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Originating in Taranaki, a league was formed by a number of the tribes against further selling of land. To weld this league together, certain powerful Waikato chiefs determined to have a king. Of them the most celebrated was the son of Hongi's old antagonist, Te Waharoa.
More than once before Hongi's day he had invaded the Taranaki country, and had only been forced back by the superior generalship of the famous Rauparaha, of whom more anon. In 1831 Rauparaha could no longer protect Taranaki. He had migrated to Cook's Strait, and was warring far away in the South Island.
Owing to subsequent education and intercourse with Europeans, their savage habits have now mostly given way to modern customs. In 1860 commenced the disastrous Taranaki war, which lasted some years, and was caused in the first instance by the encroachment of European settlers on the lands originally granted exclusively to the Aborigines.
The Governor after inquiry came to the conclusion that as the rightful owner of the land was willing to sell it, no one else had a claim to interfere. He sent surveyors up to measure the land. They were stopped by the chief. The Governor sent some soldiers to protect the surveyors. The whole of the Taranaki Maoris rose in arms, and swept the few soldiers down to the coast.
The South Island colonists mispronounce their beautiful Maori place-names murderously. Even in the North Island the average bushman will speak of the pukatea tree as "bucketeer," and not to call the poro-poro shrub "bull-a-bull" would be considered affectation. There is or was in the archives of the Taranaki Farmers' Club a patriotic song which rises to the notable lines
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 result was the temporary ruin of the Taranaki settlement, and the sowing of the seeds of an intense feeling of resentment and injustice which bore evil fruit in later days. Nor did Captain Fitzroy do any better with finance than in his land transactions. His very insufficient revenue was largely derived from Customs duties. Trade at the Bay of Islands had, by this time, greatly fallen away.
Nengonese had become almost as familiar to Coley as Maori, and his Sundays at this time were decidedly polyglot; since, besides a regular English service at Taranaki, he often took a Maori service, and preached extempore in that tongue, feeling that the people's understanding went along with him; and there were also, in early morning and late evening, prayers, partly in Nengonese, partly in Bauro, at the College chapel, and a sermon, first in one language, and then repeated in the other.
When Colonel Wakefield bought it, the land was virtually empty, and the few score of natives living at the Sugar-Loaves sold their interest to him readily enough. But when the enslaved Ngatiawa and Taranaki tribesmen were soon afterwards released through the influence of Christianity, they returned to the desolated land, and disputed the claim of the Company.
Early one fine morning, in solid column, they marched deliberately to within 150 yards of the fort, and before straight shooting undeceived them about the value of their charms and passes, thirty-four of the poor fanatics were lying beside their prophet in front of the redoubt. A number more were carried off hurt or dying, and thenceforward the Taranaki natives were reduced to the defensive.
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