MAORI MEMORIES.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 1 July 1938, Page 8

MAORI MEMORIES.

SLAVES RELEASED. (Recorded by J.H.S. for “Times-Age.”) In 1841 the missionaries brought about a wonderful result in the voluntary release of nearly 1000 slaves, who returned to Taranaki where they had been captured and exiled twenty years earlier. Their joy on returning to the Motherland was turned to amazement at. finding their old homes claimed by white faced strangers. They knew nothing of Wakefield or his alleged purchase, only that he was a new Taipo named Wairaweka, their nearest attempt to pronounce “Wide awake.” Winding their arms around huge totara trees which in their youth had been made Tapu for canoes, they implored Mr Carrington to stop the descration by bushfellers. He promised Utu (payment) which never came. Governor Hobson then bought for £4OO the alleged rights of Te Where over an area of nearly half a million acres, about Jd per 1000 acres. But, of course, this was a Government purchase. The poor slaves were told they had no right to the land, which was acquired by that Waikato chief under their own law of Raupatu (conquest). Twenty armed constables drove off the Maoris cultivating their own land along the Waitara River. They had been so cowed by servitude and defeat that they offered no resistance. In 1842 coal and lime were found near Nelson" and in defiance of Maori threats, a vessel was laden and picked miners were sent to work the mine. No resistance was made, but each night the Maoris scattered the coal collected during the day. A chief was arrested, but his wife quietly paid the fine. Little did the settlers dream that this was the prelude to a great tragedy. .