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Wairau Affray

The Nelson Settlement, planned in England, was to consist of 221,100 acres of cultivable, arable land. Despite warnings of insufficient land of suitable quality in Tasman and Golden Bays, the settlement proceeded. When the New Zealand Company realised it was 70,000 acres short, surveyors were sent to the Wairau Plains in Marlborough.  They and other senior Toa chiefs

Te Rauparaha and Te Rangihaeata, Ngati Toa chiefs, were adamant that the Wairau had not been sold. They believed that ownership of the Wairau should be decided by Land Commissioner Spain who was coming to Nelson to hear the Company's claims to land in the region. The Company was unmoved, and ordered three survey parties to the Wairau to begin work. Ngati Toa chiefs petitioned Spain, but he declined to interrupt his Wellington hearings.

Gold, C. Scene of the Wairau Massacre, 1851.Alexander Turnbull Library, B-103-030
Click on image to enlarge. 

Te Rauparaha, Te Rangihaeata and other senior Toa chiefs travelled to Nelson in early 1843 to convince the Company to withdraw from the Wairau. They escorted the survey parties from the Wairau to the Company's ship, offering no violence to the men or their equipment, although they burnt temporary shelters made from local materials, and destroyed survey pegs and ranging rods.

When the survey party returned to Nelson Magistate Thompson issued a warrant for the arrest of Te Rauparaha and Te Rangihaeata, on charges of arson. Thompson and Arthur Wakefield, the Company agent in Nelson, recruited forty-seven Special Constables (many labourers) and sailed to the Wairau to execute their warrant. Most recruits had no police or military training, and some had never handled a weapon. The weapons themselves were not in good condition.

On 17 June 1843 the Company party formed on one side of the Tuamarina Stream, with Te Rauparaha and his party, including women and children, opposite. Despite pleas for peace by the Christian chief, Rawiri Puaha, Wakefield and Thompson ordered their ragtag constabulary forward.

Gold, C. Wairau April 1851, Alexander Turnbull Library, A-329-014
Click on image to enlarge

Wairau Massacre Memorial [Erected 1869,Tuamarina Cemetery].  The Cyclopedia of New Zealand [Nelson, Marlborough & Westland Provincial Districts].  Click image to enlarge

There are differing accounts of what triggered the battle. Maori accounts say that Te Rongo, Te Rangihaeata's wife, was the first to die, perhaps from a stray shot. The ensuing skirmish saw several Special Constables killed and the remainder put to flight. Some who attempted to surrender were executed by Te Rangihaeata, as utu for the deaths of his wife and comrades, and as retribution for other perceived evils and insults including the failure to convict the whaler, Dick Cook, for the rape and murder of Te Rangihaeata's close relative, Rangiawa Kuika [sister of Rawiri Puaha, and wife of James Wynen] and her child.

Twenty-two Europeans, including both Wakefield and Thompson, and between four and nine Maori died at the Wairau. There were immediate impacts. Ngati Toa vacated Marlborough to support their chiefs in the North Island, many Te Atiawa in Queen Charlotte Sound returned to Taranaki, and Maori who stayed feared they would be attacked by Government forces. European settlers were shocked and frightened, a Public Safety Committee was formed, and Church Hill in Nelson was fortified.

Governor FitzRoy who arrived in New Zealand in December 1843 investigated the Wairau Affray and exonerated Te Rauparaha and Te Rangihaeata. When Spain sat in Nelson in 1844 he declared that the Wairau had not been sold.

2008

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