Wairau Affray - Background

Background

The New Zealand Company had built a settlement around Nelson in the north of the South Island in 1840. It had been planned to occupy 200,000 acres (810 km2), but by the end of the year, even as allotments were being sold in England, the company's agents in New Zealand were having difficulty in identifying, let alone buying from local Māori, land available to form the settlement. The settlers began to purchase large areas of land from Māori without reference to the newly-established colonial government and often without establishing vendors' rights to sell the land. The situation led to tension and caused disputes between the two parties.

In January 1843 Captain Arthur Wakefield, who had been dispatched by the New Zealand Company to lead the first group of settlers to Nelson, wrote to his brother, Colonel Edward Gibbon Wakefield, one of the principal officers of the New Zealand Company, that he had located the required amount of land at Wairau, an average distance of 25 km from Nelson. He held a deed to the land, having bought it from the widow of a whaling Captain John Blenkinsopp, who in turn had bought it from Te Rauparaha of the Ngāti Toa iwi at Tuamarina, and acknowledged in a letter to the company in March 1843: "I rather anticipate some difficulty with the natives.". Blenkinsopp had drowned on the Murray River. Blenkinsopp's second Ngāti Toa wife claimed that the Sydney lawyer who held all the legal papers had sold the deed without paying her, but it is uncertain if she was ever legally married.Blenkinsop had initially married Te Rongo, Te Rauparaha's daughter, at the Cloudy Bay whaling station.

John (Jacky) Guard, a whaler, bought a cannon in 1833 in Sydney, which he gave to Nohorua (a relative of Te Rauparaha) in exchange for the right to occupy Kakapo Bay. The cannon was allegedly stolen by Blenkinsopp, who in turn gave it to Te Rauparaha in exchange for land. Blenkinsopp had not taken up the use of the land but had used it as a trading post.Some historians have questioned the story of the stolen cannon as this is contrary to the character of Blenkinsopp, who was very highly regarded as an honest trader. As in many land purchases at that time it is possible that the parties were talking at cross purposes; Blenkinsopp thinking he had purchased outright freehold, and the Tāngata whenua believing they had received koha (a gift) from him to have use of the land, i.e. similar to rental or lease in the modern sense. However it is more likely that Te Rauparaha, having recently conquered the tangata whenua of the land, wanted some capital for his efforts. This action is more in keeping with this highly intelligent but devious warrior chief.

A story is that Capt Blenkinsopp got a signed bill of sale through fraud. In this version, Blenkinsopp visited Wairau in 1839, in a whaling ship named the Caroline, and taken on board water and wood. He then sailed to Kapiti Island on the pretext of seeking the chief, Te Rauparaha, in order to pay for the wood. He got Te Rauparaha to sign a receipt for the sale and then left, hurriedly. When Te Rauparaha showed the receipt to another trader, he discovered that he had been defrauded: the receipt was in fact a bill of sale for the whole of the Wairau Plain. At the time this was a fairly pointless crime because Chief Te Rauparaha was the Maori law in the area. The signing of the Treaty of Waitangi a year later, between Britain Crown and 240 Māori chiefs, changed this situation as land could only be sold to the government and in theory the laws of Britain applied to New Zealand. However, Blenklinsopp was drowned in the Murray River,Australia, while exploring and his widow sold the Bill of Sale to Edward Gibbon Wakefield of the New Zealand Company, who used it to claim that the New Zealand Company owned most of the bottom of the North Island and the top of the South Island.

The source of the likely difficulty was simple: chiefs Te Rauparaha and Te Rangihaeata, along with their kinsmen of Ngāti Toa, owned the land and had not been paid for it. But similar disputes had been previously settled through negotiation and Te Rauparaha was willing to negotiate on the Wairau land.