Te Rangihaeata

Te Rangihaeata was a Maori chief who participated in and perhaps instigated the Wairau Massacre and the Hutt Valley Campaign.

A member of the Ngati Toa iwi, he was born at Kawhia around 1780. His father, Te Rakaherea, was a war leader of his people and died at the Battle of Hingakaka fighting the Waikato and Ngati Maniopoto Tribes. His mother was the elder sister of Te Rauparaha and an important ariki in her own right. Te Rangihaeata grew up in Te Rauparaha's shadow and became his trusted ally. Te Rauparaha was the strategist and negotiator while Te Rangihatea tended to be the blunt instrument, and they were a good team.

Heavily involved in the Musket Wars Te Ranghateata soon rose to prominence in Maori society. In 1819 while returning from a raid in the Cook Strait area the Ngatitoa clashed with the Ngatiapa around Turakina, near Bulls. During the subsequent fighting Te Rangihaeata captured and then married the chief's daughter. This was the beginning of a long term association between the two tribes, fortunately, as the Ngatitoa were soon forced to return the area.

Arriving back in their own tribal territories the war party found that the Waikato and Ngati Maniopoto Maori had decided the Ngatitoa were undesirable neighbours and were practicing ethnic cleansing. Although greatly outnumbered and outgunned Te Rangihaeata conducted a successful defence until Te Rauparaha was able to use his diplomatic skills to extricate the tribe. This was the beginning of their migration down to the Paraparaumu and Kapiti Coast area. They subsequently conquered most of that region and the upper parts of the South Island, occupying and claiming ownership of the land.

This forcible change of ownership was to be a source of much confusion and conflict when the Pakeha settlers arrived and began buying land. There were often at least two sets of putative owners and the ones who felt they had been dispossessed were often more than willing to sell land they owned but could not occupy.

Te Rangihaeata was not anti Pakeha. He encouraged the whalers and the traders and was prepared to tolerate the missionaries. He valued them for the technology they introduced and the trade goods they were offering. But he quickly recognised that permanent settlers were a different matter, posing a serious threat to the Maori and their traditional ways. Despite that he tried to avoid conflict.

When in 1843 Arthur Wakefield and the Nelson settlers were claiming the Wairau Plain, chiefs Te Rauparaha and Te Rangihaeata, visited Nelson and made their position very clear. Te Ranghaeata promised that he would kill any settlers who tried to take his land from him. Despite this they were prepared to follow the Pakeha legal procedures and await the decision of the Land Commissioner, William Spain. It was the Nelson settlers who jumped the gun and sent surveyors to the disputed land. Te Rangihaeata had his men firmly but non violently remove them, being scrupulously careful to return to them all their surveying equipment and personal possessions.

The Nelson settlers sent out a party to arrest the two chiefs. The accidental discharge of a musket precipitated a brief battle and about a dozen of the setttlers were shot down. The rest either fled or surrendered to the Maori. Among those captured were Arthur Wakefield and Henry Thompson, the two leaders of the arresting party. Several Maori had also been killed including one of Te Ranghaeata's wives who was also Te Rauparaha's daughter. The captured settlers were promptly executed in accordance with Maori law and custom. However it was Te Rangihaeata who insisted on it.

This incident became known as the Wairau Massacre. The subsequent Government enquiry exonerated the Maori and decided that the settlers had acted illegally.

A similar situation arose about three years later in the Hutt Valley near Wellington. The settlers were pushing forward aggressively and occupying land that had disputed ownership. Several years of active immigration and the arrival of British Imperial Troops had put the settlers in a much stronger position and much less inclined to tolerate either Maori claims or legal challenges to their occupation of the land.

Once again Te Rangihaeata became involved in the resistance, destroying the farms and the possessions of the settlers on disputed land, but not injuring anyone. However the settlers did not recognise the warning and very soon open warfare broke out, the Hutt Valley Campaign

Had the Maori Tribes been united, the subsequent history of New Zealand could have been different. Te Rangihaeata fought the British to a stalemate until the British were able to mobilise the Te Atawa and other Maori Tribes to oppose him. Additionally the abduction and dubious arrest of Te Rauparaha did a lot to discourage the Ngatitoa. They built a strong pa near Porirua and successfully withstood a British attack. They then retreated to swamps beyond what is now Foxton, out of reach of the government, and the war was over.

Te Ranghaeata remained there until his death from measles in 1855. There are conflicting stories about this period, that he fiercely resisted any Pakeha penetration into the area and, alternatively, that he made his peace with Governor Grey. Whatever the truth is, he is remembered as a conservative patriot who resisted the displacement of his people and culture.