Deaths (not in combat) at the hands of rebels during the New Zealand Wars of 1847 - 1879

Few New Zealanders nowadays know of the horrific death toll that its innocent early European settlers and friendly Maori suffered at the hands of Maori rebels during the New Zealand Wars of 1847-1879.

It almost appears that our modern government are happy to maintain this eerie silence - because among the many official Remembrance activities recently sanctified by the government, there are none to recognize the sad fact that that so many perished through no fault of their own.

The list of non-combatants (eg. not in military battles etc) killed by the rebels, who defied and defiled the 1840 Treaty of Waitangi, number in the hundreds. Many victims, particularly friendly Maori, who made up the majority of those murdered, remain unidentified and, incredibly, unacknowledged by authorities to this day.

This list has been prepared by historian Paul Verdon. Many of the entries below may be verified by searching the name of the victim on Google, plus Papers Past and on actual official memorial sites. Papers Past, for example, will take you to the newspaper report of the incident at the time. A number of fatal incidents recorded in the 2018 book, Blood and Tears, by Adam Plover (Tross Publishing), have also been added.



Chronological List


1846
April 2, 1846 - Andrew Gillespie and his young son (also named Andrew) were attacked, tomahawked and murdered at Lower Hutt. Gillespie had been the first settler placed in possession of the land at the Hutt from which the natives had been evicted in the previous month. Te Pau, of Ngati-Rangatahi, was the leader of the raiding party.


1847
April 18, 1847 - Six members of the Gilfillan family massacred trying to escape family home & property near Wanganui.
Mary Gilfillan (mother), aged 40
Elizabeth (Eliza) Gilfillan, aged 14
Francis (Frank) Gilfillan, aged 11
Adam Campbell Gilfillan, aged 3
Agnes Gilfillan, aged 4 months
Alexander Grenville Gilfillan.
(John Gilfillan, father; and Mary, daughter, aged 15, were wounded but escaped; John and Sarah, aged 6, escaped unhurt).


1849
March 1849 - The Branks family, murdered at Johnsonville, by Maroro, a Maori man who had been released from prison three days before committing these atrocities, to which he confessed. John Branks and his three children, William (aged eight), Catherine (five) and John (two) were killed by Maroro wielding an axe as the children slept in their beds. Elsdon Best, in his book, ‘Porirua: And They Who Settled It,’ wrote how Maroro, who had just served four months in Wellington Gaol for robbery, continued his journey and was arrested the next day, as he was washing the clothes he had worn when he committed the crime. He was also in possession of a watch, some money and clothes belonging to Branks. The murderer was later hanged.


1860
March 27, 1860 - Samuel Ford, farmer and saddler and merchant, Taranaki
Mr S Shaw, farmer, Taranaki
Mr H Passmore, farmer, Taranaki
James Pote, Omata, Taranaki
William Parker, Omata, Taranaki
Messrs Ford, Shaw and Passmore, all farmers, were on their way to different parts of the block on March 27, 1860, when shot down by natives concealed behind a furze hedge near the Primitive Methodist Chapel at Omata and were afterwards tomahawked. Mr Ford was on his way to see some sheep on Mr Grayling's farm and had that morning ridden out to Moturoa with Mr George and purchased six of his bullocks. Mr Passmore was out with his bullocks and cart for the purpose of obtaining some puriri fencing. Shaw was with Passmore and on his way to his farm to milk his cows. Mr Gilbert saw a body lying on the road and returned to the stockade and a party was sent and found the three corpses within a few yards of each other. Then two boys, Pote and Parker (see above), were reported missing and were found tomahawked.
August 2, 1860 - John Hurford, a farmer who was attached as a militiaman, was killed in an ambush after visiting his farm with four soldiers and during a pig shooting session at Omata, Taranaki. One of the artillerymen, an Irishman called James Gaffney, was also killed. Hurford left ‘a widow and eight children to struggle their way alone through the world’.
August 17, 1860 - Hugh Corbyn Harris, a Taranaki volunteer, whilst carting wood from the beach at the Waitara, Taranaki, was shot dead.
August 17, 1860 - Ephraim Coad, aged 43, former brewer and now publican and owner of the Marsland Hotel, was ambushed and shot dead at the Henui (now East End Beach, New Plymouth).
August 21, 1860 - Richard Brown, an old settler, whilst seeking for a horse at the Waitara, Taranaki, was fired at by Maori insurgents and mortally wounded.
September 11, 1860 - Henry Crann, farmer, waylaid and killed at the Henui, Taranaki, at the racecourse.
November 7, 1860 - John Hawken, former miller and then butcher, killed near Huirangi, Taranaki.
December 4, 1860 - Joseph Sarten, aged 16, killed while seeking a bullock; Henui, Taranaki. His brother, John, had been killed earlier in the year during a battle at a pa near Waitara.


1861
February 8, 1861 - William Cutfield King, a farmer and volunteer. He was shot and killed while checking cattle on his farm at Woodleigh (now the New Plymouth suburb of Frankleigh Park), Taranaki. King had been elected to Parliament in 1860 but thus never took his seat.
March 3, 1861 - Edward Messenger, aged 17, killed while gathering peaches at an orchard at Brooklands, near New Plymouth.
In the space of a little over 12 months in 1860-1, 177 settler homes and farms were destroyed by Maori rebels in Taranaki alone. Many of the ‘penniless’ settler families were forced to migrate to Nelson, Canterbury and other South Island places, thus changing the landscape of New Zealand forever.


1863
July 15, 1863 - Michael Meredith, aged 59, murdered at Shepherd’s Bush, together with his son, Frederick Richard Meredith, aged 14, while working on their farm about four miles from Drury, south of Auckland. Both victims were tomahawked, the father’s face and head ‘knocked in’ and the bodies mutilated.
Several other settlers were murdered in the area at this time - and during the next three weeks a further 13 settlers were killed on isolated farms in the area south of Auckland.
July 22, 1863 - James Hunt, killed while preparing to cut wood from the bush at the Hay’s farm in the morning, with his employer, Mr Greenacre, and two others. A band of 40-50 natives surprised them, shot at them and then pursued them. Hunt fell with a fatal wound in his back, however the others reached Hay’s house safely. Mr Hay’s farm was close to the Great South Road between Papakura and Drury (subsequently the site of the Opaheke railway station), slightly south of Papakura and 32km from Auckland’s CBD.
July 23, 1863 - Sylvester Devenish Calvert, the son of Captain Augustus Bressan Calvert, was attacked and killed in the family home on the Wairoa Road, near Papakura, south of Auckland, early in the morning. Nicknamed ‘Silver,’ he was aged 18 and not a soldier. Capt Calvert fought off the intruders. He died on July 3, 1865, after “accidentally” discharging his own gun.
July 25, 1863 - Charles Cooper, farmer living at Hunua, was out in his paddocks looking after his cows when he was attacked and killed. He was set alight in his clothes and his body roasted using kauri gum.
September 4, 1863 - William Corey Scott, an old settler, aged 73, who resided at Pukekohe, was shot at and severely wounded in an attack on August 28. He managed to crawl some 500 yards distance, through dense bush and a stream, to a house belonging to Samuel Hawk, where he laid for 30 hours, until he was found by rescuers. He died in Auckland on September 4.
September 7, 1863 - James Armitage, resident magistrate, lower Waikato, was one of five men massacred at Cameron, near Tuakau. The others were:
Robert McKeown (possibly also known as Heughan), a blacksmith who acted as clerk to Mr Armitage
William Strand, a carpenter engaged in erecting a store at Cameron
Wade, a half-caste
And a friendly native.
‘Some of the attackers followed Mr Armitage and chopped off the hands of the unfortunate men that were clinging to the canoe; and then shot and tomahawked them in the water until they sank.’
September 14, 1863 - Robert Watson (aged 14), the son of Mr John Watson, was shot by Maori attackers at a farm house at Paerata, between Drury and Waiuku, belonging to James Burtt. Mr Watson managed the farm and he and his invalid wife and five children lived in the house.
Also killed was Hugh McLean, a farmhand. The men had been ploughing fields on the morning of the attack, which came about five minutes after the attack on nearby Pukekohe East Church Stockade. The Watsons had heard the firing.
October 13, 1863 - Mr Job Hamlin - an elderly man, was murdered at Henderson's farm, on the Wairoa-Papakura road, south of Auckland. His companion, a boy named Joseph Wallis, aged 13, was tomahawked, but survived his wounds, though he was badly brain-damaged and remained an ‘imbecile’ for the rest of his life.
October 14, 1863 - William John Jackson, aged 32, whilst engaged in fencing behind Mr Hay's house near Papakura, south of Auckland, was shot and tomahawked.
October 15, 1863 - John Fahey and Mrs Fahey, residing at Ramarama, south of Auckland, went out as usual to milk their cows, when Maoris appeared and fired upon them. When found, Mrs Fahey was dead, and Mr Fahey, an old man who was an out-pensioner of Chelsea Hospital, expired shortly afterwards.
October 24, 1863 - Richard (aged nine) and Nicholas Trust (aged 11), murdered in Howick, east of Auckland. The boys, who were shot and tomahawked, were the sons of Ambrose and Jane Trust, who resided at and managed Kennedy's farm at Turanga Creek but were away in Auckland on the day.
November, 1863 - James Droomgould, aged 21, farmer, was murdered at the beginning of the month. With a companion, Felix McGuire (who later became a member of the New Zealand Parliament), he left his house to round up horses on his farm. They were unarmed. He was ambushed and shot and tomahawked by a group of Maori rebels. The confessed murderer, Tangato Ware Iwitaia, was later tried and hanged.
December 21, 1863 - Mrs Matilda Thompson (who was nursing a baby) and one of her daughters, Olivia (14), were murdered on their dairy farm at Kaukapakapa, on the Kaipara Harbour.
The Thompson family arrived from Northern Ireland in 1860. John Thompson bought 146 hectares at Peak Rd, Kaukapakapa, calling it Violet Hill Farm. To earn some immediate income he worked as a mailman, which involved a two-day trip to Riverhead. He was away when the slaughter occurred. A Maori, Ruarangi, who had visited the farm before, killed the victims with an axe. He told another sister that he intended to kill other pakeha, with the intent of sparking conflict. He was known as ‘a great advocate of the Maori in the present rebellion.’
The slaughter caused terror among the outsettlers of the Kaipara, being looked on as ‘an opening of the war in the north.’ But the chiefs of the local tribe readily gave up Ruarangi to the police, saying they ‘lived under the law of Queen Victoria.’ He was tried and then executed on April 18, 1864, at Auckland.


1864
February 28, 1864 - George Patterson, a civil engineer and militia member, was murdered while roaming beyond the boundaries of New Plymouth. He and his horse were shot and tomahawked by Maoris. A memorial is to be found on the site of the murder, on the corner of Frankley and Patterson Roads, New Plymouth.


1865
March 2, 1865 - Carl Silvius Volkner - Protestant missionary Carl Völkner discovered that his Maori congregation had moved on from Christianity to Pai Marire (or Hauhau). Like many Europeans in isolated communities, Völkner had sent reports of anti-Government activity to the governor. Although warned to stay away from the town (Opotiki), on his next visit he was captured by the Hauhau, put ‘on trial’ and hanged from a tree, and his body was decapitated an hour later. Kereopa Te Rau, a Hauhau, was alleged to have re-entered the church and conducted a service with Völkner's head in the pulpit beside him. He was also alleged to have plucked out the dead missionary's eyes and swallowed them. One eye allegedly represented Parliament and the other the Queen and British law.
Five Hauhau were convicted and subsequently hanged for the murder on May 17, 1866. They were Mokomoko, Heremita Kahupaea, Hakaraia Te Rahui, Horomona Poropiti and Mikaere Kirimangu. Kereopa Te Rau was also later convicted and hanged on January 5, 1872, at Napier.
March, 1865 - James Duff Hewett was a JP and a member of the Wellington Provincial Council. He also owned a farm at Kai Iwi, 14 miles west of Wanganui. He had moved his wife and children into the town, where he usually spent his nights. On a visit to the farm, he and his servant were attacked by about 60 Maoris. He was shot and decapitated. According to the historian, James Cowan, Hewett’s head “was carried about the Hau Hau settlements on a pole. His heart was also cut out” and carried away. “They thought by these possessions to imbibe some of his cleverness and bravery,” wrote his widow, Ellen Hewett, who had been left to bring up their four children.
July 22, 1865 - James Francis Fulloon (also known as Hemi Te Mautaranui), a half-caste who was a native interpreter in government services for many years; Mr Robinson; and an Englishman called Ned/Jamie. All three men died at the hands of the Hau Hau when their chartered trading cutter, the Kate, arrived from Auckland at Whakatane. Robinson and Ned were crew on the boat. All were unarmed. The boat was looted and burnt. Of the 16 Hau Hau eventually convicted of the murders, only two were hanged - at Mt Eden Gaol in Auckland, on May 17, 1866, the same day three others were hanged for the murder of Rev Carl Volkner.
October 1, 1865 - Charles Broughton was an interpreter for the government and lived in Wanganui. After a peace proclamation was made by Governor Sir George Grey, Broughton was requested (in a letter by the Hau Haus) to visit and speak with the Ngarauru and Pakakohe tribes of southern Taranaki. The trusting Broughton was escorted to the pa near Kakaramea and then dismissed his 10-man military escort. But then he was promptly shot dead by an old rebel and his body thrown over the bank into the Patea River.


1867
January 7, 1867 - Alfred Campbell was a military settler who owned a bush block inland from Tauranga. He was last seen riding out to work on his block. Campbell was killed by Hau Hau of the Ngati Porou tribe on or about this date. But the skeletons of Campbell and his horse were not discovered for about seven months, hidden under dense fern a mile or two from the Wahahoukaraka Creek, on the road from Waimapu to Oropi.
May 23, 1867 - Messrs Moore and Beggs became further victims of the sadistic Hau Hau on this date. They had been living in a small cottage on a block of untamed land near the entrance to the Waioeka Gorge (inland from Wairoa), a block owned by George Wilkinson and a man called Livingstone. On this day, because of heavy rain, the four men were not working or breaking-in the land, but inside, playing the card game of cribbage. They were alerted by their dogs to the outside presence of the Hau Haus and made a dash for the surrounding bush. Moore and Beggs were soon overtaken and shot dead, but the faster and fitter Wilkinson and Livingstone were eventually able to outrun their pursuers. After hiding and resting in the undergrowth, they were able to reach the Opotiki flats, and, according to a report in the Napier Telegraph, from “whence they saw in the distance the smoke of their burning house.” The bodies of Moore and Beggs were mutilated by tomahawks, their eyes plucked out (a form of witchcraft practised by the Pai Marire sect) and, according to historian James Cowan, “their hearts and liver were cut out by the savages”, to be offered to the gods of war.
June 28, 1867 - Abraham Bennett White’s good luck ran out on this date, as did Wi Popata’s, when they were murdered by the Hau Haus. White had miraculously escaped being killed when the Hau Hau attacked the trading cutter, the Kate, chartered by White, when it arrived at Whakatane from Auckland in July 1865. White owned stores at Opotiki and Whakatane and regularly rode between the towns. This day he was with Wi Popata, who was the government mailman between Tauranga and Opotiki. They had just crossed the Waiotahi Stream when they were ambushed. Both men were decapitated and their bodies ripped open and disembowelled. The heads were ‘displayed’ nearby, while the bodies were cast into the sea and later found up the coast several miles away. The stolen, ‘fleshy’ body-parts were used for a cannibal feast.


1868
June 9, 1868 - David Cahill, William Clark and Thomas Squires. Cahill, a surveyor, was building his house with the help of two sawyers, Clark and Squires, in the bush at Ketemarae, 20 miles up the Patea River in south Taranaki. They were rolling a log up to the sawpit when attacked by a group of Hau Haus from the Te Ngutu-o-te-manu tribe, led by Titokowaru. All were shot, cut and “hacked about in the most brutal manner” and Cahill’s whare rifled of its contents.
June 11, 1868 - Thomas Smith, an off-duty soldier, while trying to catch his horse, was ambushed by Hau Haus and murdered two days later at a small settlement called Waihi, less than two miles distance from where Cahill, Clark and Squires had been killed. According to historian James Cowan, Smith’s legs were severed from his body, which was carried away to the Te Ngutu-o-te-manu, where it was cooked and eaten. “This deed of frightfulness, intended to strike terror into the whites, was the first of a series of man-eating exploits by Titokowaru’s warriors, chiefly the older men, who welcomed the revival of the olden practice of kai-tangata (people eating),” wrote Cowan.
October, 1868 - Alexander McCulloch was the unlucky military settler who didn’t make it to the safety of the southern Taranaki town of Patea after government forces had been repulsed at Te Ngutu-o-te-manu. All the settlers of the area left their properties and houses, but somehow McCulloch was cut off. James Cowan wrote how he was chased and hid in the swamp below Turangarere Hill. He was shot dead but the Hau Haus could not find his body. His bones were discovered much later.
November 9-10, 1868 - At Matawhero, Poverty Bay, Wi Rangi Whaitiri, Paura Wharau and Himiona Katepa, all murdered by Hau Hau at Makaretu, before the following slaughter occurred:
Reginald Newton Biggs, Major Commanding and Justice of the Peace
His wife Emily Biggs (aged 19 years)
Their son, George Biggs (aged one year)
James Padbury, Sgnt Poverty Bay Mounted Rifle Volunteers
Jane Farrell (aged 26 years)
James Walsh, Lieut P.B.M.R.V.
His wife, Emma Walsh (aged 26 years)
Their daughter, Nora Ellen Walsh (aged one year)
John McCullock
His wife, Jane McCullock (aged 25 years)
Their daughter, Emily Jane McCullock (aged two years)
Mary McDonald (aged seven years)
John Cadle, storekeeper at Matawhero
Richard Rathbone, a shepherd
Finlay Ferguson
William Wylie (aged 14 years)
Benjamin Mackay (aged 14 years)
James Wilson, Capt. N.Z. Militia
His wife, Alice Sweetman Wilson (aged 30 years)
Their children, Alice Wilson (aged six years), Edwin James Wilson (aged four years) and Jessie Gertrude Wilson (aged one year)
John Mann
His wife, Emma Mann (aged 23 years)
Their infant child (name unknown)
Robert Newnham (aged 60 years)
His wife, Jane Newnham (aged 45 years)
Their adopted child, Munn (aged one year)
John Moran, servant (aged 60 years)
Maria Goldsmith (aged 15 years)
Her son, Albert Edward Goldsmith (aged four years)
George Neville Dodd (aged 40 years), sheep farmer
Richard Peppard (aged 25 years), sheep farmer
November 8-10 - During the onslaught, the victims had also included Piripi, together with his wife and five children.
November 12, 1868 - At Oweta Pa, Te Kooti slaughtered Chief Paratene Pototi and six other chiefs.
On the nights of November 9 and 10, 1868, Te Kooti had led a war party towards Turanganui (which became Gisborne), in a district that was home to about 150 European settlers and 500 Maori, in preparation for what became known as the Poverty Bay Massacre or Matawhero Massacre. By dawn, nearly 60 people had been murdered. A total of 29 Europeans and part-Maori were killed, as well as 22 Maori. Some were shot but most were killed with bayonets, tomahawks or patu to avoid alerting their neighbours. ‘Blood-maddened Hauhaus galloped over the country, shooting, looting and destroying.’ Many of the killings were followed by their singing of Christian psalms.


1869
February 13, 1869
White Cliffs (Pukearuhe, northern Taranaki) Massacre
Rev. John Whiteley, missionary, aged 62 years
Lieutenant Bamber Gascoigne, aged 40 years
His wife, Annie Gascoigne, aged 27 years
Their children, Laura Gascoigne (aged 5 years), Cecil John Gascoigne (aged 3 years), and Louisa Annie Gascoigne (aged 3 months).
John Milne, aged 40 years.
Edward Richards, aged 35 years.
The deceased were massacred by a Ngati Maniapoto raiding party at the remote Pukearuhe Redoubt. Mr Whitely, a missionary, was killed later that evening when visiting. The Gascoignes’ house was looted, the plunder divided among the party. The outpost was isolated and vulnerable, 57km from New Plymouth and 16km from the nearest post. But the Taranaki Wars were coming to a close and it was thought there was no great danger from rebel Maori.
March 2, 1869 - Robert Pitcairn, a surveyor. Te Kooti's men raided both the Whakarae pa at Ohiwa, near Whakatane, and nearby Uretara Island, taking all occupants without resistance, before killing Pitcairn and taking his possessions.
Later that same day, Te Kooti’s band moved to the Rauporoa Pa. On the way, at Tepuapua, they found a young woman, Ripeka Kaaho, feeding the family pigs. She was the niece of a friendly chief called Tahawera. This decided her fate. She was despatched by tomahawk and her body dismembered and fed to the family pigs.
Te Kooti’s new series of raids prompted the evacuation to Auckland of most European women and children in the Bay of Plenty.
March 11, 1869
Jean Guerren (aged 45)
Monika (‘Nika’), the sister of his wife, Elizabeth (‘Peti’), who was enslaved by the Hauhau.
Tautari and Te Mauriki - and two women - Maria Te Ha, wife of Kaperiera, and Pera.
The deceased all lived at or near the mill managed by Guerren at Te Poronu, near Whakatane. The local iwi, Ngati Pukeko, had employed Guerren - also known as ‘John the Frenchman’ - to erect and run Te Poronu flour mill around 1867. Machinery for the mill had been gifted to Ngati Pukeko by the government as part of an initiative by Governor Sir George Grey. Only seven or eight people were at Te Poronu when the Hauhau war party of 100 descended on the mill. Guerren led this small group in ‘a heroic fight against overwhelming odds’. They defended the mill for two days against an enormously superior force before being overrun.
April 10, 1869 - At Mohaka
Seven Europeans and about 40 natives (mostly women and children, at a pa called Huke) were killed that day and all the settler houses burnt down. The day before (April 9), the Hauhaus (in three war parties) attacked Mangaturanga and killed eight native men, 12 women, and children; then at Hororoa, they killed four native men, six women and children, and wounded three.
The settlers were:
John Philip Martin Lavin, sheep farmer
Jane Lavin, his wife
Their three sons, Hawles (aged 11)
Miles (aged eight)
and Henry Herman (aged three)
John Cooper, sheep farmer
Mr Wilkinson, elderly and lame, he was burnt to death in the house of Mr Stark.


1870
November 20, 1870 - Richard Todd, a long-established settler from Raglan, was the leader of a surveyors’ group which was camped at the foot of Pirongia Mountain, two miles from the town of Pirongia. They were having breakfast when attacked by Maoris of the Ngati Hikairo tribe. Todd was shot and killed and another man seriously wounded. Todd had been warned to be wary of trouble. According to Adam Plover in Blood and Tears, the surveyors were clearing a line through the bush that was to mark the boundary of the Waikato lands that had been confiscated from the rebellious Kingite Maoris. They were also to mark off a block intended as an estate for Chief Hone te One and the Ngati Hikairo people - as compensation for land taken during the war. But the chief was unhappy with the plan to sub-divide the 350-acre block for individual distribution among his people. He said it would ‘divide his people’ over time. The actual murderer of Todd was said to be one Nukuwhenua, but subsequent efforts by the government to wrest him from the Waikato tribes was unsuccessful.


1873
April 24, 1873 - Timothy Sullivan was killed when working with two other young men on the sheep station owned by Richard Parker and EB Jones at Pukekura, near Cambridge. The trio were laying a crossing of Manuka over a swamp when suddenly confronted by four Maoris armed with rifles and tomahawks. They ran for the lives. According to one of the men, David Jones, they had covered three-quarters of a mile when Sullivan was hit by a bullet and went down. Jones and the third man, Charles Rogers, eventually left their pursuers behind and reached Cambridge in mid-afternoon. Mounted police immediately accompanied Jones back to the scene to search for Sullivan. His headless body was terribly mutilated, the heart and lungs torn out and the liver and intestines scattered nearby. According to the Southern Cross newspaper’s correspondent at the time, the heart was stuck on a pole and carried to Te Kuiti and paraded to the public by the murderer, Mohi Purukutu. According to historian James Cowan, with their rebellion virtually ended, the Kingite chiefs disavowed Purukutu’s deed. But he was never handed over to the authorities.


1876
January 27, 1876 - Edwin Packer was a 21-year-old who had recently migrated from Devonshire, England, with a plan to buy land and farm it like his father back home. His brother had also migrated to New Zealand. He was working for a farmer close to Auckland’s One Tree Hill - where Manukau Road and Pah Road meet nowadays - and had become friendly with another worker, a Maori called Winiata (a.k.a. Harry Wynyard). But Winiata owed money elsewhere and the pair fell out when Packer discovered he’d been robbed of savings and reported the fact. The vengeful Winiata killed Packer with a bill-hook early one morning at the latter’s sleepout, and stole his wallet and some possessions. He then escaped the area, retreating to the Maori territory of the King Country, where he remained for six years. But Winiata had boasted of his crime and the government set a huge reward of 500 pounds, with Packer’s family back in England offering another 200 pounds. He was eventually lured and captured and brought back to Auckland, where he was tried and convicted. Winiata was hanged in Mt Eden gaol on August 4, 1882.


1878
September 19, 1878 - John McLean was the cook for a five-man party that was surveying the Moumahaki block, near Waverley, in southern Taranaki. While the others went out each day to do their work, McLean remained to prepare the evening meal. The block had been recently purchased by the government agent, Mr Sheehan, after considerable liaising with the Ngariri tribe. Local Maori would visit the camp, one being Wiremu Hiroki, who would later claim he owned the land. He later ambushed McLean as the cook collected water at a nearby stream, shooting him through the temple.

Te Kooti’s campaign of revenge (1865-72) eventually cost the lives of 611 people. A total of 399 of Te Kooti’s men lost their lives, while 212 British soldiers, settlers and pro-government Maori were killed. Te Kooti was eventually pardoned by the government in 1883.