History
The first person to be sentenced to death was a Māori youth named Maketu, who was found guilty of murdering a pakeha shepherd. However, he died of dysentery before the sentence could be carried out. The first person to be executed was Wiremu Kingi Maketu, who was found guilty of murdering five people on Motuarohia Island, in the Bay of Islands. The people killed were Thomas Bull, employed by Elisabeth Roberton, who was also murdered along with her son aged eight, her daughter of two, and a girl of nearly three named Isabella Brind, the natural daughter of one Captain Brind by a Maori woman, the daughter of Rewa, chief of Ngapuhi in that area. Mrs Roberton's husband, Captain John Roberton, had drowned prior in Paroa Bay, just opposite the island. Thomas Bull had a reputation for strength and brutality. He seemed at all times to have made a set at Maketu and had on several occasions struck, thrown, or otherwise maltreated him. Maketu, was unable to defend himself against such an opponent; nor indeed did it conform with his notions of dignity to do so, he being by virtue of his chiefly rank above combat with one who was a servant and whom he therefore regarded on the same plane as a slave. Maketu, therefore, bided his time for revenge. Maketu then killed Thomas Bull in the night with an axe; he then brutally murdered Mrs Roberton, who was shouting abuse at him and then went to murder the two girls (ransacking the house and then burning Mrs Roberton and the two children within it). The boy ran up Pa Hill, where Maketu chased him and threw him off the 200 ft cliff. He was sentenced to death by an all-white jury (his defence had wanted a half-white, half-Māori jury) in an Auckland court, and executed in March 1842.
All the people executed were men, except Minnie Dean, found guilty of infanticide in 1895, and all were convicted of murder, except for Hamiora Pere, convicted of treason. The last person to be executed was Walter James Bolton, for poisoning his wife, on February 18, 1957.
Read more about this topic: Capital Punishment In New Zealand
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