EXTRACTS FROM DR. THUMPSON'S "STORY OF NEW ZEALAND."

Otago Witness, Issue 468, 17 November 1860, Page 3

EXTRACTS FROM DR. THUMPSON'S "STORY OF NEW ZEALAND."

| After Gdverriot 1 Fitzroy's supposed settle- , ment of the Taranaki native disputes of 1344, [ the fugitives from that district scattered over New Zealand knew that their inherited lands which had been lost by conquest were now restored td flit'iil by the British Government . Single families paddled io. their canoes, with - children and pigs, from Cook's Straits to occupy their fatherland ; others came in the j ships from Chatham Islands, and in 1848 Wm. , King, the Ngatiawa chief and 600 souls mip grated 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 Plynouth. • Governor Grey, foreseeing how this migration ■ complicated the land question, urged without success her Majesty's Government to locate a ; corps of pensioners in the district, i These returned fugitives soon grew rich r from tne excellence of the soil, and the ready > market furnished by the settlers fdr their I surplus produce. Thus W. King's tribe in 1854 possessed 150 horses, 300 head of cattle, 40 carts, 35 ploughs, 20 pairs of harrows, 3 winnowing machines, and 10 wooden houses. The natives placed a high value on the land I from which this wealth had been extracted, , and refused to dispose of it. In 1 853, 5,000,000 ! of acres were purchased from the Otago natives for £2600, 2,000,000 acre? were bought from those in the province at Wellington for £24,000, and £16,000 were spent on buying . land in the Auckland province ; but the crown could not purchase a rood in the neighbourhood of New Plymouth. Here the Natives said " The money we receive for our land is soon gone, but the land remains with the Europeans for ever.' To keep this spirit [ alive, an anti-land-selling league was formed I among some of the Taranaki tribes ; and in order to give solemnity to their proceedings, a . Bible was buried in the earth, and a cairn of stones raised over the spot. One tribe not ; belonging to this league, was induced by the indiscreet zeal of a Government officer to offer a quantity of land for sale in 1854, and Rawiri Waiaua, the chief of this party, accompanied by twenty-six followers, commenced cutting the boundary line. Katatore, one of the most active chiefs of the league, with sixty armed men, requested Rawiri to desist, as the land was not his to sell. As Rawiri refused to [ stop, Katatore fired a volley at the workmen, 3 which killed seven and wounded ten ; among ' the former was Rawiri. This horrible massaJ ere occurred within sound of the church bell . of New Plymouth, and the English, and ; native friends of the slain called upon Government to assert the majesty of the law, and hang Katatore, seeing that Rawiri was an . assessor, and a faithfully of Queen Victoria's. Before the scars of the wounded had cicatrised, a conflict occurred between the party . of Arama Karaka, the successor of Rawiri, . and Katatore's followers, in which twelve were slain and sixteen wounded. In lirectly, the conflict arose out of Rawiri's murder, although its immediate cause was an act of adultery. A general dispute was now engendered, • distant tribes became embroiled in it, and cone gregated about New Plymouth, fortifications were strengthened, natives went about armed, and intercourse was cut off by the tapu between tribes living north of Bell Block and the- English settlement. New Plymouth shop- - keepers 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 the Queen's soldiers. At this juncture both the contending parties proclaimed their anxiety not to embroil the settlers; both dreaded the English power, both felt they could preserve their lives against trained soldiers, but both saw the impossibility of preserving their horses,_ herds, and agricultural implements: The troops were landed, followed by the J acting Governor, Walker Nene, Te Whcro T Whero, and Te Puni. On careful inquiry, r Colonel Wynyard adopted a neutral policy, f and refused to avenge Rawiri's murder, be- . cause that chief was killed for offering to sell r land which did not belong to him. f After several conflicts between the native.i, in which sixty were slain, and one hundred I wounded, a truce was made in December, f 1856. Two hundred and fifty soldiers of the 65th Regiment were left at New Plymonth to protect the settlers, not to take part with , either of the combatants, to the great joy of J the settlers and natives, as both races were . sensibly alive to the advantages of a commis- [ sariat chest. The soldiers called the Taranaki expedition the beef and mutton campaign, the • excellence of which told on their coats, and i gave the regimental tailors constant work in • enlarging them. | It is worthy of remark, that Arama Kanaka's party were Wesleyaus, and Katatore's and W. King's were Episcopalians. The Rev. Mr. ' Turton countenanced the former, Bishop Sel- . wyn the latter ; each thought his own people right, while both exerted themselves to stop ! I strife and promote peace. • Arama Karaka, 1 worn out with anxiety, died in January, 1857. Notwithstanding this cessation of hostilities, L no land was sold to the Government, and the settlers declared that the anti-land-seiling league should be put down by physical force. Anonymous placards were stuck on the New Plymouth Bridge, urging upon the Governor this insane and unjust policy, and they accused the chief actors of high treason. Political motives and patriotism bound the league together ; for the New Zealandew consider that until they surrender their territorial rights, they only partially become British subjects, and they know that native customs are not to be followed in the Queen's land. Advancing civilization made them feel very acutely what it is to be a subject caste ; that, with a few [ exceptions, they rarely visited settlers' houses : on equal terms ; that, like oil and water, the two races did not blend — the English oil, being the richer, kept at the top ; and that, if they alienated their inherited estates, their children would degenerate into hewers of wood and drawers of water to the white men. Equality of condition between men living in houses and men living in kennels, and speaking different tongues, was impossible, but little was done on the English side to narrow the gulf. While the colonists admitted the justness of these observations, they stated that the natives held much the same relation to the settlers which the Irish did to the English colonists in Ireland, the Saxons to the Normans, and the Indians to the followers of Cortes, they were universally treated with much greater kindness and forbearance. !• Actual attachment to the soil itself also supported the league ; for the natives love even their uncultivated lands more than the settlers are aware of. Scarcely an acre is relinquished without regret, as almost every bill, mountain, valley, and bay is linked to the tribe by some ancestral tradition. No heir of entail ever sold an estate which had come into his possession through ten generations of ancestors with keener pangs of sorrow than the New Zealanders give up their lands. Trifling events daily occurred which bore evidence of the existence of this feeling. Ropoama, in April, 1857, when the last unbought section of land in the Middle Island was purchased by Government, at an assembly of t the people held near the i spot where Tasman first sighted New Zealand, i struck a green-stone adze with a powerful blow deeply into the ground at Mr. Commissioner M'Lean's feet, and cried aloud, in the ■metaphorical language used on such occasions, [ i*' Now that we have for ever launched this j. land into the sea, we hereby make over to you, as a lasting evidence of its surrender, this adze named Paiwhenna, which we hn?e always . (highly prized, from having gained it in battle, 1 after it had been used by our enemies to kill 1 two of our moat celebrated chiefe, Te Pehi and

i Pokaitara. Money vanished atld disstprJeWs^ but this greenstone Will endiire ; as durable ft witriess of oiir" act as the" land itself 1 , Which We* have now tinder" the shimrig s'lin of this day" transferred td ydu fb'r evef ."