Escape
Expecting a resupply boat, Te Kooti prophesied that two boats would soon arrive to take them off the island. On July 4, 1868, Te Kooti led a dramatic prison break, and with 168 other prisoners seized the schooner Rifleman, with supplies and rifles, scuttled another vessel and set off back to the North Island. This was a bloodless coup, on Te Kooti's strict orders, except for one Chatham Island sergeant who was killed because of a personal grievance. The Pākehā sailors were allowed to live and set sail for the coast of New Zealand with help from the Māori. The sailors attempted to sail towards Wellington, but with Te Kooti's expertise at sailing were caught and told they would be thrown overboard if they did not keep a course for the East Coast. On the fourth day at sea, the ship was becalmed and Te Kooti declared that a sacrifice was needed. Te Kooti had his uncle thrown overboard and soon afterwards the ship made headway again.
Upon their arrival at Whareongaonga in Poverty Bay, Te Kooti asked the Māori King Movement and the Tuhoe tribes for refuge but was rejected. He also sought dialogue with the colonial government but was rebuffed. He sent a statement to the effect that if the government wanted a war, he would give it to them in November.
Read more about this topic: Te Kooti
Famous quotes containing the word escape:
“Hell is oneself,
Hell is alone, the other figures in it
Merely projections. There is nothing to escape from
And nothing to escape to. One is always alone.”
—T.S. (Thomas Stearns)
“It was at a particular moment in the history of my own rages that I saw the Western world conditioned by the images of Marx, Darwin and Freud; and Marx, Darwin and Freud are the three most crashing bores of the Western world. The simplistic popularization of their ideas has thrust our world into a mental straitjacket from which we can only escape by the most anarchic violence.”
—William Golding (b. 1911)
“The glory of my name increases my shame. Less known by mortals, I could better escape their eyes.”
—Jean Racine (16391699)