United States or Brunei ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
He sold them to the English Government; but when the surveyor came to measure the purchased land, the chief Kingi protested, and by the month of March he had made the six hundred acres in question into a fortified camp, surrounded with high palisades. Some days after Colonel Gold carried this fortress at the head of his troops, and that day heard the first shot fired of the native war."
On the other hand, the natives were far from a happy family. The Waikato had not forgotten that they had been aforetime the conquerors of the Province, now the scene of war, that the Ngatiawa and Taranaki had been their slaves, and that Wiremu Kingi had fled to Cook's Straits to escape their raids.
But the danger was not over. All through the long winter night, Rauparaha was busy in trying to induce Wiremu Kingi to join him. He proposed to attack Wellington and destroy every man, woman, and child. "Let us destroy the reptile while we have the power to do so," he argued, "or it will destroy us. We have begun: let us make an end of them."
The head of their tribe, however, Wiremu Kingi, vetoed the sale. The Native Department and the Governor sent down commissioners, who, after inquiry, decided erroneously that Teira's party had a right to sell, and the head chief none to interfere. A fair price was paid for the block, and surveyors sent to it.
He calls himself "King of Ur and Kingi Accad;" and it is at Ur that he raises his principal buildings. Ur, too, has furnished the great bulk of his inscriptions. Babylon was not yet a place of much importance, though it was probably built by Nimrod. Urukh appears to have been succeeded in the kingdom by a son, whose name it is proposed to read as Elgi or Ilgi.
Kingi, thus attacked, astutely made the disputed piece over to the King tribes, and forthwith became their protege. Without openly making war, they sent him numbers of volunteer warriors. He became the protagonist of the Maori land league. The Taranaki tribe hard by New Plymouth and the Ngatiruanui further south joined him openly. Hostilities broke out in February, 1860.
The crafty Rauparaha, fearing a terrific act of vengeance on the part of the white men, resolved to forestall any such danger by driving them out of the country. He felt certain of his own Ngatitoas, but between them and Wellington lay Waikanae, where Hadfield's influence was strong, and where Wiremu Kingi, the father-in-law of Ripahau, was chief. To Waikanae accordingly he steered his boat.
At any rate the old warrior gave a warm welcome to the young missionary, Hadfield, and insisted that he should live at Otaki under his protection. A meeting of a different character was that between Williams and his old scholar, Ripahau. This man had married a daughter of Rangitaake, or Wiremu Kingi, head chief of Waikanae, and had become a person of great influence in the tribe.
Joined by a strong contingent of Waitara men under Wi Kingi to be heard of again as late as 1860 they won their way after many fights, adventures and escapes to their goal at Kapiti. There Rauparaha obtained the coveted muskets.
Moreover, there were the Ngatiawas, who, led by Wiremu Kingi, had migrated to Cook's Straits in the days of devastation. They claimed not only their new possessions much of which they sold to the Company but their old tribal lands at Waitara, from which they had fled, but to which some of them now straggled back. On this nice point Captain Fitzroy had to adjudicate.
Word Of The Day