John Rutherford, the White Chief: A Story of Adventure in New Zealand

by George L. Craik

During all this time these savages, he said, had shown him the greatest attention, and he would have been very glad to return to live among them if he could have found any other Europeans to go with him.

Since the Bay of Islands has become so much the resort of shipping, many seamen have left their ships and taken up their residence of their own accord among the natives. The "Missionary Reports" state that, about the close of the year 1824, there were perhaps twenty men who had thus found their way into the country, and were living on plunder; and that within the year not less, it was supposed, than a hundred sailors had in the same manner taken refuge for a time in the island.

Although these men had all run away from their own ships, the captains of other vessels touching at any part of the coast did not hesitate to employ them when they wanted hands.

Mawman, whom Rutherford met with at Kiperra, had, it will be recollected, made his escape, according to his own account, from a sloop of war. These fugitives, however, it would appear, do not always succeed in establishing themselves among the natives. Cruise mentions one who, having run away from the "Anne" whaler, hid himself at first in the woods, but soon after came on board the "Dromedary" in a most miserable state, beseeching to be taken on the strength of the ship.

Convicts, too, occasionally make their escape to New Zealand, and attempt to secrete themselves in the interior of the country. When the "Active" was at the Bay of Islands in 1815, two men and a woman of this description were sent on board to be taken back to New South Wales. The woman, Nicholas says, was particularly dejected on being retaken; and it was found that while on shore she had done everything in her power to prevail upon one of the native females to assist her in her attempt to conceal herself. Her friend, however, resisted all her entreaties; and well knowing the hardships to which the poor creature would have exposed herself, only replied to her importunate solicitations, "Me would, Mary, but me got no tea, me got no sugar, no bed, no good things for you; me grieve to see you, you cannot live like New Zealand woman, you cannot sleep on the ground."

The Rev. Mr. Butler, in March, 1821, found two convicts who had escaped from a whaler, in the hands of one of the chiefs, who was just preparing to put them to death. On Butler interfering and begging that their lives might be spared, the New Zealanders replied: "They are nothing but slaves and thieves; they look like bad men, and are very ragged; they do not belong to you, and we think they are some of King George's bad cookees." After a great deal of discussion, however, they yielded so far to Butler's entreaties and arguments as to agree not to kill the two men; but the chief insisted that they should go home with him and work for him four months, after which he said that he would give them up to any ship that would take them to "King George's farm at Port Jackson."

When Nicholas was in New Zealand in 1815, he met with a Hindoo, who had made his escape from Captain Patterson's ship, the "City of Edinburgh," about five years before, and had been living among the natives ever since. Compared with the New Zealanders, he looked, Nicholas says, like a pigmy among giants. However, he had got so much attached to the manners of his new associates that he declared he would much rather remain where he was than return to his own country. He had married a native woman, and was treated, he said, in the kindest manner by the New Zealanders, who always supplied him with plenty of food without compelling him to do more work than he chose. Nicholas offered him some rice, but he intimated that he decidedly preferred fern-root.

The circumstances of Rutherford's capture and detention in New Zealand were but indifferently calculated to reconcile him to the new state of society in which he was there compelled to mix, notwithstanding the rank to which his superior intelligence and activity raised him.

Though a chief, he was still a prisoner; and even all the favour with which he had himself been treated could not make him forget the fate of his companions, or the warning which it afforded him to how sudden or slight an accident his own life might at any time fall a sacrifice. But it is certain that, where no such sense of constraint is felt, not only the notion, but even the reality, of savage life has a strong charm for many minds. The insecurity and privation which attend upon it are deemed but a slight counterbalance to the independence, the exemption from regular labour, and above all the variety of adventure, which it promises to ardent and reckless spirits.

Generally, however, the Europeans that have adopted the life of the savage have been men driven out from civilization, or disinclined to systematic industry. They have not chosen the imaginary freedom and security of barbarians, in contempt of the artificial restraints and legal oppressions of a refined state of society, in the way that the Greek did, whom Priscus found in the camp of Attila, declaring that he lived more happily amongst the wild Scythians than ever he did under the Roman government.