Historical Taranaki

Progress, Volume VIII, Issue 6, 1 February 1913, Page 300

Historical Taranaki

The history began with the arrival of the Maori navigator Kupe in the canoe “Aotea.” He stayed awhile in the district, began to harry the inhabitants, whose origin is mysterious, and whose fate was sad— disappeared before the more hardy and warlike strangers. His contribution to the history of the place was his naming of the rivers, capes, headlands, bays, peaks, and plains between Wanganui and Patea. This was also the method of Cook, whose names remain, and whose surveys are as accurate to-day as if made by the most modern instruments. It is one of the wonderful things about these Maori navigators that they had the faculty of going and coming, making many voyages to and fro, between _ their starting point and the country of destination, Kupe it is certain made voyage after voyage. His figure looms large in Maori history as the chief captain of the explorers. Even now he is supposed to be resting in his canoe, surrounded by his crew, at the bottom of Lake Wai-

karemoana. To the ordinary eye it is only a big rock seen through the clear water of the lake. But the Maori imagination sees the great Kupe reposing with weapons and, comrades of many adventures waiting for the signal to call him back to the scene of his exploits. The next navigator to do geographic work was, according to Maori tradition, Manaia, who came in the canoe Tokomaru, and he surveyed and named the points between Patea and the Waitara. A rising township recalls the first of these names, while the second recalls a battle of doubtful issue between General Cameron’s forces and the enterprisingMaori. The Maoris established after this first coming six hundred years ago or so, grew and multiplied on the lands of the ancient inhabitants known to thentraditions as the “Ngatimokotorea,” whom, finding to be unwarlike, they exterminated, duly. The only sign of them given to the world was seen by Cook on that voyage which took him within sight of

Mount Egmont. During the night he records that he saw “several fires” on the sides of the mountain and in the country below. A country illuminated, but mysterious three-quarters of a century before the “first ship.” Look at it now! The first authentic account of the race established in the district is the account of John Rutherford, the sole survivor of an American crew-ship, murdered by the Poverty Bay people before 1817. Being expert in hunting and fishing, he was admired by the Maori, and eventually made a chief, being given two wives. Very soon he was bitten with the mania for exploration, and determined to cross the island. The story of the journey is cold in his book entitled “Narrative of Ten Years’ Captivity by the Maoris.” He started with his wife Epeka and twenty women slaves, each carrying her own rations and thirty pounds of potatoes for the general use, and driving before her a “porker” (poaka), held by a string of flax. (N.B. —Compare with the picnics of to-day by motor car and train.) There was an armed party of men, of course. Travelling “sometimes by land and sometimes by water”

(an enigmatical sentence), they arrived in a month at “a place called Taranaki.” All the unprejudiced pakeha of to-day who knows the country between, its ranges and its rivers, can say is that either they made wonderful time, or that the record proves them to have lost all idea of time. The chief point of the story is that they found the people of the “place called Taranaki” very flourishing. That state of things did not continue long. The Waikatos disturbed their peace and there were great wars and much fighting. Before this the tribe of Te Rauparaha fleeing from these "Waikatos had passed through and escaped from attack by stratagem. This chief made his first appearance in this country about 1820, having determined that to withstand the powerful Waikato at Eawhia would be impossible. He established himself on the island of Eapiti, and thence arranged expeditions and alliances by which he made himself master of the whole country between Patea and Wellington, extending m due time his conquests to the northern sounds of

the South Island. Thus was prepared the country by devastation of the people and destruction of their villages and cultivations, for the coming of the Pakeha, The presiding directing genius, Te Rauparaha, was a mixture of the military genius of Napoleon and the diplomatic ability of Metternich, The Waikatos inflicted sad slaughter on the Ngatiawa tribes, who held the Taranaki country, their chief, Te Whero-whero, being particularly conspicuous in the many raids made and the battles fought. After the taking of the Pukerangiora Pa, fifty of the best blood of the prisoners were brought before him in single file, and he scattered the brains of each with a single blow of his “mere.” After that this ferocious savage looked like a Petone slaughterman after a hard day at so much per 100. When they got to Moturoanear the site of the town of New Plymouththey found a “pa” strongly fortified and garrisoned by some 350 men. Among these were half a dozen white men, old sailors under the celebrated “Dicky Barrett,” a whaler of great repute, in those far off days. Dicky, and his friends had mounted four small guns on the stockades of the pa, and had laid in a great store of rivets, old nails, gravel, and every conceivable thing that would lend itself to a whistling scatter from the cannon’s mouth. When the Waikatos, three thousand strong, attacked, they came on a very good imitation of artillery machine fire and they bolted. But they were warriors. All guns miss or are dodgable, they said. They besieged the place. For months the siege lasted with varying fortune, the white men and Dicky doing the work of watching and keeping the garrison from surrender. At last the Waikatos, driven by hunger, having eaten up everything edible in the neighbourhood, made a grand assault, and being decisively repulsed marched off to their own country— without some frightful blood orgies at the hands of the triumphant garrison, who fell on the flying columns and massacred the wounded in every direction. Barrett was so impressed with these adventures and so sure that the Waikatos would come back one day for revenge, that he migrated to Wellington— Nicholson. There he was when the Tory arrived with Colonel Wakefield, and was accepted as interpreter. He acquired the piece of land near Plimmer’s Steps about that time, and built on it a hostelry known for years as “Barrett’s Hotel.” The name is borne now by a stately building near the said steps. Such was the origin of “Barrett’s Hotel.” The fears of Dicky proved correct, for the Waikatos came back for “utu,” and between them and the raids of Te Rauparaha the ancient race was driven out what was left of itand, according to Maori usage, the land became the property of the conquerors. When the Pakeha came he bought land from the conquerors, but tne conquered returned as soon as he made it worth their while to work, and made them safe into the bargain. The conquerors objected when they heard that compensation was being given to these returned slaves. Governor Pitzroy sustained the slaves” against the Maori land laws. Hence grew the differences between the 1 races brought to war, which lasted for many years, to

the great disturbance of settlement and tile desolation of much of the land. Here lies the whole source of the disturbances. There was another cause of trouble. The New Zealand Company started to colonise before the Queen’s Government was ready to annex the islands. When the Queen’s Government did annex the islands, the two clashed much, especially in the matter of the lands bought from the natives by the New Zealand Company and sold by them to the New Plymouth Company, its offshoot. The doubtfulness of title and the inability to get land at all were the fruits of this state of things. Before the final emergence from trouble the Maoris fought, and we had ten thousand red coats in the country, four thousand of them in Taranaki. Chute made a remarkable campaign behind the big Mountain of Egmont and back to Patea by the coast, destroyingcultivations, pas, and all the Maori depended upon. After this the self-reliance period opened, and the Maori re-opened his wars, intending to drive the pakeba from the land of his fathers for ever. Tito Kowaru came to the front as Maori chief and priest of a new religion Hauhau fanaticismand Te Kooti joined him. Te Whiti appeared as a force making for peace. Self-reliance produced some good soldiers, the greatest of whom was Major Atkinson, the fighting Major, the head of the incomparable “Forest Bangers,” the inventor of the tactics now practised by mounted infantry, a chieftain fearless in fight, resourceful in ambush, untiring in enterprise, with a genius for command. No such soldier has ever come out of New Zealand as Sir Harry. No such man either, for after his war service he went into politics, and became the greatest of our Treasurers, and one of the noblest of the Prime Ministers we have ever had. Here his commanding abilities gave the country tremendous service, and his unceasing industry so sapped his strength that his labours brought him to an untimely grave. His sudden death in the precincts of the Legislative Council was a shock to the whole Dominion, and his funeral was the signal for the general recognition of this great man as the noblest, the most strenuous, the greatest citizen of his day in New Zealand. Such men are the salt of the earth, the glory of pioneers, and the foundation of states. It is because they are examples of courage, uprightness, enterprise, enlightenment, studious modesty, and unflinching adherence to principle. He indeed was the Bayard of New Zealand, the knight without fear and without reproach. When we look upon his like again we shall be the better for it. Of those earlier times when Atkinson was fighting in the field, the leading names are Bell—Francis Dillon of that nameCarrington, Bichmond, -T.C., Native Minister, and so forth ; Carlton, ripe scholar and great Parliamentarian; King, descendant of a great sailor of the Nelson day; and others too numerous to mention. These all did their part. Under their hands the Constitution came into force and grew to busy life. Tinder their hands and those of their successors the Breakwater grew out of the surf of the ocean, and the dairy factories rose out of the mullock of the plains. In connection with the latter