Brighter Britain! (Volume 2 of 2) / or Settler and Maori in Northern New Zealand

by W. Delisle Hay

There is no mission at Te Puna now, and only the two households for population, but the original mission continued there a good many years. Soon after its origination, another station was opened on the Keri-keri river, about twenty miles from Te Puna. Here there is a stone block-house, which was erected for defence, if necessary. It is now used as a store. There is besides a most comfortable homestead, the residence of a family descended from one of the early missionaries. It is a very pleasant spot, with all the air of an English country grange, save and except that block-house, and other mementoes of the past that our hospitable hosts have been pleased to show us.

Some miles along the shore of the bay, from the point where the Keri-keri estuary opens from it, we come to Paihia, at the mouth of the Waitangi. This is directly opposite to Kororareka, from which it is five or six miles distant. Just down the shore is a villa residence, and one or two other houses, indicating the farm of a wealthy settler. A splendidly situated home that, with its glorious view over the picturesque bay, its surrounding gardens and orchards, and its background of woods and mountains. Here was where the first printing-press in New Zealand was set up.

Near by, but opening upon the Waitangi rather than on the bay, is a deep, dark glen. At the bottom of it, and filling the lower ground, are the wharès and cultivations of a good-sized Maori kainga. There are some frame-houses, too, which show how civilized our brown fellow-subjects are becoming. And from here we can row up the winding Waitangi river to another point of interest.

Some miles above, the influx of the tides is stopped by high falls, just as it also is in the Keri-keri river, close to the old station. Waitangi Falls is the port for all the inland country on this side. There is a young settlement here, and the place is remarkable for being the spot where the famous treaty was signed. Moreover, the falls are well worth looking at.

One of the most interesting stories relating to the Bay of Islands is that of the first Maori war, which was waged around it from 1845 to 1847. It has been related often enough, and I can only find room for some very brief details. Such as they are, they are mostly gathered from the oral narrations of eye-witnesses, both English and Maori, whose testimony I feel more inclined to believe than that of some printed accounts I have seen.

Hone Heke was the leader of one of the sections into which the great Ngapuhi tribe had split after the death of the celebrated Hongi Hika, who expired March 5, 1828. Captain Hobson's friend, Tamati Waka, was chief of another section; while Kawiti, another chief, headed a third. These persons were then paramount over pretty nearly the whole region lying between Mongonui and the Kaipara. They had been among the confederate chiefs whom the British Government recognized as independent in 1835; and their signatures were, subsequently to that, attached to the Treaty of Waitangi.

Shortly after the proclamation of New Zealand as a British possession, Governor Hobson, seeing that Kororareka was unsuited for a metropolis, removed the seat of government to the Waitemata, and there commenced a settlement which is now the city of Auckland. Order had been restored in the former place, but its importance and its trade now fell away.

The Ngapuhi had some grievances to put up with. The trade of the Bay was much lessened; import duties raised the price of commodities; while the growing importance of Auckland gave advantages to the neighbouring tribes, the Ngatitai, Ngapaoa, Waikato, and Ngaterangi, which the Ngapuhi of the Bay of Islands had formerly monopolized. It needed but little to foment the discontent of a somewhat turbulent ruler such as Hone Heke.

In the year 1844 this chief, visiting Kororareka, and probably venting his dissatisfaction at the new regime pretty loudly, was incited by certain of the bad characters, who had previously had it all their own way in the place. They taunted him with having become the slave of a woman, showing him the flag, and explaining that it meant his slavery to Queen Victoria, together with all Maoris. In such a way they proceeded to work up his feelings, probably without other intention than to take a rise out of the Maori's misconception of the matter.

Hone Heke took the thing seriously. He said that he did not consider himself subject to any one. He was an independent chief, merely in alliance with the British, and had signed the Treaty of Waitangi in expectation of receiving certain rewards thereby, which it appeared had been changed into penalties. As for the flag, if that was an emblem of slavery, a Pakeha fetish, or an insult to Maoridom, it was clear that it ought to be removed, and he was the man to do it.