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It is equally probable that such chiefs as Rauparaha and Rangihaeata, who were parties to the bargain, knew that Wakefield thought he was buying the country. Fifty-eight chiefs in all signed the deeds of sale. Even if they understood what they were doing, they had no right, under the Maori law and custom, thus to alienate the heritage of their tribes.
The surveyors returned to Nelson, and Captain Wakefield induced the local magistrates to issue a warrant for the arrest of Rauparaha and Rangihaeata. To execute this warrant Mr. Thompson, the police magistrate, himself went in a small vessel, and with him went Captain Wakefield, seven other gentlemen, and forty labourers, in all a party of forty-nine, of whom thirty-five were armed with guns.
Rauparaha said: "Here am I. What do you want with me?" Mr. Thompson said he must go to Nelson; and an irritating conversation ensued. Rangihaeata drew up his tall form, his curly black hair setting off a face of eagle sharpness, and from his eye there gleamed an angry light.
At the north of the South Island, not far from Nelson, there was a fine valley watered by the stream Wairau, which Colonel Wakefield claimed, alleging that it was part of the land he had bought with the Nelson district. Rauparaha and his son-in-law, Rangihaeata, claimed it by right of conquest, and they had a couple of hundred stout warriors at their back, all well armed with muskets. Mr.
Rich in alluvial soil, open and attractive to the eye, and near the sea, it wanted only greater extent to be one of the finest districts in the Islands. The Company claimed to have bought it from Rauparaha and Rangihaeata, whose ownership for they did not live in it was based on recent conquest, and on occupation by some members of their tribe.
Rauparaha called out to spare them; but Rangihaeata, mad at the loss of a wife he loved, brained them with his tomahawk one after another, while the young men hunted the labourers through the trees and slew such as they overtook. Twenty-seven white men reached the shore and were carried quickly in the boats to the brig, five of them badly wounded.
Heké had no grievance whatever against the Government or colonists, but he and the younger braves of the Northern tribes had been heard to ask whether Rangihaeata was to do all the Pakeha-killing? At the moment Fitzroy had not two hundred soldiers in the country. He hurried up to the scene of disturbance. Luckily Heké's tribe the Ngapuhi were divided. Part, under Waka Nené, held with the English.
The magistrates gave the order to fix bayonets and advance; as the white men were crossing the stream a shot was fired by one of them. It struck dead the wife of Rangihaeata.
Honé Heké were foremost in quelling what threatened to be a troublesome riot among the Ngapuhi on the Hokianga. The petty warfare against Rangihaeata in the Cook's Straits district took longer to end. It was a series of isolated murders, trifling skirmishes, night surprises, marchings and counter-marchings.
Moreover, some time before, another woman, a relative of his, had been murdered by a white, who, when tried in the Supreme Court, had been acquitted. Now was the hour for vengeance. Coming up wild with rage, Rangihaeata fell upon the unresisting prisoners and tomahawked them all.
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