Captain Stewart and the Elizabeth - a frontier of chaos?

Captain Stewart and the Elizabeth, 1830

In 1830 Captain John Stewart of the brig Elizabeth entered into a commercial arrangement with the Ngati Toa leader Te Rauparaha to ferry a taua (war party) of 100 warriors from their base on Kapiti Island to Banks Peninsula. Te Rauparaha wanted to surprise his Ngai Tahu enemies and avenge an earlier defeat when several Ngati Toa chiefs had been killed and eaten at Kaiapoi in 1829. Those killed included Te Pehi Kupe who suffered the ultimate insult when his bones were later made into fish-hooks. For Te Rauparaha this was a chance to reassert his mana over his southern rivals.

This was a business deal for Stewart. In return for his services, he would receive a full cargo of flax. A business partner of his had been killed by Ngai Tahu in 1824, but Stewart's motivation in 1830 was primarily economic.

A southern Trojan Horse

The arrival of a European trading ship would not have raised any particular alarm among Ngai Tahu. Stewart lured the Ngai Tahu chief Te Maiharanui (Tama-i-hara-nui) aboard by offering to trade flax for muskets. Once aboard, Te Rauparaha and his men seized the chief, his wife and daughter. Ngati Toa warriors attacked and destroyed Te Maiharanui's settlement, Takapuneke.

The brig returned to Kapiti with Te Maiharanui and his family held captive. Rather than see his daughter enslaved, Te Maiharanui strangled her and threw her overboard. Once on Kapiti, Te Maiharanui suffered death by slow torture at the hands of the widows of the Ngati Toa chiefs slain at Kaiapoi; his wife met the same fate.

British law and order

Captain Stewart's actions caused great concern among the missionaries who were struggling to make progress in New Zealand. They felt that his participation in an ongoing dispute between tribes sent all the wrong messages to Maori about the civilising influence of European contact. The incident also highlighted the fact that New Zealand was in some sort of judicial black hole. Governor Ralph Darling of New South Wales, who was responsible for British subjects in New Zealand, put Stewart on trial in Sydney as an accomplice to murder. In keeping with contemporary European attitudes, however, Ngai Tahu were deemed 'incompetent' to act as witnesses because they were 'heathens'. As a result, Stewart and his crew escaped punishment.

The fact that no Europeans were killed in this incident meant that most Europeans took little interest. It did intensify demands, though, from humanitarian groups such as the Church Missionary Society (CMS) for the British Colonial Office to improve law and order in New Zealand.