CHAPTER XXVI. PAKEHA NEW ZEALAND. THE NEW ZEALAND ISLANDS AND THEIR INHABITANTS -FIRST INTERCOURSE WITH ENGLISHMEN-THE MASSACRE OF THE IN 1809-THE MISTHE PAKEHA TRADERS ARTICLES OF TRADE- TRAFFIC IN HUMAN HEADS- OTHER CHARACTER OF THE MAORIS. [1809-1839.] THE THE three islands of New Ulster, New Munster, and New Leinster, which, with a number of smaller islands, make up the colony of New Zealand, have an area of 106,200 square miles, being rather less than the dimensions of Great Britain and Ireland. The middle island occupies rather more than half of the whole; the northern island is a little smaller; the southern island, much less in size, is little more than a barren rock, about half as large as Yorkshire. The group differs widely-in climate, in scenery, and in the character of its inhabitants-from Australia and Tasmania. The aborigines of all three sections of Australasia may have been of the same stock; but in New Zealand, probably in the fifteenth century, they were exterminated or absorbed by a bolder Malayan race, which crossed over in canoes from the Polynesian region, and formed the Maori nation. The adventures of Captain Cook and other early voyagers among the Maoris have already been referred to. Subsequent navigators carried on the irregular intercourse, and in some instances tolerably friendly relations were established between the natives and their visitors. Whaling and other ships from New South Wales halted frequently in the New Zealand ports; and now and then some of the natives went back in these ships to see for themselves the strange novelties of civilized life in Sydney. Among others, we are told, "a powerful chief named Tippahee, accompanied by his five sons, came to Port Jackson, and, on seeing the different arts and manufactures carried on by the settlers, was so affected by the conviction thus forced upon him of the barbarous state of ignorance in which his own country was shrouded, that he burst into tears and exclaimed, in the bitterness of his heart, New Zealand no good!'"1 When Tippahee returned to his island home, which was in the extreme north of New Ulster, in the Bay of Islands, at which the English vessels generally touched, he took with him a young Englishman named George Bruce. Bruce, the first European resident in New Zealand, married a native wife, and lived happily among her kindred for many years, doing much, it would seem, to prepare for the closer relations that were soon to spring up between the two races. These relations were from the first marked by some ugly incidents. In December 1809, a trading-ship, the Boyd, with seventy persons on board, left Sydney for England, and, as she intended to go round by New Zealand, and there call for some spars to be 1 Martin, vol. iii. p. 118. EARLY DEALINGS WITH THE MAORIS. 325 The sold at the Cape of Good Hope, the captain consented to take with him four or five natives of Wangaroa, who were anxious to return home. On the passage some extra work had to be done, and the captain ordered the New Zealanders to share it with the sailors. One of them, known as George, refused on the plea that he was ill, and that, he being a chief's son, the labour was degrading to his rank. captain," it is recorded, “treated both representations with ridicule, and had him twice tied up to the gangway and severely flogged, at the same time lessening his allowance of food. In reply to the taunting assertion that he was no chief, George merely remarked that they would find him to be such on their arrival in his country; and so well did he disguise the revengeful passions excited by the treatment he had received, as to persuade the captain to put in at Wangaroa, where his tribe resided, as the best place for procuring the spars, although it was not known that the harbour had ever before been visited by any European vessel. On arriving, the crafty savage landed alone, and, after a brief interview with some of his tribe, returned to the ship and invited the captain to come on shore and point out the trees that would best suit his purpose. Three boats were accordingly manned, and the captain landed and proceeded with his party towards a wood. They had no sooner entered it than they were attacked by the savages, and every one of them was put to instant death. George and his associates disguised themselves in the clothes of the victims— it being now dark-and went off in the boats to the Boyd. They got on board by a stratagem, and then slaughtered indiscriminately every man, woman, and child, excepting five seamen, who had escaped to the shrouds, a woman and two children, and a cabin-boy whom George preserved in gratitude for kindness he had received from him during the voyage. When morning dawned upon the ill-fated vessel, the sailors who had taken refuge in the rigging still maintained their dreary watch, until Tippahee, the chief who had visited New South Wales, came alongside in his canoe, and, informing them that he had just arrived from the Bay of Islands to trade for dried fish, offered them his protection. The men descended, entered his canoe, and were safely landed by him, although closely pursued by the Wangaroa tribe. But on shore the savages soon overtook them, and, forcibly detaining the old chief, murdered the others before his face. The ship was thoroughly ransacked, the muskets and ammunition being deemed invaluable. The father of George, eager to try a gun of which he had taken possession, burst in the head of a cask of gunpowder, filled the pan, snapped the lock over the cask, and was himself, with thirteen of his companions, blown to atoms."1 Thus a partial retribution fell upon the Wangaroa natives for their barbarous action. It must be remembered, however, that they alone were not guilty. The captain of the Boyd was as foolish, and with less excuse, in stirring up the evil passions of the New Zealanders by his treatment of the chief's son, as was the chief in setting fire to the powder cask. Englishmen, accustomed to think that all inferior races may be treated with any harshness 1 Martin, vol. iii. pp. 118, 119. CIVILIZED AND UNCIVILIZED BARBARITIES. 327 and injustice, sometimes forget that a single spark of cruelty may kindle the overpowering wrath of a whole race of savages, and then proceed to rival those savages in the ferocity of the punishment they accord to wrong-doing which they have themselves provoked. That is the painful and humiliating moral of the story of our relations with New Zealand. Many mischiefs sprang from this disaster of the Boyd. Tippahee, who had done all he could in aid. of the English, was soon afterwards attacked in his island-home by some whalers who supposed that he was the author of the massacre. Many of his subjects, of both sexes and all ages, were murdered, and their gardens were destroyed. He himself was wounded; and soon afterwards he was killed in battle with the Wangaroa people, who resented the small part he had been able to take on the side of the English. His people, formerly friends of the English, but now their enemies with good reason, next murdered some white sailors who came in their way. And so the dismal work went on. Mr In this same year, however, efforts began to be made for bringing about a better state of things. Marsden, a clergyman in New South Wales, induced the Church Missionary Society of London to organize a machinery for the conversion of the New Zealanders, urging that the missionaries sent out should be teachers of agriculture, mechanical arts, and other branches of civilization, as well as of Christianity. The suggestion was adopted, and in 1814 the first missionaries arrived in New Zealand, soon to be followed by others, and they were able to send home flattering reports of the success of their work. They |