The Hutt Valley campaign was an armed conflict in the lower North Island of New Zealand between indigenous Māori and British settlers and military forces in 1846. The campaign was among the earliest of the 19th century New Zealand Wars that were fought over issues of land and sovereignty. It was preceded by the Wairau affray (June 1843) and followed by the Wanganui campaign (April–July 1847) and was triggered by much the same pressures—the careless land purchasing practices of the New Zealand Company, armed government support for settler land claims, and complex intertribal tensions between local Māori. The three conflicts also shared many of the same combatants.
The campaign's most notable clashes were the Māori dawn raid on an imperial stockade at Boulcott's Farm in the Hutt Valley on 16 May 1846 in which eight British soldiers and at least two Māori died, and the Battle of Battle Hill from 6–13 August as British troops, local militia and kūpapa Māori pursued a Ngāti Toa force led by chief Te Rangihaeata through steep and dense bushland. Ngāti Toa chief Te Rauparaha was taken into custody during the campaign; he was detained without charge in Auckland for two years.
A 2003 report by the Waitangi Tribunal concluded the New Zealand Company's 1839 land purchases were invalid and that the Crown committed a number of breaches of the 1840 Treaty of Waitangi in subsequent dealings with Māori in the area.
Background to war Tensions rose in the mid-1840s as settlers and Māori were left to deal with the consequences of haphazard and often dubious land purchases by the New Zealand Company. The boundaries of purchased land and Māori reserves were often only vaguely indicated, creating confusion and conflict. The company's purchasing agents seldom questioned the right of vendors to sell the land, whose possession even Māori disputed among themselves and Māori who lived in the Hutt Valley under customary rights were forcefully evicted by the government with little or no compensation for their homes and extensive cultivations.
New Zealand Company land dealings
The Heretaunga (Hutt Valley) area had been lightly and sporadically populated until the 1830s by a number of small tribes (or hapu), which were driven out during successive waves of migration from northern invaders, ultimately leaving the area in the control of Te Rauparaha of Ngāti Toa, who in turn had granted rights of occupation to Ngāti Rangatahi.
Ngāti Mutunga had established ahi kā, or a long historical association with the area and was therefore in a position to sell land, but had departed by September 1839, when the New Zealand Company vessel Tory arrived at Port Nicholson to purchase land for its settlements.
Unaware of these complexities, and disregarding advice that Te Rauparaha had conquered all the land around Cook Strait and was widely accepted by those who lived on the land as the final owner, the New Zealand Company distributed payment to six chiefs for vast, but poorly definedIn its 2003 report on the Wellington District, the Waitangi Tribunal wrote (pg 57): "The boundary of the purchase was described, though in a scarcely intelligible way. It can be summarised as running north from Turakirae Head along the summit of the Rimutaka Range to the head of the Hutt Valley, then south-west across the base of the Tararua Range, then along the summit of the ‘Rimarap’ Range (to the west of Te Whanganui a Tara) until it reached the sea at Cook Strait outside the western headland of Te Whanganui a Tara at Rimurapa (Sinclair Head), and then back to Turakirae. Because of the inadequacy of the boundary’s description, it is impossible to make an accurate map of the lands included in the deed, and it appears that the signatories were not shown a plan of the purchase." expanses of land in the Port Nicholson (Wellington) area.The Port Nicholson deed was marked by 16 Māori on 27 September 1839. A list of signatories and their Pas provided to the Spain commission in February 1843 contained 14 names: seven belonged to Petone Pa, two to Waiwhetu Pa, and one each to Ngauranga, Kaiwharawhara, Pipitea, Tiaiwai and Kumutoto Pa. There was no signatory from Te Aro. The deed identified the signatories as "the sole and only proprietors, or owners" of Port Nicholson. They were said to have sold their "lands, tenements, woods, bays, harbours, rivers, streams and creeks" to Colonel William Wakefield for the New Zealand Company. Payment included 120 muskets and accompanying munitions, various utensils, and numerous items of clothing. See Te Whanganui a Tara me ona Takiwa: Report on the Wellington District, Waitangi Tribunal, 2003, chapter 3, pg 57. Among the recipients was Ngāti Tama chief Te Kaeaea (also known as Taringa Kuri, or "Dog's Ear"), then living at Kaiwharawhara in subservience to Te Rauparaha.Taringa Kuri later asserted that he believed he had not alienated any Port Nicholson land to the New Zealand Company and had accepted payment only for anchorage rights in the harbour. See Te Whanganui a Tara me ona Takiwa: Report on the Wellington District, Waitangi Tribunal, 2003, chapter 9, pg 198-199. Ngāti Rangatahi, although it had been in the Heretaunga district seasonally since the early 1830s, was offered nothing, although its territory was included in the purchase. Te Rauparaha, who also saw himself as the owner by right of conquest, objected strongly to the purchases.
New Zealand Company settlers began arriving at Port Nicholson from January 1840 in numbers that shocked Māori, who soon found Pākehā trampling over their homes, gardens and cemeteries, and in places sticking survey pegs in the ground. Taringa Kuri and his Ngati Tama people moved to the Hutt Valley because of incursions on their cultivation land at Kaiwharawhara by settlers and their cattle, while in Porirua Te Rauparaha's nephew and fellow Ngāti Toa chief Te Rangihaeata menaced surveyors and settlers who attempted to take possession of land there.
Spain commission
In January 1841 Secretary of State for War and the Colonies Lord John Russell appointed lawyer William Spain as Land Claims Commissioner to investigate and determine the validity of the New Zealand Company purchases. Spain arrived in Auckland in December and began his hearings into the Port Nicholson dealings in May 1842.
The New Zealand Company frustrated Spain's efforts to make a full investigation of its entitlement to land and in June 1843 it pushed ahead with surveying of the disputed Wairau Plains in the South Island, despite requests by Te Rauparaha and Te Rangihaeata to halt pending Spain's decision on the legality of the purchase. An abortive bid by settlers and company representatives to arrest the two chiefs for impeding them resulted in the bloody Wairau Affray.
In a preliminary report in 1843 Spain stated that many of the Māori taking part in the original Port Nicholson transaction in 1839 would not have understood that by signing the deed they were selling their land, including pā and cultivations. He noted that "the greater portion of the land claimed by the Company in the Port Nicholson district, and also in the district between Port Nicholson and Wanganui, including the latter place, has not been alienated by the natives to the New Zealand Company; and that the other portions of the same districts have been only partially alienated by the natives to that body".
Despite the company's inability to prove it had made a valid purchase of land—and the Treaty of Waitangi's guarantee that Māori would have undisturbed possession of their lands so long as they wished to retain them—Spain in early 1843 ceased public hearings and began serving as an arbitrator or umpire in negotiations between the New Zealand Company and Protector of Aborigines George Clarke Junior on how Māori should be "compensated" for the alienation of their land. Without consulting Māori, the two sides agreed on 29 January 1844 that the New Zealand Company would make a further £1500 payment as compensation "to natives who may be entitled to receive it" for about 67,000 acres, including surveyed sections in the Hutt Valley.
Spain convened a special sitting of the Court of Land Claims at Te Aro pā on 23 February where he informed its occupants of the agreement and asked them to sign deeds of release in exchange for payment. The deeds indicated acceptance of "an absolute surrender of all our title to all our claims in all our lands which are written in the Document" except pā, cultivations, sacred places and reserves. Te Aro Māori demanded further payment, but relented four days later when Ngāti Mutunga chief Pōmare—visiting the area from his new home in the Chatham Islands—advised them to accept the offer. Te Aro gave a third of their £300 payment to Pōmare, who then returned to the Chatham Islands. Another £530 was distributed to Māori of Kumutoto, Pipitea and Tiakiwai pā the same day.The Waitangi Tribunal concluded the arbitration process placed undue pressure on Māori to sign their deeds of release and that those receiving payment "had no meaningful comprehension of the very notion of the 'sale' of land; it was a totally alien concept to them". See Te Whanganui a Tara me ona Takiwa: Report on the Wellington District, Waitangi Tribunal, 2003, chapter 8, The 1844 Deeds of Release, pp. 176-78.
Spain, who in early February had gained in-principle agreement from Te Rauparaha about compensating Ngāti Toa for land at Port Nicholson, met the chief again on 8 and 9 March 1844 at Porirua, this time also with Te Rangihaeata. When he attempted to secure their signatures to a deed of release for their interest in land at Port Nicholson, Te Rauparaha claimed he had previously been unaware it would include payment for Heretaunga, which he now refused to relinquish. Te Rauparaha said he considered "Port Nicholson" to mean all the land seaward of the Rotokakahi Stream, about 2 km up the Heretaunga (Hutt) River. Spain raised his cash offer, offering Te Rauparaha another £100 to compensate for lost crops if he ensured Taringa Kuri left the valley immediately.
Taringa Kuri then began cutting a line through bush at Rotokakahi, warning government officials it was the northern boundary of "Port Nicholson" land for which the New Zealand Company had secured its deeds of settlement. On 12 November, Clarke wrote a document acknowledging the receipt by Te Rauparaha and Te Rangihaeata of the £400 for the "surrender" of Heretaunga. The Waitangi Tribunal noted that the document did not define the boundaries of the land that had been surrendered and gave Ngāti Toa no guarantee of reserves. It said the document was not signed by Te Rangihaeata, who received no share of the money until March 1845. The tribunal said there was no indication Ngāti Tama received any of the £100 compensation for their crops, nor was Ngāti Rangatahi offered or given compensation for being ousted from their land.
From November 1844 the government intensified its efforts to oust Ngāti Tama and Ngāti Rangatahi from the Hutt Valley, for the first time gaining support from Te Rauparaha, who agreed they should leave. But the Hutt Valley Māori reacted with a display of defiance to both Te Rauparaha and the government, expanding their bush clearings and cultivations and protesting that they had never been compensated for their loss of land. Government officials now began to suggest that force might be required to remove them to make way for European settlers.
Tensions escalate