Enemy at the Gates 1820, 1828

The Intertribal Musket War’s Impact on Tauranga

A Ngāpuhi musket haka or haka peruperu

During the 1820s and 1830s, the Matua-Otūmoetai foreshore boomed and echoed ominously to the roar of haka, as besieging enemy tribesmen from several iwi leapt and stamped in frustrated fury below Otūmoetai, a previously unconquerable pā tūwatawata (palisaded fortress). During the summer months of 1820, the foreshore became the scene of one of the most famous peace-making incidents of the intertribal Musket Wars.

In that year, Tauranga was invaded by a Ngāpuhi musket taua of 600-700 warriors aboard 50 waka taua.¹ The expedition was initiated by the rangatira Te Morenga, who was seeking further utu for the killing, cooking and devouring of his niece Tawaputa at Tauranga in 1806. Deploying his contingent of shock troops ahead of his force (35 toa armed with the only flintlock muskets in their possession), Te Morenga oversaw the destruction by gunfire of the Ngāi Te Rangi defenders of [Mount] Maunganui Pā, who twice charged their ranks with traditional short and long weapons of stone, bone and wood. ‘For three days the grisly aftermath of the battle [fought at Waikorire-Pilot Bay] continued as the bodies of those slain were committed to the hāngī and eaten’.²

Te Morenga and his triumphant taua next turned their attention to Otūmoetai Pā. Initially bypassing the fortress, the Ngāpuhi fleet encamped on Matakana Island for several days, before sweeping en masse one morning into the Matua inlet near the Wairoa River outlet. The toa disembarked and camped on the long-abandoned pā site of Matuaiwi, a knoll overhanging the Wairoa River, about a mile and a half from the great Otūmoetai pā. Like successive enemy taua before them, they too attempted to storm Ngāi Te Rangi’s central fortress without success.³

Te Morenga’s moko Mataora (face tattoo).
Eight years after the kidnapping of his niece and sister by convict pirates in 1806, Te Morenga sketched this image of his own moko Mataora for John Nicholas, who was friend and assistant to the leading missionary Samuel Marsden

Te Waru, Ngāi Te Rangi’s paramount chief, set out alone one day to reconnoitre the Ngāpuhi camp. Advancing carefully through the ngaio trees along the foreshore, he saw Te Morenga, who was resting in the shade, also alone and unguarded. Springing upon the Ngāpuhi, Te Waru disarmed him, bound his hands and drove his prisoner into Otūmoetai Pā. There he untied Te Morenga, restored his weapons and instructed him to treat him in the same manner. When Te Morenga drove the disarmed and bound Te Waru into the Matuaiwi encampment, he, with some difficulty, persuaded his warriors not to kill his prisoner. Invited to make peace with Ngāpuhi, an extended kōrero ensued during which Te Waru accepted the offer. Soon after, Te Morenga and Ngāpuhi fleet departed for the Bay of Islands. The peace was to last until 1831, when the tohunga Te Haramiti’s Ngāti Kuri and Ngāpuhi predatory raiders were defeated by Ngāi Te Rangi and allied iwi on Motiti Island.⁴

In 1828, Otamataha Pā on the Te Papa Peninsula was stormed in a night attack by a Ngāti Maru musket taua under the rangatira Te Rohu, during which most of the Ngāti Tapu inhabitants were slaughtered. Te Rohu’s waka fleet then crossed to the Otūmoetai foreshore and pā, where they met with counterfire from the now musket armed defenders. The besiegers withdrew when one of Te Rohu’s wives persuaded him that the utu he had attained from Ngāi Te Rangi during the storming of Otamataha Pā was sufficient.⁵

A pōwhiri or welcoming ceremony on the harbourside bench beyond the palisades of Otūmoetai Pā. The palisades proved impervious to musket and cannon fire when Tītore Tākiri of Ngāpuhi launched an amphibious artillery campaign against the Tauranga people in 1832

On 17 July 1842, Ensign Abel Best visited Otūmoetai Pa at a time when it was still subject to attacks by Te Arawa contingents from Rotorua. Impressed by its defences, he recorded:

Part of the Pa is on the sea beach and part on the top of a cliff or steep bank 40 feet high. By its position naturally strong it is rendered more secure by a strong palisade and on the land side & flanks it is further protected by a deep and wide Ditch having a Stockade on its exterior side. Moreover, the level of the exterior plain is somewhat lower than that of the Pa. Were it well defended its intricacy alone would render it formidable but at present there are not men in it to defend one fifth of its great extent. Nowhere have I seen so great a number of fine Canoes the care with which they preserve their fishing nets was also worthy of remark every net being placed on a little elevated platform and then securely thatched over.⁶

During the Musket Wars, the Ngāi Te Rangi hapu occupying the Otūmoetai Pā site were able to defend their fortress and drive off besieging Ngāpuhi, Ngāti Maru and Te Arawa  taua. The wars set in motion more than 40 heke or tribal migrations, but Ngāi Te Rangi were never driven from their lands. Otūmoetai Pā’s steep escarpments, defensive ditches and palisades were unassailable, the defenders too well led, provisioned and resolute.

Endnotes

¹ Crosby, Ron, The Musket Wars: A History of Inter-Iwi Conflict, Reed, Auckland, 1999: 71-72.

² Ibid: 72

³ Gifford, W.H. and H, Bradley Williams, A Centennial History of Tauranga, Capper Press Christchurch, 1976: 18.

⁴ Ibid: 18-19.

⁵ Wilson, J.A. The Story of Te Waharoa, Whitcombe and Tombs, Wellington, 1907: 17.

⁶ Best Able, The Journal of Ensign Best, 1837-1843, Nancy M. Taylor (ed.), R.E. Owen, Wellington, 1966: 371-372.

Illustrations

Artist unknown, ‘New Zealand war-dance’, in Grant, James, British Battles on Land and Sea, Vol. III, Casell, Petter and Gilpin, London, Paris and New York, 1880: 259.

Te Morenga, self portrait in Nicholas, John, Narrative of a Voyage to New Zealand, Performed in the Years 1814 and 1815, James Black, London, 1817: 216. Alexander Turnbull Library Ref. A-080-061

Joseph Merrett, A meeting of visitors Mounganui. Tauraga in the distance. [1843?], E-216-f-119, Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington

James Farrow and his Boat, 1829-1838

Tauranga's Early Traders, Part II

‘I came to Tauranga in 1829’, recalled James Farrow, the district’s first permanent Pakeha settler identified by name.¹ Sometimes referred to as Farrar by later missionary arrivals who did not approve of his musket trading, the former merchant seaman with an entrepreneurial flair was born in London in 1800. Farrow originally landed at the Bay of Islands in 1825, with the object of exchanging muskets and gunpowder for cargoes of dressed muka (flax or Phormium tenax) for a Sydney trading house.² As the Tauranga iwi were not yet fully armed with muskets, in January 1829, he voyaged there in own his sailing craft, which appears to have been a schooner rigged ‘boat’, with a quantity of muskets and general ‘trade’.³ On arrival he was ‘claimed’ by the Ngai Te Rangi people at Otumoetai Pa as ‘their’ Pakeha.

A semi-indigenised pre-Treaty Pakeha-Maori

In the interests of protection and profit, Tauranga’s pre-Treaty flax traders like Farrow lived among the different Ngai Te Rangi hapu around the harbour, becoming in due course a semi-indigenised Pakeha-Maori.
Artist unknown ‘A Pakeha Maori’, in Knox, Thomas W; The Boy Travellers in Australasia, Harpur and Brothers, New York, 1889: 203

Alone among Ngai Te Rangi, Farrow was, not unwillingly, assimilated by his tribe as a semi-indigenised Pakeha-Maori or ‘white man gone native’. Known as Hemi (James), he married an unidentified, high-born Ngai Te Rangi woman and became fluent in Maori but, while honouring a range of customs, retained his European dress and basic values. Farrow enhanced the power and mana of the Otumoetai people by fully arming them and, as the intertribal musket warfare swept the Bay of Plenty, ensured their survival as an entity. As with subsequent Tauranga flax trader arrivals who also became semi-indigenised Pakeha-Maori, Farrow lived in a superior house – in his case within Otumoetai Pa, built and decorated inside and out Maori-style by his whanau and hapu – accommodation befitting his value and status as a valued Pakeha rangatira or white chief and a conduit to European muskets, munitions and general trade goods.⁴ 

Arthur Thomson, a British military surgeon and historian who encountered many former trader Pakeha-Maori during his North Island travels (which included Tauranga) during the 1850s, said of first arrivals like Farrow:

[E]very inducement was held out to white men to settle in the country; houses were built for them, land was given them, they were allowed to select wives from among the daughters of the chiefs and were not required to hew wood or draw water. In return for these royal privileges Pakeha Maoris were required to barter pigs, potatoes, and flax, for guns, blankets, tobacco and other articles.⁵                                                                                         

The house of a rangatira at Otumoetai Pa

Taylor, Richard, ‘Chief’s house, Otumoetai Pa, March 1839’. Richard Taylor’s Sketchbook, Auckland War Memorial Museum, Tamaki Paenga Hira. Ref: MS-302. PD-1961-14-p167-1

In 1829 Farrow, who found the Tauranga flax trade commercially viable, was joined by his brother Daniel. Both were associated with Otumoetai Pa until the 1860s, but little is known about Daniel who, while assisting his brother, lived in his shadow. The harbour offered sheltered anchorages where vessels could be easily unloaded and loaded. Ngai Te Rangi’s leading rangatira at Otumoetai offered protection from hostile tribesmen and guaranteed regular and substantial cargoes of dressed flax. Smaller vessels arriving from the Bay of Islands were loaded directly while beached on the sands below Otumoetai Pa at low tide, where Farrow later had a jetty constructed. Any larger Australia-bound vessels anchored in the Otumoetai channel or at Waikorere (Pilot Bay), where they were loaded from waka.

James Farrow’s years in pre-Treaty Tauranga were adventurous ones. In November 1830, the former privateer and whaler Phillip Tapsell sailed for Maketu, where he established himself as flax trader for the Arawa iwi. Farrow agreed to work as Tapsell’s Tauranga flax agent, a role with many attendant risks. Soon after, when Farrow voyaged to Maketu and uploaded a fresh cargo of trade goods, he and Tapsell retired to the latter’s house for refreshments. Seeing the opportunity, the Arawa rangatira Haupapa and his warriors seized the cargo and carried it off into the bush. Tapsell at once sent for Haupapa, who entered the house with young chief named Pipi. While Farrow blocked the door with his body, Tapsell placed a loaded musket to the head of Haupapa, who, calling out, ‘gave the necessary orders, and the goods were all restored’.⁶

During the early 1830s, James Farrow, while only in his 20s, exchanged muskets, powder, lead, tomahawk heads, rum and blankets with Ngai Te Rangi for huge quantities of dressed flax, pork and potatoes, which were shipped to New South Wales on vessels contracted by Tapsell’s employer, the Sydney merchant house Jones and Walker. The Tauranga flax trade initially proved profitable for all parties. By December 1830 for instance, the British Admiralty in London was purchasing cargoes for Royal Navy lines and rigging at £43 per ton. ⁷

Farrow’s cargoes were often loaded aboard vessels beached at low tide near Otumoetai Pa.

Ilene Stichbury, Unloading on the shore, Auckland. 1920s, Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki, The Ilene and Laurence Dakin Bequest, Accession no. 1990/30/2

On another occasion, when Hakairo, another Arawa rangatira, invited Tapsell to establish a flax trade to Rotorua, he sent Farrow, his most trusted agent, with a quantity of trade goods pikaued or backpacked by a long line of Maori porters. After Farrow had purchased ‘80 or 90’ baskets of flax, he sent a message to Maketu informing Tapsell that Hakairo’s people had stopped scraping flax ‘and had begun to look upon the goods sent there as their own, which they could take when they pleased’.⁸ On Tapsell’s instructions, Farrow, his Maori wife and an American Negro assistant ‘very cleverly’ packed the remaining trade goods within the baskets of of flax they had purchased (average weight, 60 pounds apiece) which were then pikaued back to Maketu. The trio were fortunate, as Cabbage, a former Tauranga flax trader who later attempted a similar stratagem at Rotorua, was found out and killed. Hakairo vowed vengeance for the ‘theft’, but nothing came of the affair.⁹

Between 1830 and 1833, Farrow also traded with the rangatira Te Waharoa and his Ngati Haua iwi at Matamata Pa. Although the trade was intermittent, when it did occur, it involved large quantities of flax. Ships’ cargoes up to 70 tons in weight were distributed in back packs, borne by long lines of women and slaves by way of the Wairere track, over the Kaimai Range and down to Tauranga. The cargoes were shipped directly to Walker and Jones in Sydney by large vessels anchoring at the Te Puna (Wairoa) River mouth.¹⁰ Farrow recalled:

 

I had been in the habit of supplying Te Waharoa with guns and power among(?) other things… I used to go to Matamata. The N[gati] haua were supplying me with flax. They carried the flax from Matamata to Tauranga. They were cutting flax about Matamata, at Paparahi, and on the Waihou River at Waiharakeke (the main canoe landing on the Waihou River for parties of Maori visiting or attacking Matamata Pa]. Maori set great value on guns in former times. They would work day and night to get them.¹¹

Farrow’s stock in trade included cast off military flintlock “Brown Bess’ muskets

Flintlock musket, Tower Armouries, circa 1800, London, DM000109 Gift of the Wellington City Council, National Museum of New Zealand, Te Papa Tongarewa

By 1832, Farrow had been joined by several competing flax traders at Otumoetai and in 1833, Tapsell appointed the former ship’s mate Edward Clementson as his flax agent at Matatmata Pa. Thereafter, Farrow increasingly used his ‘boat’ to collect dressed flax from tribes around the Bay of Plenty.¹² In 1836 he was trading with Arawa at Maketu Pa, when it was stormed with great slaughter by Ngati Haua under Te Waharoa. Rescued by Ngai Te Rangi warriors who had joined the besiegers, Farrow emerged unscathed, but without his ‘trade’.¹³ Matamata’s Edward Clementson featured in another of Farrow’s adventures - a near drowning when his whale boat was swamped in heavy seas off Matata around 1838. Phillip Tapsell described the incident in his reminiscences.

He [Farrow], his wife and [Edward] Clementson, with a young man named Jenkins, set out in a whaleboat for Matata, with a view of meeting Mr. White there [a trader and ship builder], and when off the latter place, were overtaken in a gale of wind. It would have been easy for them to have run under the lee of Whale Island [Moutohora], where they would have had smooth water, and there to have waited till the storm subsided; but their young companion, being inexperienced and very confident, was strongly desirous that they should at once land at Matata, which he was of opinion they could easily do.

Yielding to this opinion, they pulled for the mainland, on approaching which, they found a very heavy surf breaking on the bar. Appearances were so threatening that, when near the entrance of the river, they lay on their oars to deliberate on the best course to pursue. They consulted so long that, before they were aware, the boat drifted into the breakers, and was capsized. Jenkins, not being able to swim, went down like a shot. Clementson was a good swimmer, but so encumbered with heavy boots, and buttoned up to the throat in a pea jacket, that, after a few strokes, he sank also, not to rise again. Farrow, though, also a good swimmer, would have given in from fatigue, but for his wife, who swam by his side, encouraging him continually with the assurance that the people were coming down to the beach, till he reached the shore in safety.¹⁴

A Pakeha trader bargaining with Maori for pigs and baskets of dressed flax and/or potatoes

Williams, John, Maori bargaining with a Pakeha, A-079-017 National Library of New Zealand, Wellington.

As the demand for muskets and Tauranga’s flax export trade declined, James Farrow prospered from the booming provisions trade in salted pork, potatoes, maize and wheat, which were sold directly to visiting vessels. Having acquired a degree of respectability as ‘an old hand’ or pioneer, he joined the Te Papa missionaries and fellow Tauranga traders in signing James Busby’s 1837 petition to the Colonial Office requesting protection from lawless Europeans.¹⁵

Farrow’s loyalty and service were recognised by Ngai Te Rangi on 10 January 1838. The leading rangatira Tupaea, Tangimoana and Te Omanu, permitted Farrow to purchase half an acre of land for his trading store at the western end of Otumoetai Pa, close to the foreshore. This acquisition was the earliest authenticated land purchase in the Bay of Plenty for which a Crown Grant was later issued.¹⁶ Unfortunately for posterity, no known image of James Farrow exists, but as we shall see, he also continued to play an important role in Tauranga events in the post-Treaty era.

Endnotes

¹ Matheson, A.H; ‘Otumoetai Pa and the Early Times in Tauranga’, in Journal of the Tauranga Historical Society (Inc.), Vol. 52 December 1974: OT 14.2

² James Farrow (c.1800 - 1880) - Genealogy - Genihttps://www.geni.com › people › James-Farrow. See also New Zealand, pre-1846, Person Page 567 - Early NZ History, http://www.nzearlyhistory.com › Avery, Max, Maritime Tauranga, 1826-1970, Max Colwill Avery, Tauranga, 2013: 7.

³ Daily Southern Cross, 15 September 1869: 6.

⁴ Bentley, Trevor, Pakeha-Maori: The Extraordinary Story of the Europeans Who Lived as Maori In Early New Zealand, Penguin, Auckland, 1999: 142-164.

⁵ Thomson, Arthur. The Story of New Zealand, Vol. 1, John Murray, London, 1859: 300.

⁶ Daily Southern Cross, 15 September 1869: 6.7

⁷ Cited in Wigglesworth, Roger, The New Zealand Timber and Flax Trade, 1769-1840, PhD in History, Massey University, 1981: 82.

⁸ Daily Southern Cross, 4 August 1869: 6.

⁹ Ibid. 

¹⁰ Tapsell, P. ‘Reminiscences, 1777? – 1873’, -1/2005486, Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington. Early Tauranga – Toanga Tu / Heritage Bay of Plenty, https://www.taongatauranga.net › early-tauranga

¹¹ Māori Land Court Minute Book (No. 3, p. 336, transcribed by Stephanie Smith), Cited in Debbie McCauley, Author, James Farrow (c. 1800-1880) - https://debbiemccauleyauthor.wordpress.com 

¹² Ibid.

¹³ Matheson, Vol. 52, 1974: OT 12.

¹⁴ Daily Southern Cross, 15 September 1869: 6.

¹⁵ Hinds, Samuel, The Latest Official Documents Relating to New Zealand, With Introduction and Observations, John W. Parker, London, 1838: 44.

¹⁶ Early Tauranga, https://www.taongatauranga.net › early-tauranga

The Tonanau and Te Haramiti, 1831

Early sailing vessels and visitors to Tauranga, Part XVII

In January 1831, a Maori taua utu (blood vengeance expedition) departed the Bay of Islands in a small fleet of waka. The fleet followed in the wake of Tananau (Go Slow), the great 80 foot waka taua of Te Haramiti, a noted northern tohunga. Bound for the Bay of Plenty and Tauranga, the taua hoped to boldly take the resident tribes by surprise and to avenge past losses there. Assembled at the instigation of Te Haramiti, the raiders comprised some 150 warriors, mainly Ngati Kuri from Northland’s East Coast, and Ngapuhi from the Bay itself. Alfred Brown who later became resident missionary at Tauranga, observed the fleet assembling at the Bay. He recorded that Te Haramiti’s Ngati Kuri contingent comprised ‘twenty chiefs, forty slaves, seven canoes and two cannon.’ Frederick Maning, a northern trader Pakeha-Maori described the entire expedition.

A hundred and fifty men were they – the pick and prime of their tribe. All rangatira, all warriors of name, few in numbers but, desperately resolute, they thought it little to defeat the thousand of the south, and take the women and children as prey.

A large Maori waka taua (war canoe) under sail

Though he was old and blind, Te Haramiti was an innovator. The two ship's guns that he transported to Tauranga marked a seminal event in the history of intertribal warfare - New Zealand’s first indigenous, long distance, amphibious artillery campaign. One of the Ngati Kuri purepo (great guns) was a 9-pound carronade, a mobile, medium calibre weapon eagerly sought by New Zealand’s musket chiefs at this time. The other was a great 18-pounder, almost five feet in length and weighing over 1000 pounds, or half an imperial ton. Te Haramiti believed that his great guns would break the deadlock in the intertribal balance of power, as by 1831 the Tauranga tribes, like Ngapuhi in the morth, had become fully armed with flintlock muskets.

Powered by paddles and flax sails (described by European sailors as ‘lug sails’) depending on wind and sea conditions, the pace of the little fleet was set by Te Haramiti’s great waka taua Tonanau, which carried the 18-pound carronade in the hull as ballast. The 9-pounder was carried in the waka of Tiki Whenua, a famous northern fighting man. During the voyage, ‘a huge taniwha’ (monster), possibly an elephant seal, sea lion or orca, attached itself to Tiki Whenua, which was considered a favourable omen. ‘It sported constantly among the canoes, often coming so close to the hero that he was able to pat it approvingly with his paddle, at which the creature seemed much pleased.’

During their dawn raid at the Mercury Islands, the raiders killed more than 100 Ngati Maru, before surprising, killing and enslaving many of the Ngai Te Rangi hapu on Tuhua or Mayor Island. Proceeding to Motiti Island, which had been abandoned by the inhabitants, the northerners hauled up their waka and camped for several days on Horepupo, a low, grassed plateau (long since eroded away), located half way along Motiti Spit.

Motiti Spit at low water, provides access between the main island and the old Matarehua Pa site (Taumaihi Island)

While engaged in plundering, cooking and devouring the crops and pigs of the Motiti Islanders, as well as some of their newly acquired slaves, Te Haramiti’s raiders were surprised, surrounded and attacked. Forewarned of the raider’s presence by the survivors on Tuhua, a large waka fleet transporting some 1,000 allied Bay of Plenty tribesmen, led by Hori Tupaea of Ngai Te Rangi, Te Waharoa of Ngati Haua and Titoko of Te Whakatohea, stormed ashore on Motiti Spit to obtain utu. Despite bringing their two carronades into action and courageously returning musket fire from their exposed position on the plateau, most northerners were systematically shot down, before they were scattered and slaughtered in fierce hand to hand fighting.

Kawiti’s 18-pound carronade, Ruapekapeka Pa, Kawakawa

Mounted and secured either on canoe shaped baulks of timber or on truck carriages on wooden wheels, Te Haramiti’s gunners employed their ships’ carronades as land based, artillery field pieces during the battle on Motiti Spit.

During the final melee, some Bay of Plenty warriors found Te Haramiti seated in the stern of Tonanau chanting karakia to give his warriors courage. They beat him to death with his fists, rather than shed his sacred blood. Determined not to be taken alive and enslaved and/or eaten, the heroic northern warrior Tiki Whenua, in the most spectacular battlefield suicide of the Musket Wars, placed his chest to the muzzle of the 9-pounder and ignited it with a fire stick. ‘Tiki Whenua good night!’ said one trader Pakeha-Maori who retold the story. Again, in one of great last stands of the intertribal Musket Wars, the rangatira Pako from Cape Reinga, armed only with his mere pounamu, fought on alone armed and surrounded. Despite wounds inflicted by musket balls and impeded by three spears, tipped with barbed heads, hanging from his body, Pako felled every Bay of Plenty opponent who engaged him with traditional rakau-Maori weapons of stone, bone and wood. Pako, was finally felled by a musket ball fired at close range.

Pako, the heroic rangatira from Cape Reinga

Pako, the rangatira from Cape Reinga is remembered by the descendants of both sides to this day, for his heroic last stand during the battle on Motiti Spit in 1831. During the battle, the 9-pound carronade and Tiki Whenua’s waka were claimed by warriors of Maungatapu Pa at Tauranga who were first to place their hands upon them. This artillery piece was subsequently fired on their marae to enhance the speeches of their victorious rangatira and to give the inhabitants a taste of the action. Titoko and Te Whakatohea took the 18-pounder and the waka Tonanau as battle trophies back to Opotiki. This was also tika or correct according to customary law, as they had overrun the gunners and were first to lay hands on both gun and waka.

In June 1831, the missionary leader Henry Williams watched the Ngapuhi chief Wharepoaka and 30 picked warriors from his Hikutu hapu board his sailing cutter which carried a bow mounted carronade. Their destination was Tauranga and their objective according to Williams, was ‘to endeavour to surprise some canoes off that harbour’, and avenge the defeat of Te Haramiti's expedition earlier that year. Two weeks later, Henry’s brother William, watched the return of Wharepoaka’s gunboat, noting ‘Their intention was to fight, but they were overawed by the enemy’s numbers.’

Meanwhile, at Opotiki, the 18-pound carronade was named Te Haramiti by Te Whakatohea after its original owner. This great gun continued to be fired on ceremonial occasions on their marae into the 1880s. Te Haramiti’s great waka Tonanau and Te Haramiti the carronade were seen lying alongside the Opotiki wharf in the vicinity of the yacht club building during the early 1900s, after which all recorded sightings cease.

Sources
Bentley, Trevor, Tribal Guns and Tribal Gunners: The Story of Maori Artillery in 19th Century New Zealand, Wilsonscott, Christchurch, 2013.
Grant-Taylor, Thomas L. and Foster Bernard, ‘Motiti Island’, Encyclopaedia of New Zealand –Te Ara, A. H. McLintock (ed.), 1966, https://teara.govt.nz › motiti-island
Walker, Ranganui, Opotiki-Mai-Tawhiti: Capital of Te Whakatohea, Penguin, Auckland, 2007.
Poverty Bay Herald, 27 August 1907: 4.
Maihi, Wiremu, ‘A Book Describing The Murder Of Hunga: The History of the Wars Carried Out Between the Tribes of Rotorua and Waikato, Jennifer Curnow (trans.), in Journal of the Polynesian Society, Vol. 99, 1990.
Maning, Frederick, Old New Zealand: A Tale of the Good Old Times by a Pakeha Maori, Creighton and Scales, Dunedin, 1863.
Brown, Alfred, 6 March, 1831, cited in Journal of the Polynesian Society, Vol. 13, 1904.
Williams, Henry, The Early Journals of Henry Williams, 1826-1840, L. M. Rogers (comp.), Pegasus Press, Christchurch, 1961.
Williams, W. and J; The Turanga Journals, 1840-1850, Frances Porter (ed.), Price Milburn, Wellington, 1974.

Illustrations
Sporing, Herman Diedrich, ‘New Zealand war canoe. From a Collection of Drawings made in the countries visited by Captain Cook’, Ms 23920f.48, British Museum. London, U. K. Photographic reproduction by Szilas, Canterbury Museum, Christchurch, New Zealand.
Motiti Island and Spit showing Matarehua Pa, Bay of Plenty, Image courtesy of Sunchaser Avocados, www.sunchaser.co.nz
Kawiti’s 18 pound carronade, Ruapekapeka Pa, Northland. Image courtesy of New Zealand Department of Conservation, Te Ruapekapeka, The Battle of Ruapekapeka, https://www.ruapekapeka.co.nz
Sainson, Louis, Auguste, ‘Portraits of Maori from Cape Reinga and Whangarei Districts’, 1827, C-010-025. Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington.

Arama Karaka Pi and the Taeopa

Early Sailing Vessels and Visitors to Tauranga, Part XVII

On 5th March 1832, the armed sailing cutter Taeopa, one of New Zealand’s first Maori gun boats, entered Tauranga Harbour by the Katikati entrance. Owned and skippered by the Ngapuhi chief Arama Pi, and carrying heavily armed Maori and Pakeha-Maori fighting men, it made a swift reconnaissance of the harbour before departing.

The rangatira Arama Karaka Pi also known as Pihungu, lived at Waima, Hokianga and was one of the principal leaders of the Te Mahurehure hapu. In 1831, with the assistance of Eruera Maihi Patuone, he purchased a European sailing vessel. As the intertribal Musket Wars raged, many Ngapuhi and Southern Ngai Tahu rangatira began mounting cannon or carronades in the bows of their sailing cutters and whale boats, before deploying them as gun boats against enemy tribesmen on land and sea. Pi and Patuone’s acquisition was the 18-ton cutter Emma, purchased from the notorious captain of the Elizabeth, John Stewart who had transported Te Rauparaha and his warriors on their mission of slaughter to Bank’s Peninsula in 1830. Pi renamed his new vessel Taeopa (Tae opa) ‘to prevail over and drive out’ and, with the aid of Hokianga Pakeha-Maori, had a nine pound carronade mounted in the bow.

A schooner rigged cutter, the Taeopa was armed with a bow cannon for the Tauranga campaign

In November 1832, Pi and two picked groups of Maori and Pakeha-Maori fighting men boarded the Taeopa and, after crossing the Hokianga bar, sailed north to round Cape Reinga, and south, before entering the Bay of Islands. There, they joined the fleet of 80 waka taua and Maori sailing craft and 800 warriors that assembled at Kororareka (Russell) during December 1832. At the instigation of Titore Takiri (the leading war chief at the Bay of Islands following the death of Hongi Hika), the fleet voyaged slowly southwards to attack Ngai Te Rangi at Tauranga and to avenge past defeats.

Pi and the Taeopa had become part of a remarkable and unprecedented Maori amphibious artillery expedition that transported at least ten 9-12 pound long barreled cannon and short barreled carronades. Some rangatira including Pi and Wharepoaka had these pieces mounted in the bows of their cutters, and whaleboats powered by sail. Other rangatira had their purepo (great guns) placed as ballast in the hulls of their waka taua until they reached Tauranga.

This 12 pound ships’ carronade was one of eight identical pieces recovered by northern Maori following the attack and destruction of the Boyd at Whangaroa in 1809. Four Boyd carronades were later employed as land based artillery pieces by the Whangaroa rangatira Ururoa, during the bombardments of Otumoetai and Maungatapu Pa in 1832.

On the 3rd of March, the intertribal peacemakers Rev. Henry Williams and William Fairburn sailed the little mission schooner Karere (Messenger) into the Tairua estuary on the Coromandel Peninsula, where Titore’s invasion force was encamped. That evening, the missionaries watched the Taeopa recross the difficult river entrance after Pi had taken the vessel to Tuhua or Mayor Island that morning, in an attempt to take the Ngai Te Rangi hapu living there by surprise. Williams reported that Pi had instructed his warriors to hide below the gunwales with only his Pakeha-Maori on show. The Islanders were not taken in by the ruse and subjected the cutter to musket fire as it approached the shore. Under the direction of Pi’s Pakeha-Maori master gunner, the Taeopa returned fire from its bow gun before tacking away to rejoin the Ngapuhi expedition at Tairua.

On the morning of 7th March 1832, Taeopa and Titore’s fleet, having previously camped on Matakana Island, advanced up the harbour towards Otumoetai Pa. Henry Williams who accompanied the fleet in Karere described it as ‘a formidable body’ comprising ‘about 80 boats and canoes.’ With all craft and warriors bedecked for war, musket barrels glittering, war trumpets blaring and a multitude of battle flags flying (obtained from the shipping), for the Ngai Te Rangi defenders, Titore’s fleet must have appeared a fantastic and ominous sight.

Williams and Fairburn did not describe the Taeopa’s role in the subsequent and unsuccessful sieges of Otumoetai and Maungatapu Pa during March and April. It is likely however, that Pi’s Maori and Pakeha-Maori warriors joined Titore’s infantrymen during their repeated attacks on these fortresses. It is also likely that Pi and his unidentified Pakeha-Maori gun captain employed their carronade as a shore based weapon during the remarkable day-long Ngapuhi artillery bombardment of Otumoetai Pa (as described by Henry Williams) on 16th March 1832, when every great gun was brought to bear, without being able to create a breach in the palisades.

Arama Karaka Pi (left) bore the same name as his father, who co-owned the Taeopa with Eruera Maihi Patuone (right)

On 31st March, Henry Williams visited the Ngapuhi encampment following their later siege and bombardment of Maungatapu Pa, noting:

Many shook their heads signifying that they were tired, and others complained of want of food. Their attempts had failed They found that their opponents were not backward to meet them, and their great guns had been brought into action but of no use. They had dragged them close to the pa two days after we had sailed from the Bay and were firing nearly the whole day without any effect, but had sustained some loss themselves and the two guns belonging to Moka [the Boyd’s two 12 pound cannon], had nearly fallen into the enemy’s hands.

The combination of war weariness, food shortages, fierce enemy opposition, casualties and an ineffective artillery arm saw Ngapuhi raise the siege at Maungatapu and exit Tauranga Harbour in several smaller fleets. Taeopa avoided the fate of some waka taua that were lost in heavy seas during the return voyage to the Bay of Islands, along with their crews and great guns.

On his return to Hokianga Pi, who had agreed to pay for the Taeopa by supplying John Stewart with a cargo of flax and timber, ended up forfeiting two blocks of land as the cargo was not completed in time. Additionally, though Pi and Patuone believed they were now full owners of the cutter, Stewart retained its registry papers and was able to repossess and on-sell the Taeopa to a Mr. Poyner. Titore in turn seized the cutter when Poyner arrived at the Bay of Islands and returned it to Pi before they both embarked on another unsuccessful seaborne campaign to Tauranga in 1833. Arama Karaka Pi and Titore Takiri were subsequently killed during interfactional fighting at the Bay of Islands in June 1837.

References

Bentley, Trevor, Tribal Guns and Tribal Gunners: The Story of Maori Artillery in 19th Century New Zealand, Wilsonscott, Christchurch, 2013.

Carleton, Hugh. The Life of Henry Williams, Archdeacon of Waimate, Vol.1, Upton, Auckland, 1874.

Colenso, William, Fifty Years Ago in New Zealand, Harding, Napier, 1888.

Markham, Edward, New Zealand or Recollections of It, E. H. McCormick (ed.),  Government Printer, Wellington, 1963.

Pi  / NZ History, New Zealand history online https://nzhistory.govt.nz › declaration › signatory

Williams, Henry, The Early Journals of Henry Williams, 1826-1840, L. M. Rogers (comp.), Pegasus Press, Christchurch, 1961.

Illustrations

Prichett,  R. T; ‘The swoop of the gannet’, in Sullivan, Edward, The Project Gutenberg Book of Yachting, Vol. 1, Lord Brasset (ed.), London, Longman, Green, 1894: 192.

Carronade, from the ship "Boyd", burnt at Whangaroa Harbour, 1809. Carron Company; artillery maker(s); circa 1780; Scotland, cast iron. Dimensions: Overall: 500mm (width), 350mm (height), 1220mm (length), 460kg (weight), Purchased 1933. DM000143, Museum of New Zealand, Te Papa Tonga Rewa, Wellington.

Arama Karaka Pi, 1808-1867, in "Through Changing Scenes" by K. Abercrombie, Wesley Historical Society (NZ) Publication #15 (1), 1956, www.methodist.org.nz/files/docs/wesley%20historical/15(1)-%20through%20changing%20times%20.pdf

Crombie, John, (attributed), ‘Patuone. Brother of the loyal and faithful chief Tamati Waka.’ 1855, E-452-f-003-2. National Library of New Zealand, Wellington.