THE WAIRAU MASSACRE.

About the end of November 1843, intelligence reached this country of a conflict between a party of settlers from Nelson and a body of the

Natives, in which a number of the former had fallen. Among those -who fell were the most energetic and intelligent and best-beloved of the settlement. Such an event deepened even the gloom which at that time rested on the prospects of the colony. The origin, progress, and termination of this lamentable event are as follows.

In 1839, Colonel Wakefield purchased, among other lands on Cook's Straits, "the river and district of Wairau." He purchased it three times,—first, from the conquering tribes, who had subjected or driven Out the original occupants at Cook's Straits, as appears from a deed dated 25th of October, to which are appended among others the signature of the chiefs Rauperaha and Rangihaeata ;* second, from the tribes who occupied the country subsequently to the conquest, and jointly with the conquering tribes, as appears from a deed dated 8th November Ithird, from the widow of a Captain Blenkinsop, who was said to have previously purchased it from the Natives, as appears from a note in Colonel Wakefield's Journal.:

There are some Natives settled at Port Underwood, a distance of several miles from the plains of the Wairau ; and among them are a brother and other relatives of Rauperaha. There is a deserted " pah" at the mouth of the Wairau. There were no permanent residents on the plains.

Rauperaha and Rangihaeata are the most savage of the existing chiefs of New Zealand. § The Natives at Wellington ceded their lands to Colonel Wakefield, not so much for the goods given them, as to have the British in their vicinity to protect them from Rauperaha.11 These two chiefs have been the instigators of the attacks on the settlers in the valley of the Hutt, f at Porirua," and elsewhere. They are both habitual drunkards.if Eight weeks before the rencontre at the Wairau, Rauperaha and Rangihaeata had declared that it was their intention to shoot Captain Wakefield=

Rangihaeata and Rauperaha denied the sale of the Wairau plains. In April 1843, neither this nor any of the land-claims on Cook's Straits had been decided by the Commissioner of Land-Claims, Mr. Spain. Additional lands were required for the Nelson settlement ; and a preliminary survey of those on the Wairau was ordered, that operations might commence as soon as the decision of the Court of Claims should be pronounced. The surveying expedition landed at the mouth of the Wairau on the 25th of April. They were met by a Native chief of the name of Naha; who expressed no dissatisfaction at their arrival. §§ In the course of a few days a considerable number of Natives arrived from different parts of the Straits; who obstructed the surveyors, and threatened them with a visit from RauperahadlIl That chief and Rangihaeata were then in attendance on the Court of LandClaims : they did not conceal their intention of forcibly obstructing the survey. Mr. Spain obtained from them a promise not to go to the Wairau till the end of June, when he would meet them there.'Elt Mr. Toms, who was married to a relative of Rauperaha, and in virtue of that connexion claims land in the Wairau district and elsewhere, promised to take them to his residence in Cloudy Bay, and detain them there -till Mr. Spain's arrival. Toms, however, after carrying them to Cloudy Bay, made no attempt to detain them, although it was generally understood by his sailors that the Natives were going to fight.*** He -even bought a slave from them, for fire-arms, apparently knowing that they were wanted. Rauperaha, Rangihaeata, and their followers, on

* Appendix to Twelfth Report of Directors of the New Zealand Company, pp. 10/3, 115, 147 F. t Ibid., p. 149 F. Ibid., p. 135 F. Kebble's Evidence, 1844: 3345-9319. Earp: 2047. Earp's Evidence: 2082.

vj Kettle's Evidence: 3213 et seg. a* Ibid. Wilton's Evidence: 3892. See also Appendix to Twelfth Report of Directors. 1:11. 78 H and 82 H.

if Ibid.

SI Narrative of the Committee of Public Safety at Nelson: Appendix to

Fourteenth Report of Directors, p. 196.

II Ibid., p.137. 411 Appendix to Report of 1844, p. 151. Affidavit of Mr. Meurant, interpreter

to Mr. Seam.

*** Affidavits of Tod, Howland, and SPCinne, published by the Nelson Com

mittee of Safety. arriving at the Wairau, plundered the men of the surveying-parties of blankets, tobacco, percussion.caps, and other articles ;* and pulled down and burned the huts of Mr. Cotterell and others:f Mr. Cotterell proceeded to Nelson; and the Magistrates, on his declaration that arson and other outrages had been committed by Rauperaha, Rangihaeata, and their followers, issued a warrant for the apprehension of the two chiefs. The effect of such a warrant is well known : the party accused is brought before the Magistrate issuing it, who commits him for trial if there appears to be sufficient cause, or liberates him if not. All British subjects are bound to obey a warrant of this kind ; and Rangihaeata and Rauperaha were British subjects. In November 1841, the Police Magistrate at the Bay of Islands had caused Maketu, "one of the high chiefs of the Bay," to be arrested in this manner.: The issuing of the warrant was a matter of course ; but, knowing the characters of Rauperaha and Rangihaeata, the Police Magistrate at Nelson deemed it advisable to proceed in person to execute it. He was accompanied by Captain Arthur Wakefield, Agent for the New Zealand Company and founder of the settlement, a general favourite with the Natives ; Captain England, remarkable for his mildness and self-command ; Mr. Cotterell, a member of the Society of Friends ; and several other gentlemen. At the Wairau they were joined by Mr. Tuckett, also a member of the Society of Friends. For precaution, they were accompanied by thirty or forty men, some of whom were constables. The whole party, with the exception of Messrs. Cotterell, Tuckett, and three others, were armed.

"Three miles up the river," says Mr. Tuckett, "we had an interview with a party of the resident Natives, and explained to them the object of the expedition, and that no violence was intended towards them ; and that it had no reference to any question of the land.claines. The Native chief Puaha undertook to convey to Rauperaha and Rangihaeata the object of the expedition ; informing us they were farther up the river, lie appeared perfectly satisfied with our explanation, as far as as they were concerned, and would recommend the others to surrender to the warrant.,

Next morning, the party advanced up the river, to where a deep stream from the North joins it. On the opposite bank of this affluent, a short distance above the junction, Rauperaha and Rangihaeata and their followers were assembled. Puaha was with them. The Police Magistrate, with Captain Wakefield, the chief constable, the interpreter, and three others, crossed over to them ; the rest of the English party remained on the opposite bank. The Police Magistrate "explained, that he did not come about the land question ; that that was to be settled afterwards by Mr. Spain." ll "The Police Magistrate, producing his warrant, directed the constable to execute it on Rauperaha ; and Mr. Brooks, the interpreter, was instructed to explain fully the nature of the warrant and the offence which he (Rauperaha) bad committed, and for which he must accompany the constable on board the brig. He was told he might take any of his tribe with him.' g Rauperaha at first " appeared to waver," but ultimately refused to go ; and the Police Magistrate proceeded to force him. "A party of Natives in the background, about sixteen in number, then sprang on their feet, and presented their arms."** "At this time," says Mr. Ferguson, a settler in New South Wales, who was a passenger onboard the Colonial brig, and accompanied the party, "I saw one rise from behind a bush, whom I had not before seen ; Mr. Richardson told me it was Rangihaeata : he made a great noise, and said, ' Kahore, the Queen I I'm all the same as Wikitoria.' "if When affairs assumed this aspect, says Mr. Tuckett, "In momentary expectation that violence would be offered to the Police Magistrate, I proposed that we should establish a communication with our party. Captain Wakefield asked the Native chief Puaha if he might use his canoe for that purpose ; he assented. Captain Wakefield asked me to assist him in placing the canoe across the stream : having done so, Captain Wakefield said, 'Englishmen, forward.' About five men upon this entered the canoe to cross over. While this took place, I heard the report of a fire-arm.":: There is considerable discrepancy among the parties examined as to who fired this shot ; but Joseph Morgan, one of the men who was crossing, declared upon oath when examined at Nelson, that it was fired by a Maori, and laid his comrade Tyrrell, who was immediately before him, dead at his feet. §§ The evidence of this witness is corroborated by that of George Bampton, who was also in the canoe, and that of James Grant, who was on the brink of the stream preparing to enter it. III These three men were better placed than any of the other surviving Englishmen to see what took place. The Natives examined do not say which side fired fir

The first shot was followed by simultaneous vollies from both parties. The Maories fired from behind the cover of the bush ;111" the English who had crossed stood exposed on the bank of the stream. Orders were given to rejoin their comrades who remained on the opposite side. Up ta this time the Natives hesitated whether to keep their ground or flee.*** Rauperaha, observing the movement to recross the creek, encouraged his companions to attack. They advanced, pouring in a volley, and several of the English fell. The labourers, unaccustomed to this sort of work, and devoid of discipline, broke and fled. The other gentlemen in vain attempted to rally and keep them together. Captain Wakefield, knowing the hopelessness of further resistance, advised those around him to lay down their arms. He waved a handkerchief, to intimate that they surrendered. The scene which followed has been told by a Native who took part in the affray:—

• Affidavit of Samuel Parkinson, and declaration of Pains (a Native) : Appendix to Report of 1844, pp. 146-149. t Ibid. t Governor Hobson's Despatch, 16th Dec. 1801. Sessional Papers, 1842; NO. 569, p. 191.

Mr. Tuckett's statement on affirmation to the Magistrates of Port Nicholson; Appendix to Report of 1844, p. 142. II r. Barnecoat's Affidavit: Appendix, p. 148. II r. Barnecoat's Affidavit: Appendix, p. 148. I Ibid.

*. Ibid., p. 143. tt Mr. Farguson's affidavit Appendix, p. 152. tt Tuckett; Appendix, p. 143. §§ Appendix to Twelfth Report of Directors, p. 50 H.

III Appendix to Committee's Report, pp. 144 and 158. lifir Grant Appendix, p. 158. *** Deposition of the Native Perna: Amcdlx, pp. to, Iso, "The Natives pursued them to another rise of the hill, and followed them until they caught them all; and Rauperaha was talking to them, and had secured all the chiefs, when Rangihaeata came up and said, ' Raupetuba, remember your daughter [ Rangihaeata's wife, shot by a chance-shot daring the action.] Puaha's wife was down at the settlement, and called out to him, 'Puaha, Puaha, save some of the chiefs, so that you may have to say you saved some :' but when she cried they were all killed. Rangihaeata killed them all with his own band, with a tomahawk. I saw him do it. I saw Rangihaeata kill Captain Wakefield, Mr. Thompson, and Mr. Richardson. I saw him kill John Brooks. near the bunch of trees up the hilL I saw him kill Mr. Cotterell. I saw Rangihaeata snatch away Captain Wakefield's watch after he had knocked him down. He afterwards offered it to the Missionary Natives; but they refused to take it, but said, Let it lie with the dead, and all that belongs to them.' I heard that the slaves bad stripped off Captain Wakefield's coat and waistcoat. They paid no attention to what the Missionaries said, but robbed the bodies in all directions.' One Englishman, who was crouched in the fern near this terrible scene, "heard five blows given as if by a tomahawk ; and, after the last blow, heard a groan."t Others heard the Natives in pursuit of themselves : "they had with them a dog, which they shouted to and encouraged in the same manner as when they hunt pigs." T The Maories present on this occasion are said by the Native Puaha to have been upwards of hundred; "but forty committed the deed, and these were all armed with muskets." The number of the Europeans was forty-nine ; and of these, nineteen were shot in the action, or murdered afterwards in cold blood. Among the murdered, were men of high talents and acquirements, and unstained reputation: we may name, in particular, Arthur Wakefield— the naval service of his country does not boast an officer of the same standing of higher merit, and he was equally beloved by countryman and foreigner, civilized European and savage New Zealander. Captain Wakefield's murder, we have seen, was premeditated. Rauperaha and Rangihaeata had announced their intention to commit it weeks before. And it was accompanied with insult to his remains. When the Rev. Samuel Ironside, the Wesleyan missionary, who buried him and his comrades, was examined by the Port Nicholson Magistrates, the following fact was elicited :— "When you found the body of Captain Wakefield, did you see a bit of bread or damper placed under his head ?"—" Yes ; I did."—" Are you aware of any Native custom which would account for this being done? ' — "The head of a chief is held sacred, and nothing common should come near it ; and therefore bread, being common, and being placed there, it was intended as an insult."

The witnesses ,Native and European, from whose depositions this narrative is extracted, (with the exception of three whose testimony has been alluded to as corroborative of the others, and who made affidavit at Nelson,) were examined by the Magistrates of Port Nicholson from the 18th to the 24th of June ; Mr. M•Donogh, the Police Magistrate, occupying the chair. On the 24th of June, Mr. M•Donogh issued a proclamation to the settlers in Cook's Straits, in which he says—" I should fail in my duty did I not declare my conviction, after obtaining evidence from all quarters, that the affray was not the result of any premeditated design on the part of the Natives ; but that, on the contrary, they sought by every means to avoid it, and did not fire a shot until five of their party had fallen, and among them the wife of Rangihaeata, who at the moment bore his own son in her arms."11 For this assertion there is not a shadow of evidence in the depositions taken by the Magistrates. When taken to task for it by Colonel Wakefield, Mr. M•Donogh admitted this, in a letter dated 14th of July—" From the depositions taken by the Magistrates on the spot, which documents have since been placed in my charge, I find, upon a careful perusal of them, that I had been misinformed on the following points,—namely, that five of the Natives had not fallen previous to their returning the fire : neither does it appear at what period of the conflict Rangihaeata's wife was accidentally shot ; who, it is proved, had not at that time an infant in her arms. I likewise find by these documents, that no order was given by the Europeans to fire on the Natives; but that the conflict originated from an accidental shot from one of the European party.'1 But Lord Stanley, the Secretary of State for the Colonies, improves immeasurably on the story first promulgated and then retracted by Mr. APDonogh. On the 10th of February 1844, Lord Stanley wrote to Governor Fitzroy—" Most calamitously, the commencement of the conflict was signalized by the death by a gunshot wound of a woman who was the wife of one of the chiefs and the daughter of the other : she fell a victim to conjugal affection, in the attempt to shelter her husband's life, at the imminent peril of her own. Her death was avenged by him and her father, in the slaughter of the prisoners they had made"** Lord Stanley's only authority for this romantic and touching story is the hearsay evidence of a whaler, not present at the massacre : all the witnesses who were present contradict it; and the Protector of Aborigines disbelieved it.

The actions of the Government-officers in New Zealand have been in keeping with the words of the Police Magistrate of Wellington and the Secretary of State for the Colonies. After the Wairau massacre, the male inhabitants of Wellington were sworn in as special constables, by Mr. M'Donogh, and, with his sanction, were to be armed and drilled, because Rauperaha and Rangihaeata had collected some hundreds of their followers within sixteen miles of the town.ft Filly-three soldiers were sent to Wellington in July, with Major Richmond, who was appointed to supersede Mr. M‘Donogh as Police Magistrate. Major Richmond's first step was to issue a proclamation declaring the meetings for drill illegal, and intimating that all future meetings would be dispersed, "and the persons so unlawfully assembling prosecuted according to law." .1$ The Crown Prosecutor Afterwards declared, that in preparing the proclamation he had used the

* Pains: Appendix, p. 150. t Grant : Appendix, p. 159.

t Morgan and Hudson's depositions at Nelson : Appendix to Fourteenth Re port of Directors, p. 146.

1 Mr. Ironside's deposition : Appendix to Committee's Report, p. 156. 1 Appendix to Twelfth Report of Directors, p. 18 H.

Appendix to Twelfth Report of Directors, p.52 H.

Appendix to Committee's Report, p. 173.

APPendix to Twelfth Report of Directors, p.111 H.

33 Ibid., p. 63 N.

word" illegal" by inadvertence ; but the Police Magistrate still forbade the drilling, notwithstanding the earnest remonstrances of the Local Magistrates and the whole population. And Governor Fitzroy has taken upon him to forbid any judicial investigation of the Wafran massacre, on grounds equally irreconcileable with law and evidence. "I feel it imperative on me to remind you, painful as it is to my feelings, that our countrymen were there [at the Wairau] the aggressors; that the principal Magistrate was acting illegally; that at least thirteen of our countrymen fell during the heat of a conflict brought on by the misconduct of those in authority; and that the other nine, though mercilessly slaughtered after they had surrendered, fell victims to the ferocious passions they had roused to the utmost."* After the breaking up of the meeting at which Governor Fitzroy announced to the Natives that no inquiry was to be made, Sir Everard Home ostentatiously shook hands with Rauperaha.t The sequel of the story is best told in the concluding words of a despatch from the Police Magistrate of Wellington to Mr. Acting Governor Shortlaud, dated the 5th December 1843—" The Natives of these districts have, since their unfortunate success at the Walnut, assumed a different bearing, and are certainly not inclined to yield obedience to our laws, which before they never disputed."