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The New Zealand Wars: A History of the Maori Campaigns and the Pioneering Period: Volume I (1845–64)

(Chapter 28) — The Ngati-Paoa Invasion of Auckland

(Chapter 28)

The Ngati-Paoa Invasion of Auckland

Hori Ngakapa te Whanaunga (p. 256) was one of the leaders of the war-canoe expedition of the Ngati-Paoa Tribe to Auckland Town in 1851 in order to exact redress for the wrongful arrest of the chief Hoera, due to page 450 a mistake on the part of the police when he went to inquire into the arrest of a man named Ngawiki for theft. The Ngati-Paoa settlements were up in arms, and a fleet of five large canoes assembled at Te Huruhi, Waiheke Island. This fleet consisted of canoes from Pukorokoro (Miranda), Taupo (Sandspit), Waiari, Wharekawa, and Te Umu-puia (Te Wairoa). The crews were composed of the Tau-iwi, Pakahorahora, Ngati-Tai, and Ngati-Whanaunga, numbering two hundred and fifty to three hundred men. Te Puhata commanded the Ngati-Paoa hapus, whilst Ngati-Whanaunga were directed by young Hori Ngakapa in a great war-canoe called “Te Waikohaere.” Haora Tipa came in command of the “ Maramarua,” a decorated canoe manned by fifty paddlers. Another chief was Aperahama Pokai, of Pukorokoro. The flotilla, augmented by several Waiheke canoes, swept up into the Waitemata on the morning of the 23rd April, 1851, and the crews leaped ashore on the beach at Waipapa (Mechanics Bay) and performed a great war-dance preparatory to demanding redress for the insult to their chief (who was temporarily under the sacred ban of tapu when he was roughly handled by a native policeman). Warning, however, had reached Governor Grey, and the warriors found themselves faced by the local troops—the 58th Regiment, with four guns, and the Royal New Zealand Fencibles—who lined Constitution Hill and the Parnell slopes commanding the bay, while a British frigate, H.M.S. “Fly,” dropped down the harbour and anchored off Waipapa, with her guns trained on the beached fleet of canoes.

After much angry argument the Maoris obeyed the Governor's ultimatum, and with heavy labour dragged their canoes to the water—it was now low tide—and paddled down the harbour for Orakei and their homes. Their chiefs later made formal submission to the Governor and presented him with several greenstone meres.

Mr. George Graham writes that this incident is spoken of among the Ngati-Paoa as “Te Toanga-roa” (“The Long Hauling”), in reference to the dragging of the canoes from high-water mark to low water over the mud-flats of Mechanics Bay.