NATIVE FEUDS AT TARANAKI.

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume I, Issue 3, 18 July 1861, Page 5 (Supplement)

NATIVE FEUDS AT TARANAKI.

| While Parliament was sitting without alarm at ; Auckland, in the 'centre of the 'native population, jthe: Taranaki settlers Were petitioning the throne I for military protection. This movement sprang from a remote'cause. After Governor Fitzroy’s i supposed sbfaleinciit of the Taranaki native disputes of 1844, the fugitives from that district scattered over New Zealand knew that their hvhei'ited lands wliich had been lost by, conquest wci'e now restored, to them' by'the British Government.'' Single, families paddled in their'canoes, with children and’ pigs, from Cook’s Strait, to occupy their fatherland; ' others’ came in ships from the Chatham Islands ; and in 1848 William Xing, the Ngatiawa chief, and GOO souls,migrated from Otaki to Taranaki, and took quiet possession of their ancestral domains on the south bank of the Waitara river, ten miles from the English settlement of New Plymouth. Governor.’Grey,'foreseeing how this migration complicated the land question, urged witlxout success her Majesty’s Government to locate a.corps of pensioners in the district. These returned fugitives, soon grew, rich, from the excellence of the soil, and the ready market furnished by the settlers for their surplus produce. Thus 'William Xing’s tribe in 1854 possessed 150 horses, 300 head of cattle, 40 carts, 35 ploughs, 20 pairs of harrows, 3 win- . nowing’machines,’ and 10 wooden houses.

1 The natives placed a high value on the land from which tliis wealth had been extracted, and refused to dispose of it. In 1835 lire millions of acres were purchased from'the Ofago natives for £2,6oojtwoniillions of acres Were bought from those in the province of Wellington for £21,000, and £16,000 were spent on buying land in the Auckland province ; bill the Crown could not purchase il rood in the neighborhood of Xcw Plymouth. Hero the aboriednes said, “ The money wo receive for our land is soon'gone, but flic land remains with the Europeans for ever.” To keep this spirit- alive, an Anti-lnndselling League was formed among some of -of the TafanakiTribcs and in order to give solemnity to their proceedings, a Bible

buried in the earth, and a caim of stones raised over the spot. One tribe, not belonging to the

League, was induced by the indiscreet zeal of a Government officer to offer a quantity of hind for sale in 1854, and Eawiri Waiaua, the chief of the party, accompanied by twenty-six followers, commenced cutting the boundary line. ixatatore, one of the League, with sixty armed men, requested Eawiri to desist, because the land was not his to sell. As Eawiri refused to stop, Kutatore fired a volley at the workmen, which killed seven and wounded ten; among the former was Eawiri. This horrible massacre occurred within sound of church bells of New Plymouth, and the English and native friends of the slain called upon Government to assort the majesty of the law, and hang Katatorc, seeing unit Eawiri was an assessor and a faithful ally of Queen Victoria’s. Before the scars of the wounded had cicatrised, a conflict occured between the party of Arama Karaka, the successor of Eawiri, anil Katatore’s followers, iu which 12 men were killed and 10 wounded. Indirectly the contliet arose out of Eawiri’a murder, although its immediate cause was an act of adultery. A general dispute was now engendered, distant tribes became embroiled in it and congregated about New Plymoutli, fortifications were strengthened, natives went about armed, and intercourse was cut off by the tapu between tribes living north of the Bell block and the English settlement. New Plymouth shopkeepers complained that free trade was at an end when bargaining with armed savages ; a panic seized the settlers, and to prevent the town from sharing the fate of Kororareka, an imaginary danger, they prayed for the presence of Jhe Queen’s soldiers.— Thomson's Story of New Zealand.