Confrontation
In January 1843 Nohorua, the older brother of Te Rauparaha, led a delegation of chiefs to Nelson to protest about British activity in the Wairau Plains. Two months later Te Rauparaha and Rangihaeata arrived in Nelson, urging that the issue of the land ownership be left to Land Commissioner William Spain, who had begun investigating all the claimed purchases of the New Zealand Company. Spain later wrote that during that visit Arthur Wakefield "wished to make them a payment for the Wairau, but they positively refused to sell it, and told him they would never consent to part from it."
Wakefield rejected the request to wait for Spain's enquiry, informing Te Rauparaha that if local Māori interfered with company surveyors on the land, he would lead 300 constables to arrest him. Wakefield duly despatched three parties of surveyors to the land. They were promptly warned off by local Māori, who damaged the surveyors' tools but left the men unharmed.
Te Rauparaha and Nohorua wrote to Spain on 12 May, urgently requesting him to travel to the South Island to settle the company's claim to Wairau. Spain replied that he would do so when his business in Wellington was complete. A month later, with still no sign of Spain, a party led by Te Rauparaha travelled to Wairau and destroyed all the surveyors' equipment and shelters that had been made with products of the land, including wooden pegs, and burned down roughly-built thatched huts that contained surveying equipment. The surveyors were rounded up and sent back to Nelson, again unharmed.
Bolstered by a report in the Nelson Examiner newspaper of "Outrages by the Maori at Wairoo", Wakefield assembled a party of men, including newspaper editor G. R. Richardson and about 24 labourers press-ganged into service, and swore them in as special constables. Police Magistrate Augustus Thompson issued a warrant for the arrest of Te Rauparaha and Te Rangihaeata, whom Wakefield referred to in a letter as a pair of "travelling bullies", for arson and commandeered the government brig, which was in Nelson at the time.
On the morning of 17 June the party, its size swelled to 49 or about 60 including chief surveyor Frederick Tuckett and others who had joined the party after landing, approached the Māori camp. The men were issued with cutlasses, bayonets, pistols and muskets. At the path on the other side of a stream, Te Rauparaha was surrounded by about 90 warriors as well as women and children. He allowed Thompson and five other men to approach him, but requested the rest of the British party to remain on their side of the stream.
Thompson refused to shake hands with the Te Rauparaha and said that he had come to arrest him, not over the land issue but for burning the huts. Te Rauparaha replied that the huts had been made from rushes grown on his own land and thus he had burnt his own property.
Thompson insisted on arresting Te Rauparaha, produced a pair of handcuffs, and called out to the men on the far side of the stream, ordering them to fix bayonets and advance. As they began to cross, a shot was fired by one of the British (apparently by accident). Te Rangihaeata's wife Rongo was killed from one of the first volleys, sparking gunfire from both sides. The British retreated across the stream, scrambling up the hill under fire from the Ngāti Toa. Eleven settlers and two Maori were killed.
Te Rauparaha ordered the Ngāti Toa warriors to cross the stream in pursuit. Those British who had not escaped were quickly overtaken. Wakefield called for a ceasefire and surrendered along with Thompson, Richardson and ten others. Two of the British were killed immediately.
Te Rangihaeata then demanded utu (revenge) for the death of his wife Rongo, who was also Te Rauparaha's daughter. All the remaining captives were then killed, including Thompson, Samuel Cottrell, a member of the original survey team, interpreter John Brooks and Captain Wakefield - younger brother of Edward Gibbon Wakefield and William Wakefield.
Four Māori died and three were wounded in the incident, while among the British the toll was 22 dead and five wounded.
Read more about this topic: Wairau Affray