white men, and there fenced in the land on which to grow their sweet potatoes.
Meanwhile there was another complication. By Maori custom a warrior had the ownership of the lands he conquered. Governor Hobson therefore regarded Te Whero Whero as the owner of the Taranaki land, and gave him £400 for his right to it. Hobson declared that the Auckland Government was the owner of this land, and that all settlers must buy it from him. Eventually the trouble was cleared up for the time being, when Hobson allowed the company to keep ten miles of coast running back five or six miles, the rest to belong to the Government, which would set aside a certain part for the use of the Maoris. In December, 1842, a settler claimed a piece of land which a Maori had fenced in; he pulled down the fence; the Maoris put it up again. The settler assisted by an officer pulled it down once more. A young chief who brandished a tomahawk and threatened mischief was arrested, and carried into New Plymouth where a magistrate liberated him, and declared the action of the settler illegal. Matters for a time kept in this unfriendly state, ominously hinting the desperate war that was to follow.
11. Wanganui.—Meanwhile the settlers in the Wellington district were finding that by crossing difficult mountains they could get sufficient level land for their purpose, and at the close of 1840 two hundred of them sailed 150 miles north to where the river Wanganui falls into Cook Strait. The land was rich and the district beautiful. Colonel Wakefield supposed that he had bought the whole of it, though the natives afterwards proved that they sold only a part on the north side of the river. Here, about four miles from the mouth of the stream, the settlers formed a little town which they called Petre, but which is now known as Wanganui. The natives were numerous; on the river banks their villages were frequent, and up on the hills, that rose all around like an amphitheatre, the palisades of their fortified pahs were easily visible. But the fine black soil of the district, in places grassy, in places with patches of fine timber, proved very attractive to the settlers, and soon there came half a dozen ships with more colonists direct from England. The natives were friendly to white men, and gave them a cordial welcome. Down the river came their canoes laden with pigs, potatoes, melons, and gourds for sale in the market of the little town. All was good-will until the Maoris found that the white men had come not merely to settle among them, but to appropriate all the best of the land. Then their tempers grew sour and the prospect steadily grew more unpleasant.
12. Nelson.—The emigration spirit was at this time strong in England; for it was in the year 1840 to 1841 that free settlers chiefly co
lonised both Victoria and South Australia. New Zealand was as much a favourite as any, and when the New Zealand Company proposed in 1841 to form a new colony somewhere in that country to be called Nelson, nearly 100,000 acres were sold at thirty shillings an acre to men who did not know even in which island of New Zealand the land was to be situated. In April of the same year the pioneers of the new settlement started in the ships Whitby and Will Watch, with about eighty settlers, their wives, families and servants. Captain Arthur Wakefield was the leader, and he took the ships to Wellington, where they waited while he went out to search for a suitable site. He chose a place at the head of Tasman Bay, where, in a green hollow fringed by a beautiful beach and embosomed deep in majestic hills, the settlers soon gathered in the pretty little town of Nelson. The soil was black earth resting on great boulders; out of it grew low bushes easily cleared away, and here and there stood a few clumps of trees to give a grateful shade. The place was shut in by the hills so as to be completely sheltered from the boisterous gales of Cook Strait, and altogether it was a place of dreamy loveliness. Its possession was claimed by Rauparaha, the warrior, on the ground of conquest. With him and other chiefs the settlers had a conference, the result of which was that a certain specified area round the head of the bay was purchased. But the white men regarded themselves as having the right of superior beings to go where they wished and do with the land what they wished. Finding a seam of good coal at a place outside their purchase they did not in any way scruple to send a vessel to carry it off, in spite of the protests of the Maoris.
13. Death of Governor Hobson.—These things hinted at troubles which were to come, but in 1842 all things looked promising for the colonies of New Zealand. There were altogether about 12,000 white persons, most of them being men who wore blue shirts and lived on pork and potatoes. Auckland the capital had 3,000 but, Wellington was the largest town with 4,000 people. Next to that came Nelson with 2,500; New Plymouth and Wanganui were much smaller but yet thriving places. They had no less than nine newspapers, most of them little primitive sheets, but wonderful in communities so young. In October, 1841, Dr. George Selwyn was appointed to be Bishop of New Zealand; and he left England with a number of clergymen who settled in Auckland, Wellington, Nelson, and New Plymouth. Churches began to spring up, and schools not only for white children, but also for Maoris. An immense change for the better had appeared among the Maoris. The last case of cannibalism took place about this time; and though they still fought among one another, it was not with the same awful bloodshed that had characterised the previous twenty years.
On the 16th November, 1840, the Queen declared New Zealand an independent colony. Hobson was then no longer Lieutenant-Governor merely, and subject to the Governor at Sydney. He was Governor Hobson, and of equal rank with all the other Governors. He now had a Legislative Council to assist him in making for New Zealand such laws as might be needed in her peculiar circumstances. In that council the Chief Justice, the Colonial Secretary, the Surveyor-General, the Attorney-General and the Protector of the Maoris had seats. But Hobson did not long enjoy his new dignity. He had had a difficult task to perform, and his duty had led him into conflict with many people who wished to purchase their land from the natives at ridiculous prices. In the midst of his worries he had several strokes of paralysis, of which the last killed him in September, 1842; and he was buried in the cemetery at Auckland. He had lived, however, to see New Zealand colonised, and had died much liked by the Maoris, without seeing any of that bitter struggle between the two races which was soon to shed so much blood and waste so much treasure.
CHAPTER XXV.
WHITE MEN AND MAORIS.
1. Govenor Fitzroy.—When Governor Hobson died, his place was taken by his friend Lieutenant Shortland until a new Governor could be sent out. The English people were at this time very anxious to see that the natives of new lands which they colonised should be fairly treated, and for that purpose they chose Captain Fitzroy to be the new Governor. Up to this time he had been the captain of a ship and had made himself famous in surveying and mapping little known shores in his ship the Beagle, in which he had visited New Zealand on a trip round the world, and he was therefore called to give evidence as to its condition before the Committee of the House of Lords in 1838. He was well known to have shown much consideration to native tribes, and his strong wish to deal justly by them had often been shown. This was the main reason for his appointment. He landed in November, 1843, and found the colony in a state of great depression, the public treasury being not only empty but in debt. For many officials had been appointed, judges, magistrates, policemen, customs receivers and so on; and to pay the salaries of these every one had relied on the continued sale of land.
But in 1841 there had come out the first Land Commissioner, William Spain, who began to inquire into the disputes about land which had arisen between white men and Maoris. Out of every ten acres the white men said they had bought he allowed them to keep only one. This was but fair to the Maoris, who had been induced very often to make most foolish bargains; but the settlers ceased to buy land when they were not certain of keeping it. Hence the land sales stopped; the Governor owed £20,000 more than he could pay, and so he was confronted with troubles from his very first arrival.
2. Wairau Massacre.—Just before he came an incident had happened which deepened the trouble of the colony. At the north of the South Island, not far from Nelson, there was a fine valley watered by the stream Wairau, which Colonel Wakefield claimed, alleging that it was part of the land he had bought with the Nelson district. Rauparaha and his son-in-law, Rangihaeata, claimed it by right of conquest, and they had a couple of hundred stout warriors at their back, all well armed with muskets. Mr. Spain sent word that he was coming to settle the dispute, but, in spite of that, Captain Wakefield sent surveyors to measure out the land for occupation by the settlers. The surveyors were turned off by Rauparaha, who carried their instruments and other property carefully off the land and then burnt the huts they had put up. The Maoris did no violence, and were courteous though determined. The surveyors returned to Nelson, and Captain Wakefield induced the local magistrates to issue a warrant for the arrest of Rauparaha and Rangihaeata. To execute this warrant Mr. Thompson, the police magistrate, himself went in a small vessel, and with him went Captain Wakefield, seven other gentlemen, and forty labourers, in all a party of forty-nine, of whom thirty-five were armed with guns.
When they landed at the mouth of the Wairau River, Piraha, a Christian native, met them and begged them not to go on, as Rauparaha was ready to fight, but they paid no attention, and after marching eight miles up the pretty valley they saw the Maoris about 100 in number standing behind the stream, which though only waist-deep had a rushing current of chilly water. Rauparaha said: “Here am I. What do you want with me?” Mr. Thompson said he must go to Nelson; and an irritating conversation ensued. Rangihaeata drew up his tall form, his curly black hair setting off a face of eagle sharpness, and from his eye there gleamed an angry light. Behind him stood his wife, the daughter of Rauparaha, and near them this latter chief himself, short and broad, but strong and wiry-looking, a man with a cunning face, yet much dignity of manner. When the handcuffs were produced by Mr. Thompson, Rauparaha warned him not to be so foolish. The magistrates gave the order to fix bayonets and advance; as the white men were crossing the stream a shot was fired by one of them. It struck dead the wife of Rangihaeata. Thereupon the Maoris fired a volley and the white men hesitated on the brink of the water; a second volley and a third told upon them with deadly effect, and the labourers, who carried arms but had neither martial spirit nor experience, turned and fled.
Five of the gentlemen with four of the labourers stood their ground, and when the Maoris crossed they surrendered. Rauparaha called out to spare them; but Rangihaeata, mad at the loss of a wife he loved, brained them with his tomahawk one after another, while the young men hunted the labourers through the trees and slew such as they overtook. Twenty-seven white men reached
the shore and were carried quickly in the boats to the brig, five of them badly wounded. Twenty-two lay dead alongside of five natives whom the white men had slain.
Rauparaha feared the vengeance of the white man. He had few resources in the South Island, while the Nelson settlers could send 500 armed men against him. He crossed in his own war canoes, over a stormy strait in wild weather; weary and wet with spray, he landed in the south of the North Island, roused his countrymen by his fervid oratory, to which he gave a fine effect by jingling before them the handcuff’s with which he was to have been led a prisoner to Nelson. A day or two after the massacre, a Wesleyan clergyman went out from Nelson to Wairau and reverently buried those ghastly bodies with the cloven skulls. Not one had been mangled, far less had there been any cannibalism.
The History of Australia and New Zealand from 1606 to 1890 Page 23