Te Kaewa-The Wanderers, a new book by Trevor Bentley

           

This book by local author Trevor Bentley recounts, in vivid style, the ‘shipping out’ of Māori adventurers across the seas and oceans of the world on Euro-American whaleships It investigates the reputation of Māori as the most courageous and dependable of all the indigenous Pacific seamen engaged in whaling - a notoriously brutal and bloody exploitative industry. It discusses their diverse work roles aboard foreign windjammers, their exploitation by avaricious shipowners and captains, and the maritime customs, lingos, diet, dress and superstitions they adopted.

Te Kaewa describes how Māori seamen coped in the face of multiple dangers, privations and separation from their whanau for months or years at a time. It details how they responded to mistreatment by ship’s officers and crewmates, their lives ashore in rollicking port towns like Sydney, and the diverse challenges overcome by those who managed to return home.

                     

Te Anaru

                                Robley, H; Moko or Maori Tattooing, Chambers and Hall, London,1896: 37.

The book also references Anaru, (likely Te Anaru -The Brave), a Tauranga adventurer, who worked aboard whaling ships and was based in Sydney. There, he met and married a European wife (unidentified by name), before they sailed for New Zealand. The couple lived with Te Anaru’s hapū at a pā in Tauranga. The British Army officer and renowned artist Horatio Robley sketched Te Anaru at Tauranga circa. 1864 but, unfortunately for local posterity, not his Pākehā wife.

Bentley, Trevor, Te Kaewa - The Wanderers: Māori Sailors on Euro-American Whalers, 1790s-1890s. Kererū Press, Tauranga, 2025.

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

Tim Walker and Robley (Te Ropere)

On 7^th April a good turnout of Society members were on hand to listen to Tim Walker talk knowledgeably and entertainingly about Robley’s relationship with Tauranga and New Zealand.

Cover of Robley – Soldier with  Pencil, by L.W. Melvin, 1957
Image courtesy of Tauranga City Libraries, Pae Korokī

Tim Walker has been researching the life and endeavours of Horatio Gordon Robley (1840-1930) since 1980. His 1985 Master Thesis Robley: Te Ropere is available online. Robley was a Lieutenant with the 68^th Durham Light Infantry in Tauranga in 1864-1866. During that time he took part in the battles at Pukehinahina (the Gate Pa) and Te Ranga. But it was the experiences afterwards, as he developed close relationships with Māori, that had an indelible influence on him. These relationships, which were centred on his love of painting Māori life and portraits, opened up friendship s. In 1865 he ‘married’ Harete Mauao, daughter of the rangatira Tāmati Mauao who died in the same year. Their son, Hamiora Tu Ropere (also known as Sam Robley) was born in 1866. In 1983 Tim connected with Robley’s great granddaughter, the late Googie Te Weurangi Tapsell of Maketū who answered his letter to the editor in the Bay of Plenty Times.

From his portraiture, Robley developed a strong interest in moko. As a retired Major General in London in the last decade of the 19^th Century, Robley set about research for his book MOKO; Or Maori Tattooing (1896). As part of this, he  sought out preserved Māori heads, which he saw as key to understanding the art - which he knew had ceased to be practiced. Over time, he went on to collect close to forty examples. His attempts to see the collection back in Aotearoa were unsuccessful, with the collection finding a home at the American Museum of Natural History in New York in 1907. In 2014, the collection came home, thanks to the Te Papa Tongarewa repatriation programme. While often seen as someone with an interest in the macabre, Robley’s interest was firmly centred in his belief that moko was the most sophisticated non-Western artform in the world. His growing awareness that it was a ‘system’ of design that generated new designs as it was practiced, led him to believe it would one day re-emerge. When he did, his hope was that a new generation of practitioners would be able to see ‘the old art’ ‘in the skin’, and ‘in the round’.

Tim is now working on a book centred on Robley, who maintained links with Tauranga all his life. Tim would appreciate hearing from anyone who may know of the existence of  material in private hands relating to Robley. In particular, he is interested in knowing more about Mr G G McCandlish who was a correspondent of Robley’s in the 1920s, and Mr Robley Ngatai who was born in the 1890s, probably in or near Otūmoetai. Email Tim

New Books: Pakeha Ta Moko, by Trevor Bentley

Pakeha Ta Moko: A History of the Europeans Traditionally Tattooed by Maori
by Trevor Bentley

This book explores the hidden history of the European men and women who were traditionally tattooed by Maori in 19th century New Zealand. Tattooing might seem an unusual subject for an historian, but it was one of the most effective methods Maori used to assimilate Pakehas captives and voluntary culture-crossers into their communities.

While the book describes the Pakeha women and girls who received chin, lip and body moko moko, its primary focus is the lives and fates of the 58 Pakeha men identified to date who were incised with ta moko or full-face tattoos. The tattooing range in location from Northland to Foveaux Strait, and chronologically from 1777, when one of Cook’s runaway sailors was ‘tattowed head to toe’ at Queen Charlotte Sound, to the 1870s, when the last Pakeha men and women adorned with puhoro-raperape (buttock and thigh moko) were seen and reported.

Many Pacific Islands had their semi-indigenised, tattooed beachcombers and in the Marquesas, a number received facial tatau. What set New Zealand apart was the large number of Europeans who became Pakeha-Maori (Europeans gone native) and acquired body and limb moko. Additionally, more Pakeha males were tattooed on the face in New Zealand than anywhere else among the islands of Oceania. Given the numbers of European men and women who crossed cultures semi permanently and permanently in 19th century New Zealand, those described in this work represent but a portion of their original number.

Pakeha men and women with face tattoos are an elusive minority and this work draws on a myriad of sources, including contemporary accounts by Maori, Pakeha and Pakeha-Maori who witnessed and described the moko ritual and/or were themselves tattooed. It also draws on numerous published primary sources as well as the works of Maori and Pakeha historians, anthropologists and moko/tattoo scholars and practitioners, past and present, whose contributions are evident in the text and bibliography.

The book is, in part, a testament of respect to the courage and adaptability of the European men and women who crossed cultures to live and die as tattooed Pakeha-Maori, far from their original kinsfolk and native lands. It is also a testament to the Maori cultural practices of manaakitanga and whanaungatanga, whereby disoriented and vulnerable European shipwreck survivors, captives, runaway sailors and fugitive convict men and women were reassured, shown kindness and integrated into Maori families and communities.

Tauranga Connections

The area between Motiti Island and Mt Maunganui was a main anchorage for whaling vessels seeking provisions in the Bay of Plenty during the early 1800s. Tauranga’s first non-Maori resident was probably ‘Robson’, a convict who fled ashore from the pirated NSW brig Mercury during the early 1820s and became a trading intermediary. When the Sydney whaler Caroline anchored to trade pigs and potatoes for muskets and lead in 1827, the sailor James Heberley recorded that Robson had ‘got tattooed like the natives’.

Robson’s fate is unknown, unlike that of the Ngati Porou flax trader Barnet Burns. Burns claimed to have had one quarter of his face tattooed after being captured by a Ngai Te Rangi raiding party near the Motu River entrance around 1832. He alone survived the attack on his Maori trading party. Held captive for several months, almost certainly at Tauranga, he was befriended by a wahine rangatira who saved his life after he had been caught trying to escape.

Barnet Burn’s elaborate ta moko incorporated both Ngati Porou and Ngai Te Rangi motifs
J. Sutcliffe, ‘Pahe A Rance, The New Zealand chief Barnet Burns’, B-110-061-a, Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington

Burns’ Ngai Te Rangi captors insisted that he be tattooed like them, trade and fight for them ‘and in every way become a member of the tribe’. Burns finally consented, and the ta moko operation immediately began. The tohunga ta moko cut his patterns with bone chisels, a process he described as ‘tedious and painful’. Escaping during a storm, Burns eluded his pursuers and following an arduous, barefoot journey, he returned to Ngati Porou and the East Coast where the remainder of his ta moko was completed.

Though based at Maketu during the 1830s, the Danish trader Phillip Tapsell frequently exchanged muskets and munitions for flax at Tauranga, either in person or through his agent James Farrow at Otumoetai Pa. Tapsell’s integration into te ao Maori (the world of Maori), was typical of that made by trader Pakeha-Maori, John B. Williams, the American Consul at the Bay of Islands noted in 1842, [he putting] ‘himself on a footing with the Chiefs, allowing his hair and beard to grow long, having himself occasionally tattooed, assuming the authority of king [and] proclaiming himself as such’.

Pakeha women fully integrated into Maori communities as whangai or adoptees in the Bay of Plenty during the 1800s, were gifted chin and lip tattoos (moko kauae and ngutu purua) if they had served their communities well, were considered deserving and understood the significance of the designs.

In 1864 Major Horatio Robley, a British Army officer and artist, was present in Tauranga during the battles of Gate Pa and Te Ranga. While stationed at Te Papa he encountered a Pakeha woman who had married a sailor named Anaru in  Sydney and was living nearby in one of the local pa. Robley reported  that she had not yet received the womens’ moko kauae or chin moko, suggesting that in due course she may have become eligible.

This privilege may have previously been extended to a fugitive convict woman who, along with two male companions, made their way to the Bay of Plenty during the 1810s and disappeared among the Te Arawa people. This anonymous Bay of Plenty female culture-crosser was by no means alone. According to the Te Arawa knowledge keeper Tui Ranapiri-Ransfield:

The Pakeha women we adopted were expected to marry and become part of the community in every way, including moko and haka. Because they were raised as Maori, and had Maori children and grandchildren, they became part of our whakapapa [genealogy] right down to their receiving land that was gifted or inherited. They do not appear in our whakapapa as Pakeha, but as Maori tupuna [ancestors], because that is what they became and that is how we remember them.

The Author

As many readers know, Trevor Bentley is a member of the society and an active contributor to this blog. He has a special interest in researching and writing about the interaction of Maori and Pakeha in 19^th century New Zealand as well as its maritime and military history. Dr Bentley is the author of six previous New Zealand history books. His interest in New Zealand history began as a teenager when he read Frederick Maning’s rollicking colonial classic, Old New Zealand: A Tale of the Good Old Times by a Pakeha Maori (1863).

Book Details

Pakeha Ta Moko is currently available at all good New Zealand bookshops.

Bentley, Trevor, Pakeha Ta Moko: A History of the Europeans Traditionally Tattooed by Maori, Upstart Press, Auckland, 2022.

ISBN 978-1-990003-69-1

The Voyage of the Venus Pirates, 1806-1807

Early Sailing Vessels and Visitors to Tauranga, Part VIII
The Voyage of the Venus Pirates, 1806-1807

Looking out to sea, most Tauranga residents can identify Taumaihi Island. Situated close to the southern end of Motiti or Flat Island, it is accessible at low tide with permission, via a narrow spit of packed stone and sand. During the first two decades of the 19th century, Motiti was intensely cultivated and supported a large Maori population. Taumaihi Island which had been scarped over the centuries into an impregnable refuge pa known as Matarehua, was in 1806 controlled by the Ngaiterangi rangatira Hukere. The arrival of the Venus, a small, innocuous brigantine (two masted vessel), off Motiti and Taumaihi in 1806 set in motion events that led to the destruction of Matarehua Pa, the death of Hukere and many of the Motiti people.

An early 19th century brigantine

Built in Calcutta, the 45 ton Venus arrived in Sydney on 8th May 1805 with a cargo of tea, rice and jute sacks. Purchased by the Sydney merchants Campbell and Co., the vessel made two sealing voyages to the islands of the Antipodes and Bass Strait. On the 16th June 1806, after transporting a cargo of provisions and rum for the military at Port Dalrymple, Tasmania, the convict crew of 14, seized the Venus and sailed away with the cargo. Despite having little knowledge of navigation, the Venus’s pilot successfully crossed the Tasman, before making landfall among the Te Aupouri people at North Cape. There, the convicts seized and carried off two high born Aupouri women as sex slaves.

The Venus next called at the Bay of Islands where two of the crew and two convict female passengers were marooned ashore, and two Ngapuhi wahine rangatira (chieftainesses) were kidnapped. One of these women was the sister of Te Morenga, who was one of the most powerful chiefs at the Bay. The other was related to Hongi Hika who later achieved fame as the greatest Musket Wars general and conqueror of tribes. Calling at Whangarei, two further high born women were kidnapped, one of them being Tawaputa, the niece of Te Morenga. Entering the Hauraki Gulf, the Venus visited Thames where it was boarded by the leading Ngati Paoa rangatira Te Haupa and his daughter. Noticing that the sails were billowing and that the Venus was underway Te Haupa leapt overboard, but his daughter was carried off by the pirates.

After rounding Cape Brett, the Venus was sailed into the Bay of Plenty. It is not known if the vessel entered Tauranga Harbour, but at Motiti Island, some 10 miles to the north-east, the convicts sold Te Morenga’s niece Tawaputa. Purchased by Hukere in exchange for parawai (superior cloaks), she was kept as his slave wife at Matarehua Pa. In due course, Te Waru, Ngaiterangi’s leading chief came into dispute with Hukere over Tawaputa. Taken across to Tauranga, she was killed either by Te Waru or at his direction at his pa on Mount Maunganui and her body was cooked and eaten.

Motiti Spit at low tide with Taumaihi Island (Matarehua Pa) in the distance

Responding to rumours about the fate of his abducted niece and sister, Te Morenga sent spies disguised as traders to the Bay of Plenty and East Coast. They reported that some of the women abducted by the Venus convicts had been sold, and later killed and eaten at Tauranga, and at Maraenui Pa, the Te Whanau-a-Apanui fortress located at the mouth of the Motu River in the Eastern Bay of Plenty. Others, including Te Morenga’s sister, they stated, had suffered the same fate at Kawakawa Bay (Hicks Bay) near East Cape in the rohe of the Ngati Porou iwi. It was to be 12 years however, before Te Morenga and Hongi Hika accumulated sufficient muskets to ensure victory over the offending iwi and to exact the utu that custom demanded.
In January 1818, Te Morenga led a fleet of waka taua (war canoes) south to Motiti, where Taumaihi Island and the Pa of Matarehua was besieged by land and sea. Armed only with rakau-Maori weapons of stone, bone and wood, the Ngaiterangi defenders eventually succumbed to the firepower of the northern musketeers. The pa was stormed with great slaughter, but Te Waru escaped to Tauranga. Hukere was killed and several hundred survivors including his wife were taken back to the Bay of Islands as slaves. Matarehua Pa was never reoccupied by Ngaiterangi.

In January 1820, Te Morenga led an expedition against Te Waru at Tauranga and during two battles, many Ngaiterangi were killed by gunfire. With honour satisfied and peace arranged, Te Morenga returned to the Bay of Islands, taking with him with all Te Waru's canoes, 200 prisoners of war, and the toi moko (cured tattooed heads) of several chiefs.

Te Morenga’s moko kanohi (face tattoo)

Eight years after the kidnapping of niece and sister by the Venus pirates, Te Morenga sketched this image of his own ta moko for John Nicholas who was assistant to the leading missionary Samuel Marsden.

What became of the Venus is uncertain. A brig which may well have been the Venus was reported to have been in distress off the Northland coast in May 1808. Te Pahi, a Ngapuhi rangatira was reported to have hanged the pirates when the vessel returned to the Bay of Islands. Maori elsewhere in New Zealand claimed to have captured a vessel about this time. The crew were killed, eaten and the ship burned on the beach to obtain the metal nails.

Regardless, one convict pirate proved a great survivor. John Redmonds, a black veteran whaling sailor who piloted the Venus down the North Island’s east coast, was found living as a Pakeha-Maori at Mercer on the Waikato River during the 1860s and has left descendants. His ‘Wanted’ description posted by the Sydney authorities in 1806 read: ‘broad nosed, thick lips, stout made, wears hair tied, and with holes in his ears, being accustomed to wear large ear-rings’, suggesting a pirate out of a story of the Spanish Main. The actions of Redmonds and his fellow pirates however, cannot be romanticized. Their abduction, enslavement and sale of seven northern wahine rangatira, set in train a cycle of utu that escalated into New Zealand’s longest, and bloodiest conflict – the intertribal Musket Wars (1818-1839).

Sources

Bentley, Trevor, Pakeha Maori: The Exraordinary Story of the Europeans Who Lived as Maori in Early New Zealand, Penguin, Auckland, 1999.
Crosby, R. D; The Musket Wars: A History of Inter-Iwi conflict, 1806-45, Reed, Auckland, 1999.
Foster, Bernard, ‘Te Morenga’, An Encyclopaedia of New Zealand. A. H. Mclintock (ed.), 1966, Te Ara – the Encyclopaedia of New Zealand, www.TeAra.govt.nz/en/1966/te-morenga
Marsden, Samuel, The Letters and Journals of Samuel Marsden, 1765-1838, J. Elder (ed.), Coulls, Somerville Wilkie and A. H./ Reed, Dunedin, 1932.
Nicholas, J. L; Narrative of a Voyage to New Zealand, Vol. I, James Black, London, 1817.
Smith, S, P; Maori Wars of the Nineteenth Century, Whitcombe and Tombs, Christchurch, 1910.
Vennell, C. W; The Brown Frontier: New Zealand, 1806-1877, A. H. and A. W. Reed, Wellington, 1967.

Illustrations

Robinson, John and George Francis Dow, The Sailing Ships of New England, 1607-1907, Marine Research Society, Salem Mass, 1922, plate no. 89.
Motiti Spit at low tide with Taumaihi Island (Matarehua Pa) in the distance. Author’s collection.                   
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. enzb.auckland.ac.nz

Captain Jack and the Prince of Denmark Schooner, 1831-1832

Early Sailing Vessels and Visitors to Tauranga, Part VI.

Built in 1789 at Kirkudbright Scotland, on the Dee River, which flows into the Irish Sea, the 70 ton schooner Prince of Denmark spent most of its working life in Australian and New Zealand waters. Commissioned as a revenue cutter, Kirkudbright’s shipbuilders constructed a fast, relatively light schooner, intended to intercept smugglers. Though theoretically too light for these roles, the vessel spent long periods in the sealing and whaling trade from the 1820s, and frequently carried cargo and passengers between New South Wales and New Zealand. [1]

The harbour of Kirkudbright, River Dee, Scotland

Among the many skippers employed by her various Sydney owners was Captain Jack, an opportunist adventurer given to drink, like so many of his peers, who faced constant hardship and danger in their quest for profitable cargoes. In early 1831, he took the Prince of Denmark into Tauranga Harbour to complete his cargo of flax, timber and salted pork, before returning to Sydney. Captain Jack found the various Tauranga hapu still in a state of excitement, having defeated an amphibious, predatory expedition of Ngapuhi and Ngati Kuri from the Bay of Islands a few months previously. [2]

Led by the Ngati Kuri tohunga Te Haramiti, the invading 150-200 strong musket taua (expedition), had voyaged southwards to the Bay of Plenty in seven waka taua (war canoes,) transporting two ships’ cannon. After surprising, killing and enslaving some Ngai Te Rangi people on Tuhua (Mayor Island), they crossed to Motiti Island and camped on Hurepupo, a plateau (long since eroded away) at the centre of the spit where it curves away to the old Matarehua Pa. [3]

The invaders were then surprised by a combined amphibious force of 1000 Ngai Te Rangi, Ngati Haua and Te Whaktohea warriors led by their respective rangatira Hori Tupaea, Te Waharoa and Titoko. Following a fierce exchange of musket fire and hand to hand fighting the invaders were defeated and Te Haramiti was killed. The enemy slain were cooked and devoured, and their waka, cannon, muskets and heads seized as trophies by the victors. After returning to Tauranga, the victors sold the toi moko  or cured tattooed heads of 14 northern chiefs to Captain Jack. [4]

Motiti Spit, the site of 1831 battle and the long vanished plateau of Hurepupo

When the Prince of Denmark returned to the Bay of Islands on 16 March 1831, the missionaries Henry Williams and Thomas Chapman went on board and were horrified when they saw that many of the toi moko were ‘relatives of the principal chiefs at the Bay of Islands.’ [5] Undeterred by their remonstrations:

The master of the ship in a state of tipsy jollity, brought up a sack containing twelve heads and rolled them out on the deck. Some of the New Zealanders on board recognised their fathers’ heads, others those of brothers, and friends. Appalling weeping and lamentations rent the air, and the natives fled precipitately from the ship. [6]

A Dreadful Recognition: Captain Jack displays his tattooed heads

Before they left the vessel, the Ngapuhi visitors swore vengeance. Fearing a taua ito or blood vengeance raid, Captain Jack and the Prince of Denmark promptly departed for Sydney. There, the missionary leader Samuel Marsden also went aboard. After viewing the 14 toi moko, Marsden made strong representations to the New South Wales authorities. Governor Darling banned the New Zealand head trade later that year. [7]

Undeterred, Captain Jack was soon back trading in New Zealand waters. In 1832, during Ngapuhi’s artillery siege at Otumoetai Pa he again took the Prince of Denmark into Tauranga Harbour. When they recognized the schooner, the Ngapuhi artillerymen bombarded the vessel from the shore. Once again, Captain Jack was compelled to make a rapid departure to escape their wrath. [8]

In the remaining years preceding the Treaty of Waitangi and long after, the Prince of Denmark continued its role as whaler, trader and a passenger vessel, conveying a mix of missionaries, whalers, sawyers, colonists and colonial officials across the Tasman Sea. In 1863, following 74 years of service, the Prince of Denmark was driven ashore in a storm and wrecked at a remote whaling station in the Coral Sea’s Chesterfield Island group. [9] The fate of Captain Jack is unknown.

Endnotes
[1] Prince of Denmark, marinersandships.com.au
[2] Kirkudbright’s Prince of Denmark, by David R. Collin, https://www.whittlespublishing.com
[3] Bentley, Trevor, Tribal Guns and Tribal Gunners, WilsonScott, Christchurch, 2014: 62-64.
[4] Rusden, G. W. History of New Zealand, Vol I: Chapman and Hall, London, 1883: 133.
[5] Williams, Henry, The Early Journals of Henry Williams, 1826-1840, L.M. Rogers (comp.), Pegasus Press, Christchurch, 1961: 174.
[6] Thomson, Arthur, The Story of New Zealand, Vol. II, John Murray, London, 1859: 263.
[7] Marsden, Samuel, The Letters and Journals of Samuel Marsden, 1765-1838, J. Elder (ed.), Coulls Sommerville, Dunedin, 1932: 498-499.
[8] Yate, William, An Account of New Zealand, Seeley and Burnside, London, 1835: 131.
[9] Prince of Denmark Schooner, Australia, https://www.wrecksite.eu/wreck.aspx?55532

Illustrations
1 The Harbour Kirkudbright, www.kirkudbrighthistorysociety.org.uk
2 Motiti Spit, Motiti Island, Bay of Plenty, author’s collection.
3  Arthur McCormick, ‘A Dreadful Recognition,’ in Horsley, Reginald, Romance of Empire: New Zealand, T.C. and E.C. Jack, London, 1908: 122.