Death
The Chief Magistrate in Nelson, Henry Thompson, was a very hot-tempered, arrogant man who was not prepared to accept that the Nelson settlement did not own and control the Wairau Plains. Te Rauparaha and Te Rangihaeata visited Nelson and made it very clear that they would not allow the settlers to occupy the Wairau Plain. Despite that, Wakefield and Thompson sent out surveyors. The Māori very firmly, but without violence, escorted them off their land and burnt down their hut.
Thompson immediately issued a warrant for the arrest of the two chiefs on a charge of arson. He and Wakefield then recruited a group of special constables and led them off to carry out the arrest. The result was the Wairau Affray, in which Arthur Wakefield and 21 other of the party were killed by the Māori.
It is difficult to apportion the blame for this disaster. Henry Thompson appears to have been the driving force behind the attempt to arrest Te Rauparaha and he already had a reputation for headstrong, irrational impulses. But Wakefield was supposed to be in command of the settlement. His brother had told him that the claim to land was invalid. It seems that he yielded to the pressures and expectations of the people around him and particularly to Thompson. If he had been a stronger man, if he had listened to his conscience rather than expediency, he would not have died at Wairau. And yet he could hardly have been a weak man, having been an officer in the British Navy for many years and had risen to command his own ship with apparent success. He had seen a great deal of active service and he should have recognized the folly of accosting Te Rauparaha and his warriors at Wairau.
The subsequent government inquiry found the whole expedition had been illegal and exonerated the Māori. This did not sit well with the colonists, who immediately began a political campaign against Governor Robert FitzRoy that contributed to his early dismissal.
The new settlement is now a thriving city, while a few kilometres away is the community of Wakefield.
Read more about this topic: Arthur Wakefield
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