Spotlight on NZ

The 'Hell hole of the South Pacific'

Frances Manwaring | 10 November 2009 | 28 Comments

Kororareka (now Russell) was the stomping ground for whalers and pirates in the early days of European involvement with New Zealand and gained a reputation as a den of iniquity, full of bawdy houses and grog shops. 

"Of all the vile holes I ever visited this is certainly the vilest.  It consists of some 20 cottages (some tolerably good ones) exclusive of native huts standing on a shingly bank of some very small extent, backed by a nasty fetid morass, five times as large as the space which the "Town" covers, immediately behind which the hills rise steep and abrupt, covered with coarse fern and dwarf cypress, and looking as barren and inhospitable as can be conceived.  Of the Town it is impossible to speak in terms which can convey an adequate idea of my disgust - the half-drunken, devil-may-care sort of look of the European inhabitants, and the squalid, debased appearance of the natives form a tout ensemble which has certainly produced anything but a pleasing impression on me."

When the H.M.S. Herald dropped anchor in Kororareka Bay in January 1840 bringing Captain William Hobson to New Zealand as British Consul and ultimately Lieutenant-Governor, his Surveyor General, Felton Mathew, was scathing about his first impressions, noted above.  Mathew was not alone in this opinion.   Five years earlier, Charles Darwin had visited the country on the Beagle, noting in his diary,

"All on board were glad to leave.  New Zealand was not a pleasant place...absent among the Māori is the charming simplicity found at Tahiti, and of the English, the majority are the very refuse of society."

A dependency of New South Wales since 1914, New Zealand was considered at the time to be one of the toughest places in the world to live.   The governors of New South Wales had enough problems on their own doorstep without worrying about the two relatively unimportant islands several thousand kilometers away.  As a consequence, feuding and lawlessness prevailed and justice was summarily dispensed by vigilantes, if at all. 

In addition to the "white trash" actually living in the town, at any time there might also be up to 1,000 sailors of many different nationalities from the ships at anchor in the Bay of Islands rampaging around, intoxicated on the wares pedalled by the numerous 'grog' shops.  Kororareka offered many of the other trappings of 'civilisation', with five hotels, a theatre, billiard halls, skittle alleys and gambling houses and several brothels.  Paradoxically, there was also a Protestant church where the law-abiding citizens could presumably pray for the souls and improved behaviour of their wayward fellow citizens. 

Augustus Earle in A Narrative of Nine Months Residence in New Zealand in 1827 painted a vivid picture of these lowlife elements, including runaway convicts from New South Wales who "are idle, unprincipled and vicious in the extreme and are much feared in the Bay of Islands: for when by any means they obtain liquor they prove themselves most dangerous neighbours," and "Beach Rangers; most of whom have deserted from, or been turned out of, whalers for crimes which, if they had been taken home and tried, they would have been hanged." 

From the time of James Cook's first arrival in New Zealand on HMS Endeavour in 1769, there had been increasing contact between European ships and sailors and the indigenous Māori population. Other than convicts escaping from Australia and shipwrecked or deserting sailors who sought refuge amongst the Māori tribes, the first European settlers in New Zealand were looking for commercial opportunities, sealskins, the native kauri timber for ships spars, New Zealand flax and whale oil all offered lucrative trading possibilities.  

Since it's inception as a penal colony in 1788, Sydney had become a base for whaling in the South Pacific.  Kororareka was a favoured stopping-off place for British, American and French whalers.  Many of the Sydney whaling operations also established tiny whaling communities around the New Zealand shoreline.  Mercantile businesses sprang up to supply the whalers and a growing number of other ships stopping for provisions and repairs, many of the commodities provided by the Māori tribes.  Mahurangi, the Hauraki Gulf, Tauranga, Cloudy Bay and Hokianga were well-established ports by the 1830s.

During 1838, 131 vessels were known to have visited the Bay of Islands: 56 American, 23 English, 21 French, 24 from New South Wales, 1 German and 6 from New Zealand itself.  By that time, the Māori people had already been in contact with European ships and seamen for more than fifty years.  Growing numbers of British migrants arrived in New Zealand in the late 1830s, and there were plans for extensive settlement.  By 1840, New Zealand had a European resident population of some 2,000; about half of this number being estimated to be living at Kororareka.  The overwhelming majority of the 'Pakeha' setters were British, with two other significant national groupings of about 50 Americans and 20 French.   During this decade there were large-scale transactions with Maori for land, unruly behaviour from some settlers and signs that the French were interested in annexing New Zealand.  The British government was initially unwilling to act, but it eventually realised that annexing the country could protect Maori, regulate British subjects and secure commercial interests.

Lieutenant-Governor William Hobson had the task of securing British sovereignty over New Zealand. He relied on the advice and support of, among others, James Busby, the British Resident in New Zealand and the end result was The Treaty of Waitangi, New Zealand's founding document.  It takes its name from the place in the Bay of Islands where it was first signed, on 6 February 1840. This day is now a public holiday in New Zealand - Waitangi Day. The Treaty is an agreement, in Maori and English, that was made between the British Crown and about 540 Maori rangatira (chiefs).The Treaty was prepared in just a few days, then missionary Henry Williams and his son Edward translated the English draft into Maori overnight on 4 February. About 500 Maori debated the document for a day and a night before it was signed on 6 February. 

Ultimately the new colony's centre of commerce and politics moved away from the Bay of Islands to Auckland, then Wellington, and the Bay of Islands nowadays bears little resemmblance to its earlier incarnation.  A more picturesque place it's hard to find; cute old world charm rubbing shoulders with a thoroughly contemporary lifestyle.  It's a fantastic place to visit with great sailing, diving and visitor attractions.  Relaxing also comes naturally there - sitting on a deckdrinking in views that are truly breathtaking, perhaps watching bottle-nosed dolphins frolicing or doing whatever dolphins do, in the sparkling, crystal clear waters of the bay.  Or following boats as they cross your field of vision, disappearing behind the myriad of small, sandy ringed crags that give the place its name.  Add a chllled glass of one of the great New Zealand wines - somthing like West Brook's magnificent Barrique Fermented Chardonnay which took out the Wine of the Show Award at the New Zealand International Wine Show this year - to complete the picture.

Doesn't get much better...cheers!

 

Tags: New Zealand, New Zealand History, Russell, Bay of Islands, Treaty of Waitangi, Maori