The History of Australia and New Zealand from 1606 to 1890

by Alexander Sutherland

  NEW ZEALAND, 1843-1890.

  1. Otago.—Meantime the New Zealand Company had not been idle, and E. G. Wakefield’s busy brain was filled with fresh schemes. In 1849 an association had been formed at Glasgow in connection with the Free Church of Scotland, to send Scottish families out to New Zealand. Not knowing anything of the country, the new association asked the help of the New Zealand Company, which was readily given, as the new settlers proposed to buy land from the company. In 1844 an exploring party was sent out, and, after some inquiry, chose a place on the east coast of the South Island, called Otago. With the consent of the Governor 400,000 acres were there bought from the natives, and it seemed as if a new colony would soon be formed. But the news of the Wairau massacre and the unsettled state of the natives frightened intending settlers for a time. It was not till November, 1847, that the John Wycliff and the Philip Lang sailed from Greenock with the first company of settlers. They reached their new home in March, 1848, under the guidance of Captain Cargill, an old soldier, who had been chosen as leader of the new settlement. At the head of a fine harbour, which they called Port Chalmers, they laid the foundations of a town, to which they gave the patriotic name of Dunedin, Gaelic for Edinburgh. It was in a fine district, troubled by few natives, and it steadily grew. Less than a year later, it had 745 inhabitants, who could boast of a good jetty, and a newspaper. The life of pioneers cannot be very easy, but these were of the right sort and prospered, and more would have joined them but for two circumstances. First came the news of the rich gold discoveries in California; and the most adventurous spirits hurried thither. Not only did this keep settlers from coming to New Zealand, but indeed a thousand of those she possessed left her shores for the goldfields. Then in this same year, 1848, a violent earthquake took place, which knocked down £15,000 worth of buildings in Wellington, and killed a man with his two children.

  Knox Church, Dunedin.

  2. Canterbury.—Yet these unlucky accidents only delayed the progress of the colony by a year or two, and in the year 1850 a new settlement was formed. Seven years before this, Wakefield had conceived the idea of a settlement in connection with the Church of England. A number of leading men took up the notion, and among them was the famous Archbishop Whately. An association was formed which bought 20,000 acres of the New Zealand Company’s land, to be selected later on. The settlers paid a high price for this land, but the greater part of the money so received was to be used for their own benefit, either in bringing out fresh settlers or in building churches and schools. A bishop and schoolmasters were to go out; a nobleman and other men of wealth bought land and prepared to take stock and servants out to the fine free lands of the south. Wakefield had enlisted in the new scheme a gentleman named John Robert Godley, who became very ardent, and under his direction three ships were filled with 600 settlers and their property, and left England on their long voyage to the Antipodes. They reached their destination, the east coast of the South Island, on 16th December, 1850, and gladly felt the soil of a lovely land under their feet. In their enthusiasm they sang the National Anthem, and scattered out to view their new homes. A high and rugged hill prevented their seeing inland till they climbed to its brow, and then they perceived long plains of fertile soil, watered by numerous streams of bright and rapid water. They resolved to found their city on the plains, making only a port upon the sea-shore. Governor Grey and his wife came over from Wellington to welcome them, and they found that much had been done to make them comfortable. Large sheds had been put up in which they could find shelter till they should build their own homes. A pretty spot by a river named the Avon was chosen for the town, which was laid out in a square; and a church and schoolroom were built among the first erections. In keeping with the religious fervour that lay at the basis of the whole undertaking, the town was called Christchurch; while the name of Lyttelton was given to the seaport, a road being made between the two and over the hill.

  Christchurch Cathedral.

  During the next year 2,600 settlers arrived. Some of these were young men of birth and fortune, who brought with them everything needed to transplant to New Zealand the luxuries of England. A large proportion of the settlers were labouring men of a superior class, who were brought out as servants at the expense of the wealthy settlers. There was a good deal of disappointment. Many of the labourers crossed over to Australia, where the gold discoveries offered every man a chance of fortune, and where wages were very high. The wealthiest people therefore had to do their own work, and few of them liked it. The result was that many left the settlement and never came back to it. But from Australia came relief. For some of the squatters who had been dislodged by the inroad of diggers to Victoria, hearing of the great grassy plains of Canterbury, with never a tree to be cleared from the natural pasturage, crossed with flocks of sheep, and bought land in the new settlement. In 1853 Canterbury had 5,000 people; it produced £40,000 worth of wool a year, and seventy vessels reached its seaport. For a place in its third year such progress was wonderful.

  3. New Zealand Prosperous.—The natives being at peace, and the price of land being reduced, settlers streamed steadily into New Zealand. In 1853 there were 31,000 white people in the colony, and they had bought from the natives 24,000,000 acres of land. They had a million of sheep, and their exports were over £300,000 in value. The Government was quite solvent again, having a revenue of £140,000 a year. A very large number of farms were by this time in full work, those in the North Island being chiefly used for crops, those in the South Island chiefly for sheep. But the New Zealand Company had disappeared. In 1850 it was a quarter of a million pounds in debt, and it was wound up, leaving its shareholders with heavy losses.

  An important event in the history of New Zealand occurred on 30th June, 1852, when the English Parliament gave the colony power to make its own laws and manage its own affairs, practically without interference from London. A bill was passed providing that there should be six provinces, each with its own provincial council, consisting of not less than nine persons to be chosen to manage local affairs. There was also to be the General Assembly, consisting of a legislative council, appointed by the Governor, and a House of Representatives consisting of forty members to be chosen by the colonists. The Governor, who was now Sir George Grey, did much to bring these new arrangements into force and to adapt them to the needs of the settlers. Having ruled well for eight years and brought the colony into a prosperous condition, and being required to set in order the affairs of Cape Colony, he left New Zealand on the last day of 1853, much regretted by the Maoris and also by the majority of the colonists.

  The Maori King.

  Colonel Wynyard acted as Governor for the time being, and summoned the first Parliament of New Zealand to meet in May, 1854. He had much difficulty in getting the system of Cabinets of responsible Ministers to work smoothly. The colonists from different provinces had interests which lay in opposite directions, and political matters did not move easily. He was glad when the new Governor, Colonel Gore Browne, arrived in September, 1855. At that time New Zealand had 45,000 white settlers in it, and the discovery next year of rich goldfields in Otago attracted many more, and gave a great impetus to Dunedin. Everything promised a splendid future, when again the Maoris became troublesome.

  4. The King Movement.—The Waikato tribe had always been averse to the selling of their land. They said truly enough that the money the white men gave for it was soon spent, but the land was gone for ever, and the settlers were fencing in 40,000 additional acres every year. They called a meeting on the banks of Lake Taupo to discuss the question. A large number of chiefs were present, and they agreed to form a Land League, all members of which undertook to sell no more land to white men. At this time also a new project was formed. The Maoris felt their weakness whilst divided up into so many tribes. Union would make them strong. They resolved to select one chief to be king of all the Maoris, and for that purpose they chose the redoubted Te Whero Whero, who hoisted the Maori flag. But he was old and i
nclined to die in peace, and, dying soon afterwards, was succeeded by his son, a young man of no ability. Many of the Maoris held aloof from these leagues; they were of tribes hostile to the Waikatos, or else they were glad to get the white man’s money, and felt that they had still plenty of land for their own use. But in the heart of the North Island, some 4,000 or 5,000 Maori warriors nursed a wild project of driving the English out of the country. They gathered muskets and powder; they strengthened their pahs and filled them with potatoes and yams. Governor Browne took no steps to check them, and suffered several thousand muskets to be bought from English ships along the coasts.

  5. Taranaki War.—Meantime a quarrel had been going forward which gave the Maoris a pretext for fighting. In 1859 Governor Browne had visited Taranaki, and announced that if any of the natives had land to sell he was ready to buy it. A Maori offered him 600 acres, proving that he was the owner of the land. The Governor gave him £200 for it; but the chief of the tribe to which this Maori belonged was one of the Land League, and refused to let the land be sold. The Governor after inquiry came to the conclusion that as the rightful owner of the land was willing to sell it, no one else had a claim to interfere. He sent surveyors up to measure the land. They were stopped by the chief. The Governor sent some soldiers to protect the surveyors. The whole of the Taranaki Maoris rose in arms, and swept the few soldiers down to the coast. They then ravaged the whole district, burning houses, crops, and fences; and all the settlers of Taranaki crowded for defence into the town of New Plymouth. Most of them were ruined, and many of them left for other colonies. Governor Browne now sent round from Auckland all the soldiers he had; but, in accordance with their agreement, the Waikato tribes sent warriors to assist the Taranaki tribe. Their Maori king having no great influence, these were placed under the command of Te Waharoa, a Maori chief of much skill and popularity. Many skirmishes took place, in which the natives, through their quickness and subtle plans, inflicted more injury than they received. But General Pratt having arrived from Sydney with fresh soldiers, and prepared to sap the pahs and blow them up, the Maoris became afraid, and Te Waharoa proposed that peace should be made, which was done in May, 1861.

  6. Second Maori War.—Governor Browne then called upon the Waikato tribes, who were then in arms, to make submission and take the oath of obedience to the Queen’s laws. Very few did so; and when Sir Duncan Cameron arrived to take the chief command with more troops and big guns, he stated that he would invade the Waikato territory and punish those tribes for their disobedience.

  But then came news that the English Government, being dissatisfied with the way in which matters were drifting into war, was going to send back Sir George Grey. He arrived in September, 1861, to take the place of Colonel Browne, and after a month or two summoned a great meeting of the Waikatos to hear him speak. They gathered and discussed the land question. Grey said that those who did not wish to sell their land could keep it by the treaty of Waitangi; but that no one must hinder another man from selling what was his own. The land for which Governor Browne had given £200 at Taranaki was still in the occupation of armed Maoris, and it must be given up. Grey reasoned with them, but they were obstinate. Bishop Selwyn went among them and exhorted them to peace, but made no impression.

  Meanwhile General Cameron set his men at work to make roads, and during the year and a half while the Governor was trying to bring the Maoris to reason, he was making good military highways throughout the North Island.

  In October, 1862, the Maoris held another great meeting among themselves to discuss their position. They had grown confident, and thought that the Governor’s mildness arose from weakness. They resolved to fight. The Governor sent soldiers to take possession of the land at Taranaki. Te Waharoa sent word to the Taranaki Maoris to begin shooting, and he would soon be with them. He was as good as his word, and laid a trap for a body of English soldiers and killed ten of them.

  The Waikatos sent an embassy to all the other tribes, urging them to join and drive the white men out of the country. Te Waharoa was chosen to command in a grand attack at Auckland, and for that purpose the Maoris in two columns moved stealthily through the forest down the Waikato valley towards the town, threatening to massacre every white man in it. But General Cameron was there in time to meet them. They fell back to a line of rifle pits they had formed, and from that shelter did much damage to the British troops. But at last the Maoris were dislodged and chased with bayonets up the Waikato, losing fifty of their men. They had stronger entrenchments farther up, where a thousand men were encamped with women to cook for them and to make cartridges. So strongly were they posted that Cameron waited for four months whilst guns and supplies were being brought up along the roads, which were now good and well made. By getting round to the side of their camp, and behind it, he made it necessary for them to fall back again, which they did.

  7. Rangiriri.—They now made themselves very secure at a place called Rangiriri, where a narrow road was left between the Waikato River and a boggy lake. This space they had blocked with a fence of thick trees twenty feet high, and with two ditches running across the whole length. In the midst of this strong line they had set up a redoubt, a sort of square fortress, from the walls of which they could fire down upon the attackers in any direction. About 500 Maoris well armed took up their position in this stronghold. Cameron advanced against them with 770 men and two guns, each throwing shot of forty pounds weight. At the same time four gunboats with 500 soldiers were sent up the river to take the Maori position in flank. At half-past four on a July morning the British bugles sounded the attack, and the fight lasted until the darkness of night put an end to it. During that fierce day the British charged again and again, to be met by a murderous fire from behind the palisades and from the walls of the redoubt. Forty-one soldiers had been killed and ninety-one wounded, the line of palisades had been captured, but the Maoris had all gathered safely within the redoubt. During the night the troops were quartered all round so as to prevent them from escaping, and a trench was cut to lead to a mine under the redoubt so that it could be blown up with gunpowder in the morning. The Maoris saw this project and could not prevent it. In the early dawn, after a night spent in war dances and hideous yelling, some of them burst out by the side towards the lake, and rushed past or jumped over the soldiers who were resting there. A heavy fire, poured into them from their rear, killed a great many of them. Seeing this, a large party of the Maoris, and among them Te Waharoa and the Maori king, stayed in the redoubt. But they knew that they were trapped, and next day they surrendered, in all 183 men with a few women. Sixty or seventy of the Maoris had been killed, but several hundreds escaped.

  Rangiriri, from the Waikato.

  8. Orakau.—Meantime General Carey, who was next in command to General Cameron, had been chasing another large body of the Waikato tribe far up the river more than half way to its source in Lake Taupo. It was a wild and mountainous district, and the Maoris were sheltered at Orakau, a pah in a very strong position. Carey spent three days in running a mine under the walls, while his guns and mortars kept up a perfect storm of shot and shell. Then he offered to accept their surrender. They refused to give in. He begged them at least to let the women and children go and they would be allowed to pass out unhurt. They said that men and women would fight for ever and ever. Yet when the mines began to burst, and the guns poured in redoubled showers of death, they found they could hold the place no longer. They formed a column, and made a sudden rush to escape. So quick were they and so favourable the ground, that they would have escaped if the British had not had a body of 300 or 400 cavalry, who rode after them and sabred all who would not surrender. About 200 were killed, and although several hundreds escaped yet they were so dispersed that they made no further stand. They left their pahs, and though a series of skirmishes took place, yet the Waikato rebellion was ended, and Cameron had only to leave a sufficient number of military settlers along the Waikato Valley to make certain that peace and order would be maintained.<
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  9. The Gate Pah.—There was a tribe at Tauranga, on the Bay of Plenty, with whom Governor Grey was displeased, for they had sent men, guns and food to help the Waikatos, and they showed a warlike disposition. He demanded their submission, and they refused it. He then sent General Cameron with 1,500 soldiers to deal with them. This force found the Tauranga tribe prepared to fight in a strong place called the Gate Pah, built on a ridge with a swamp at each side. They had 500 men in it, all well armed. Cameron had three heavy guns placed in position, and during the night 700 soldiers passed round one of the swamps to get at the rear of the Maoris. In the morning a terrific fire was opened, and for two hours the place was swept by shot and shell, but the Maoris had dug underground shelters for themselves, and were little injured. After that the guns were used to break a hole in the palisades, and at four o’clock there was a sufficient breach to admit an attacking party. Three hundred men were chosen, and put in front of the place. A rocket was sent up as a signal, and the attacking party dashed at the breach. As they entered it, not a Maori could be seen, but puffs of smoke all along the earthen bank showed where they were concealed. The assailants were a dense crowd, on whom every shot told. All the officers were killed. More men kept crowding in, only to drop before the murderous fire. Suddenly a panic seized the men. A rush was made to get out of the breach again, and while the soldiers were running away volley after volley was fired into the crowd. General Cameron did not renew the attack, for evening was falling. There came on a dark wet night; and although surrounded on all hands, the Maoris contrived to slip gently past the sentries, leaving some wounded men behind them.

  10. Te Ranga.—The Maoris fell back a few miles and chose a strong position at Te Ranga for a new pah. They had only dug the ditches and made some rifle pits when the British were upon them. The troops carried the position with a rush, the Maoris standing up against the bayonets with the coolest courage. A hand-to-hand fight forced the natives out of the ditches, and then they turned and fled. The horse soldiers pursued and killed many. Altogether 123 of the Maoris were killed and a large number captured, while the English lost ten men killed.