FOOTNOTES:
[57] Maori proverb.
VARIOUS RULERS
These wars and rumours of wars had small effect in stopping immigration. Most of the settlers were British; for, though no systematic colonisation had as yet been attempted, the right of Great Britain's sovereignty over New Zealand had been recognised at the Peace of 1814.
New South Wales being the nearest approach to a centre of civilisation, the Government in Sydney watched the interests of the settlers on the eastern edge of the Tasman Sea; but, because of the distance between the two countries, the New Zealand settlers had really to protect themselves from annoyance as best they could. The Maori, predominant in power, found little difficulty in safeguarding their own interests.
Apart from the efforts of the missionaries, what did most to keep the peace was the desire of commercial adventurers to tap the resources of the country. On their side, the Maori were anxious to bargain with the Pakeha for guns, and very soon learned that any serious breach with the white men was followed by interruption of profitable intercourse.
The Pakeha at first took shameful advantage of the natives, purchasing a shipload of flax for a few old muskets, while a fig of tobacco was esteemed by the latter worth almost as much as a gun. But the Maori were never fools, whatever else their failings, and they quickly grew instructed in the commercial value of the articles they had for disposal, for which they were prompt to demand a more adequate return.
The one point in which they seemed hopelessly to fail was in estimating the value of land. This was because they and the white men approached the subject from absolutely different standpoints, and what the Pakeha concluded they had bought, the Maori imagined they had leased. For the most sacred article in the creed of the Maori was, perhaps, that precluding them from parting in perpetuity with the land which had descended to them from their ancestors.
An abominable traffic in which the baser sort of white men engaged was that in human heads. The marvellous preservation of the heads of dead Maori had excited great interest among scientists, and European museums clamoured for specimens. But the loss of the head of one of its male members brought a peculiar grief and shame to a Maori family, for it meant also the loss of mana, or reputation. Consequently, the demand for heads greatly exceeded the supply.
But if there were base men among the Pakeha, so were there among the Maori, and such fellows made nothing of filching the heads of other persons' ancestors or defunct relatives, and selling them to the sailors frequenting the coast.
This was bad enough; but, since theft could not accomplish enough, murder stalked upon its heels, and many a wretched slave was slain in order that his head might grin from the shelf of a museum, or "grace" the library of some curio-hunter.
Efforts were made to stop the disgusting traffic with its lurid accompaniments; but the offenders were not easily reached and, had New Zealand remained uncolonised, the Maori race might by this time have become extirpated by a gradual process of decapitation. Fortunately, as the white population grew more respectable and responsible, their own sense of what was due to themselves choked off the practice.
Such a shocking story reached the ears of Governor Darling in Sydney, that he issued a proclamation, threatening those engaged in the trade with heavy fines and exposure in the public prints.
Theft and murder accounted for a certain number of heads; but the conquerors in battle presently began to offer them in exchange for—as always—guns and ammunition. In the year 1830 a tribe living on the shores of the Bay of Plenty defeated certain Nga-Puhi, and sold such heads as were in proper condition to the master of the next vessel which touched at Tauranga. The brig proceeded to the Bay of Islands—whence had come the original owners of the heads—and was boarded by some of the natives there. The skipper, who seems to have been drunk, appeared on deck, carrying a large sack, and the Maori shrank back, growling and muttering, as the besotted Pakeha tumbled out of the bag a dozen human heads. Worse was to come. Some of the Maori present were related to those who had gone out to fight and had never returned, and a cry of bitter lamentation arose as these recognised the faces of their dead—one a father, another a brother, a third a son. Others, too, knew their friends, and amid a scene of the utmost horror, the outraged Maori, wailing, weeping, howling, rushed over the side of the ship and paddled swiftly towards their bewildered comrades who lined the shore, marvelling at the commotion. Drunk or sober, the brutal shipmaster knew that he had gone too far, for he slipped his cable and fled for his life.
When His Excellency heard this atrocious story, he insisted that all who had bought heads from this savage trader should give them up to him, in order that they might be returned to the tribes at the Bay of Islands. How far he succeeded in his endeavour to soothe the grief-stricken and offended Maori is uncertain.
About the time of Hongi's visit to Europe a rage for land speculation arose, and people of all sorts and conditions hastened to offer axes, guns, and such merchandise as the Maori valued in exchange for broad acres. How far this traffic went is shown by the official statement that one million acres of land were "purchased" between 1825 and 1830 from the natives by Sydney speculators. Further, twenty-seven thousand square miles in the most fertile part of the north were acquired between 1830 and 1835 by missionaries.
A dreadful recognition
News of these transactions excited in England a more active interest in New Zealand, and in 1825 a Company was formed in London with the object of colonising the latter country. Sixty people did actually emigrate, and on arrival settled around the Hauraki Gulf; but no more followed; the settlement melted away, and with it the aspirations of the Company.
"He who aims at the sun will shoot higher than he who aims at a bush, though he hit never his mark," quaintly says Bacon, and Baron Charles Hyppolyte de Thierry perhaps had this apophthegm in mind when he proclaimed himself "Sovereign Chief of New Zealand and King of Nukahiva"—one of the Marquesas Islands.
Baron de Thierry—a naturalised Englishman—met the Rev. Mr. Kendall and Hongi when the pair were in England, and entrusted the former with merchandise to the value of one thousand pounds, wherewith to purchase for him one of the most valuable areas in New Zealand—the Hokianga district, in which flourishes the invaluable kauri-pine. The would-be sovereign was greatly disappointed to learn that his agent had acquired only forty thousand acres of this superb country, while he was at the same time cheered to know that the immense tract had been "purchased" at the not excessive price of thirty-six axes!
Is it any wonder that the Maori could not later realise that they had parted for ever with their lands for such ridiculous—to use no harsher word—equivalents? The land was in their own opinion leased, not sold, and the leasing of land was a common enough practice among themselves, each party to the transaction thoroughly understanding its nature.
Baron de Thierry neglected his purchase until 1835, when he drifted as far as Tahiti. Thence he forwarded to Mr. Busby, the Resident, a copy of his "proclamation," along with the intimation that his "ship of war" would presently convey him to his kingdom. The Bay of Islands dovecote was considerably fluttered.
But Monsieur the "Sovereign Chief" did not arrive for three years, and then he suddenly appeared in Hokianga with nearly a hundred followers. Settlers and Maori beheld with apprehension this select company; but when the invader claimed royal honours and nominated the master of the vessel in which he had arrived his "Lord High Admiral," everybody laughed—except the "Sovereign Chief and King."
The baron soon had reason to weep; for of a sudden came information that Mr. Kendall's thirty-six axes, paid for the forty thousand acres, had been merely a deposit. One is relieved to learn this, but it must have been very depressing news for the would-be proprietor. For the Royal Exchequer was very low, and as the great officers of state could get no pay for the arduous duties they performed, they promptly resigned. So, too, did the "Sovereign Chief," and vanished, to reappear later, without the "purple," in the guise of an ordinary and very excellent citizen.
The settlement at Kororareka has already been referred to as a place in which the orgies of white and brown justified the epithet "scandalous." It was not the only spot in this Eden over which lay the trail of the serpent; so, for the sake of morality, as well as for political reasons, the Governor of New South Wales, Sir Richard Bourke, appealed to the British Government to appoint a Resident at the Bay of Islands.
Many years had elapsed between the murder of Captain Marion du Fresne and the visit of the next French ship. At rare intervals a vessel dropped anchor in one of the bays; but there was little sustained intercourse. Even as late as 1834, so bitter were their memories of the "Wi-Wi" (Oui-Oui) that the Nga-Puhi chiefs took alarm at the persistent rumour of a French occupation of New Zealand, and induced the missionaries to draw up a petition to the "Gracious Chief of England," William the Fourth, to protect them from "the tribe of Marion."
The Maori had also begun to recognise that the British Pakeha were not over clean-handed in their dealings with them; for, in addition to the above, they prayed the "Gracious Chief" to prevent his own people from depriving them of their lands.
The result of this unrest was the appointment of Mr. Busby as British Resident. He arrived at the Bay of Islands in 1833, and led off in great style by proposing that all New Zealand should be ruled by a Parliament of Chiefs, and that the country should adopt a national flag to signify its independence.
The idea caught the fancy of some; the flag arrived from Sydney in H.M.S. Alligator, and was inaugurated with a salute of twenty-one guns. The Parliament of Chiefs took shape a little later, when thirty-five hereditary chiefs declared their independence, and received the designation of the "United Tribes of New Zealand."
Barely a year after Mr. Busby's appointment, a "regrettable incident" occurred, which compelled him to assume the character of "Vindex," in which neither he, nor those associated with him, showed to advantage.
The affair gave rise to the employment of British troops for the first time in New Zealand, and arose out of the shipwreck of the Harriet at Cape Egmont, Taranaki. The sailormen lodged for a fortnight in a Maori village, and then a quarrel arose. A fight followed, and twelve sailors and twice as many Maori were killed.
Since the Maori loss was double that of the ship's company, the account could only be balanced by utu; so the surviving whites were held to ransom, and Guard, the shipmaster, was sent to procure the same.
Five months later, the Government of New South Wales despatched H.M.S. Alligator with a company of soldiers on board to bring away the prisoners. On her arrival off the scene of the disaster, Guard went ashore, accompanied by the military, when the Maori at once gave up the sailors. All was going well—for Guard was assured of the safety and well-being of his wife and two little ones—when an officer, perhaps deceived by gestures incomprehensible to him, hurled an unfortunate chief into the boat and bayoneted him.
This wrong-headed act was not immediately followed by hostilities, though it interrupted the progress of negotiations. Matters were at last smoothed over, the wounded chief was sent ashore, and Mrs. Guard and one of her children brought down to the boat. Then, as the ransom was still unpaid, the second child was carried to the shore upon the shoulder of the chief who had cared for it.
This chief not unreasonably requested permission to carry the child aboard, and himself receive the stipulated payment; but, when curtly informed that no ransom would be paid, he turned away, still carrying the child. It is dreadful to be obliged to relate that the Maori was shot in the back at close quarters, and fell dying to the ground with the little child in his arms. As if this were not enough, his corpse was insulted.
Following upon this tragedy, a shot was fired, by whom or from whence no one could or would say. The Alligator immediately began to shell the Waimate Pa, and the troops played their part. When sufficient punishment had been inflicted, the dogs of war were called off and the ship sailed away.
Unpleasant as is the task, it is right that these dark pictures of mistakes and injustice should now and then be shown, if only to induce those whose duty brings them in contact with primitive races to remember that the rights of man belong to the coloured as well as to the white. It is not denied that the Maori treated their prisoners with consideration, and it is pitiful to learn that Mrs. Guard identified the chief who was the first to be slain as one who had behaved with unvarying kindness to her and to her children. Nor is there any doubt that the British disregarded every claim of justice and humanity. Not even common honesty was exhibited; for, although the prisoners were given up, the ransom agreed upon was refused.
The one bright spot in the whole affair was the decision of a committee of the House of Commons, condemning the incident, and pointing out that, while the Maori had fulfilled their contract, the British had broken theirs. The committee might with propriety have said a good deal more in the opinion of those whose view was not that of the chief witness, Guard—shipmaster and ex-convict—that "a musket ball for every Maori was the best method of civilising the country."
These various happenings, good and bad alike, showed that the wind blew towards Britain and British sovereignty. This was bound to come; and come it did at last through the agency of Kororareka of all places in the world!
Things had been going from bad to worse in the "Cyprus of the South Sea," and its orgies, brawls and revellings had become the scandal of a community not easily scandalised. Law-breakers laughed at the law, and Kororareka at last became too bad even for the Kororarekans. The inhabitants of the better sort then drew up a set of rules and banded themselves together under the title of the "Kororarekan Association." The Association approached the Resident, as in duty bound; but when Mr. Busby would have none of them they resolved to act independently of him.
The Association went trenchantly to work in quite an American spirit—tarring and feathering, riding obnoxious individuals out of the town on rails, and purging the place of its worst elements. The scared Resident portrayed it in such vivid colours that the Home Government took alarm, and came to the somewhat belated conclusion that it was time for Britain to assert the rights she had possessed by discovery since 1769, and by the recognition of Europe since the Peace of 1814.
Another factor had meanwhile arisen which still further demonstrated the necessity for expedition on the part of the British Government.
The New Zealand Association had been formed in 1836, but had received little support; for it was suspected that their motives were not so pure as they declared them to be. The missionaries hailed invective upon them, the Duke of Wellington asserted in his "iron" way that "Britain had enough colonies already," and so violent was the general opposition that the Association was dissolved.
Another Company was formed with very little delay under the title of the New Zealand Land Company, whose Directors determined to act independently of the Crown, and to establish settlements wheresoever they chose in the country which Britain seemed unable or disinclined to appreciate at its proper worth. Their ship had actually sailed before the astonished Government were informed by the London Directors of the intentions of the Company.
There were some big names controlling this venture. At the head of the list stood that of the Earl of Durham, Governor of the Company and, until just before its formation, Governor-General of Canada. Colonel Wakefield, one of an indefatigable family, was the Company's agent; and the long list of Directors included the names of Petre, Baring, Boulcott, Hutt, Molesworth, and others destined to influence the future of New Zealand.
The Government were at last roused to action. They informed the Directors that it was for the Crown to make colonies, not for private individuals, and without more ado sent Captain Hobson of the Royal Navy to New Zealand as "Consul." He was instructed to consider himself subordinate to the Governor of New South Wales; and he carried with him his commission as Lieutenant-Governor.
Thus, after many vicissitudes, New Zealand found herself, in the year of grace 1839, within measurable distance of becoming a British Colony. But she had still to run the gauntlet of one more danger, which, had she not escaped it, must have changed the whole course of her history.
PAKEHA AND MAORI
GREAT BRITAIN WINS
We are arrived at a pass when the good ship Tory is hurrying southwards, bearing to the goal of all their hopes the preliminary expedition of the New Zealand Land Company. On the track of the Tory follows in dignified pursuit Her Majesty's ship Druid, proud of her distinguished burden, the first Lieutenant-Governor of the Colony that is soon to be. The air is filled with rumours of the impending formation of a colony by France; and, indeed, a French ship presently flies in the wake of the Tory and the Druid, bound, they say, for Akaroa in the Middle Island, where many thousands of goodly acres are already in one Frenchman's hands. New Zealand herself, precious object of the desire of so many, sits upon her sea-girt throne and lifts anxious eyes to the scales of Fate, watching the quivering balance. One arm must soon descend, weighted with her destiny. Which?
Fortunately for New Zealand, Britain had a fair start of France in the race for possession. Unfortunately for many colonists, then and to be, the New Zealand Company ran well ahead of the British Government in the race for the acquisition of land. Most fortunately for all concerned, Her Majesty's representatives were men not afraid to undo the tangle caused by the early dealings in land. They were men determined to adjust upon an equitable basis all land transactions between the white population and the brown. They were men who insisted that the Maori, ignorant at first of the value of that with which they parted so lightly, should not be driven from their ancestral possessions for the price of a few old muskets, a handful of red sealing-wax, or even an orchestra of Jew's-harps and tin bugles.
It would be improper to refer otherwise than delicately to a past so recent. Something must be said, but not without consideration for the feelings of others. Moreover, the subject of the proceedings of the New Zealand Land Company is so difficult and involved, that, save in the briefest manner, it does not fall to be dealt with in a history of this nature.
While the Tory was ploughing through girdling oceans north and south, the Directors of the New Zealand Company were doing all they could to attract a good class of emigrants. They described in glowing terms the situation, scenery, and climate of the country, eulogised their system of colonisation, and offered, by lottery, land at popular prices, which included the passage out of the emigrant and his household.
Fifty thousand acres in the North Island were at first offered by the Company for purchase, and over eleven hundred emigrants—purchasers, labourers, and their families—sailed within six months for New Zealand, full of hope in the future.
The startling feature of the story is that the Company had no title to land in New Zealand, nor any right to sell it. The significant lines did not occur to them, "The man that once did sell the lion's skin while the beast lived, was killed with hunting him."
After a voyage of four months, the Tory dropped anchor in Port Nicholson on the 20th of September, 1839. The shores of Cook Strait had been for many a year the scene of fighting among the Maori and, as first one and then another tribe came uppermost in the struggle, the question of the actual ownership of the land became decidedly matter for argument. It will be remembered that, by Maori law, conquest of land constituted ownership. True; but if the conquerors of to-day were likely to be turned out to-morrow by the recently vanquished, or by another set of combatants, it does not need much demonstration to show that intending purchasers would require to be very careful as to the soundness of their own right and title, or entirely careless of any law but that of possession.
The Company's agent stayed not to inquire as to Maori disputes regarding land. He ascertained through an interpreter the names of this cape, that river, those islands, and yonder mountain, and asked the chiefs Epuni and Wharepori of the Ngati-Awa, who had come aboard, whether they would sell the entire landscape.
"Yes," answered the chiefs, who had little better title to the land than had the Company who had sold it before buying it. And so, for a collection of articles which included blankets, guns of various sorts, axes, spades, and fish-hooks—not to speak of Jew's-harps, soap, trousers, pencils, sealing-wax and cartridge-paper, the Company acquired (justly, perhaps, in their opinion) a territory about the size of Ireland, embracing both the east and west coasts of New Zealand.
This astonishing bargain, begun on the deck of the Tory, took some months to complete, and by that time the agent had taken formal possession of the fine bay known as Port Nicholson—Poneki in the Maori tongue—and planned out the settlement of Britannia at the entrance to the charming valley of the Eritonga, better known now—if not so musically named—as the Hutt river.
Fast in the wake of the Tory followed the Aurora with the first instalment of immigrants, whose feelings may be imagined, when they realised that nobody could give or sell to them the right and title to the lands they desired to call their own. They learned this much in March 1840 from the Maori themselves, when, owing to its faulty position, the settlement on the Hutt was abandoned, and the town of Wellington founded upon the flats of Thorndon and Te Aro, which lay in a more sheltered bay of the great basin of Port Nicholson.
Other emigrants from England and elsewhere soon arrived; the first steamer puffed and churned its way into the harbour; and the astounded Maori demanded anxiously whether "all the tribes had left England and come to settle among them?" They were not disinclined to welcome the settlers; but Puakawa and other chiefs strongly objected to part with their lands, which they averred had been sold by people who had no right to dispose of them.
This was sad hearing; but, if a Company choose to "buy" twenty million acres from some fifty people whose right to sell them is hotly disputed, it is to be expected that the ten thousand or so who claim ownership of those acres will have something to say on the subject.
Mercifully for the settlers, the Maori near Wellington had no objection to their lands being occupied, but merely wished to make it clear that they had not been sold outright. So the settlers became aware before long that the Company's purchases were not good, and that, if they, the immigrants, bought land of the Company, their own title to it would be equally not good, and would in the natural course of events become liable to investigation.
But why this concern about right and title? On the one hand are white men desirous of acquiring land, and, on the other, coloured men who have felt the touch of civilisation without having been greatly influenced thereby, and who, while undeniably owning the land, use but little of it. Why bother about their rights? Why not oppose to the protests of the brown man the impudence of the white man, whose argument has too often been, "What I desire I take, and what I have I hold"?
Because—and it is with keen pleasure that one can write this truth—the story of colonisation in New Zealand is honourably distinguished from that in some other portions of the globe, by the righteous attitude of most of the early settlers towards the native population in possession, and by the fact that the rights of the original owners of the soil were clearly recognised, and forcibly insisted upon by those in power. And the same principle is at work to-day.
True, there were many who shamelessly swindled the Maori out of their land; but with a number of these the Crown eventually dealt very effectually. True, also, there were not wanting those who—as ever in a new country—advocated lead and steel as the best means of combating objections to land transfer, and, incidentally, of "civilising" the Maori. But of such there were too few thoroughly to leaven the lump, and the general attitude of the white men was one of honest desire to deal justly with the brown. Serious differences arose, but the guiding principle was there and, despite wars and contentions, there was never abroad that spirit of hatred which has marked some contests between the white and the coloured races. Pakeha and Maori as a rule fought out their quarrel fairly, with the result that they now live at peace, the white men respecting and caring for the needs of the brown, the brown men content to recognise the superiority of the white, and taking an intelligent share with them in the ruling of their ancient heritage.
The Maori have been represented for many years in the Parliament of New Zealand by men of their own race; men, too, directly descended from powerful chiefs who strenuously opposed the Pakeha's rule. The newspapers announced a few months ago[58] that a full-blooded Red Indian had for the first time in the history of the United States taken his seat in Congress. Comment is needless.
Whatever their title, the Company's settlers remained where they were for the present, and for the better ordering of matters in which all were concerned, quickly formed a "Provisional Government," with the energetic and sunny-tempered Colonel Wakefield as its first president.
So, leaving the Company's settlers in Wellington to argue questions of title with their keen-witted opponents, let us follow the fortunes of Lieutenant-Governor Hobson from the time of his arrival in Sydney.
Having paid his respects to his chief, Sir George Gipps, Governor of New South Wales, Captain Hobson sailed for the Bay of Islands, where he arrived on the 29th of January, 1840. He immediately exhibited three documents, which gave the settlers plenty to think about.
The first was his commission as Lieutenant-Governor over whatever parts of New Zealand might be thereafter added to Queen Victoria's dominions; the second asserted Her Majesty's authority over all her subjects then resident in New Zealand; the third—note it well—proclaimed that the Queen would acknowledge no titles to land other than those derived from Crown grants, that to purchase land from the natives would after that date be illegal, and that a Commission would investigate all land purchases already made.
While Lieutenant-Governor Hobson was familiarising the Kororarekans with this last intimation, the agent of the New Zealand Company at Wellington continued to acquire land from the Maori, irrespective of native right and title; while immigrants as eagerly besieged genial Colonel Wakefield for town lots and country lands, careless of his right and title and, apparently, of their own insecure tenure.
So, with Captain Hobson proclaiming himself Governor over territory yet to be acquired; with the Company selling, and the immigrants buying, land to which neither had a proper title, the materials for the production of a very difficult and unpleasant situation were apparent even to inexperienced eyes.
They were so apparent to Captain Hobson, that he took with creditable promptitude two decided steps. First, he convened at Waitangi—the lovely "Weeping Water" in the Bay of Islands—a meeting of powerful hereditary chiefs, to whom he proposed an agreement, historically known as the Treaty of Waitangi.
The chiefs of the United Tribes of New Zealand by this treaty ceded to Queen Victoria the sovereignty of their territories, and agreed to sell lands to no other purchaser than the Crown. Queen Victoria, in consideration of this cession of sovereignty, agreed to extend her royal protection to the Maori, and to confer upon them all the privileges of British subjects.
Signing the Treaty of Waitangi
This important treaty was not carried through off-hand. Shrewd chiefs opposed it, though the greater number present argued in its favour, among them Hongi's veteran lieutenant, Tomati Waka Nene (Thomas Walker), afterwards our strong ally. No conclusion was come to until next day, when forty-six prominent chiefs signed the treaty in presence of a great following.
Forty-six being a small proportion of the number of chiefs of rank in the North Island, Governor Hobson circulated the treaty by the hands of trusted agents. The first signatures were appended early in February, 1840, and over five hundred chiefs had signed before the end of June, very few of them accepting the presents offered by the agents, lest it should be considered that they had been bribed into taking so important a step.
Thus encouraged, the Governor executed the great measure which caution had bidden him postpone, and on the 21st of May, 1840, proclaimed Queen Victoria's sovereignty over the Islands of New Zealand. To make matters sure, sovereignty over the Middle Island was separately proclaimed on the 17th of June.
Governor Hobson now took his second step. The proclamation of the sole right of the Crown to purchase land from the natives plainly gave him control of the acquisitions of the New Zealand Company; the proclamation of the Queen's sovereignty over the Islands justified him in repudiating the Provisional Government formed at Wellington. Of the latter he made short work, sending Mr. Shortland, R.N., the Colonial Secretary, and a company of soldiers to haul down the Company's flag and replace it by the standard of Britain. The act was natural and inevitable; but it made the Company and their representative very bitter against Captain Hobson.
The declaration of sovereignty over the Middle Island came none too soon; for the French emigrant ship Comte de Paris, convoyed by the frigate L'Aube, arrived less than two months later at Akaroa, and fifty-seven immigrants disembarked. The British flag had been hoisted forty-eight hours earlier by Captain Stanley, R.N., and when, in face of this, the French frigate landed six field-pieces, the captain of H.M.S. Britomart thought it time to protest. He protested so effectually, that the French commander acknowledged his immigrants to be settlers in a British Colony, reshipped his twenty-four pounders, and the incident closed.
Thus New Zealand, after long delays, became a British Colony, with her status established not only before her own motherland, but in the eyes of Europe as well. It remained for her to shake off the partial allegiance she owed to New South Wales, and then, with all the confidence of youth and sturdy independence, go proudly down the path of the future to the high destiny which awaited her.