A Dark Chapter from New Zealand History

Transcriber's Note: The cover image was created from the title page by the transcriber and is placed in the public domain.
BY A POVERTY BAY SURVIVOR.
“ Solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant. ”
1869.
PRINTED AND PUBLISHED BY JAMES WOOD, AT HIS PRINTING OFFICE, TENNYSON-STREET, NAPIER, HAWKE’S BAY.
REPRINT PUBLISHED BY CAPPER PRESS CHRISTCHURCH, NEW ZEALAND 1974
Printed offset by The Caxton Press, Christchurch from the copy in the Canterbury Public Library, Christchurch

These pages have been chiefly written for such as desire to forward to distant friends a brief connected account of one of those terrible massacres, accompanied by wholesale destruction of property, which bid fair to depopulate and lay waste the North Island of New Zealand.
It is possible that only vague, indefinite reports respecting the calamities which afflict this colony have reached the majority of far-away readers; more especially in Great Britain, impressions are known to prevail which are often opposed to facts. In this little work it is intended to tell a “plain, unvarnished tale;” to briefly review the causes which led to the perpetration of a great tragedy, and to shew how it might have been prevented. If the sad story contributes, even in a slight degree, to bring about an improvement in the future, the purpose for which it was written will have been accomplished.

Turanga, or Poverty Bay, lies between the East Cape and the Mahia Peninsula. North and south, the district consists of hills, and a circlet of hills bounds the interior; the hills are partly occupied as sheep runs.