The Wairau Affray 1843

This brief New Zealand Wars | Ngā Pakanga o Aotearoa affray was also known as the 'Wairau incident’ and earlier, 'Wairau Massacre'. The fatal fight between Māori and British settlers in Marlborough was the first after the signing of the 1840 Treaty of Waitangi. SCIS no. 1965908

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Images
Gold, Charles Emilius, 1809-1871: Wairau April 1851.
Gold, Charles Emilius, 1809-1871: Wairau April 1851.
Shows a view looking west over the Wairau Plain with the Tuamarina Stream winding across it. In the foreground is a fenced grave, that of the Pakeha participants of the 'Wairau Affray' of 17 June 1...
Articles
Te Rauparaha’s Account of the Wairau Affray
Te Rauparaha, a Ngati Toa chief, was one of the key figures of the Wairau Affray. Blamed by the Europeans for a massacre, Te Rauparaha provides the Maori story of the incident.
Images
Wairau affray
This information panel at Tuamarina explains the background to the confrontation between settlers and Māori which took place there on 17 June 1843. At least 26 people died in the incident.
Images
Site of Wairau affray
Site of Wairau affray
This benign pastoral setting at Tuamarina was the site of a bloody episode in June 1843 when a law enforcement posse from the year-old Nelson settlement clashed with Ngāti Toa leader Te Rauparaha a...
Newspapers
WAIRAU AFFRAY. (From the London "Spectator," Dec. 16.) (Daily Southern Cross, 15 June 1844)
Images
[Gold, Charles Emilius] 1809-1871 :Scene of the Wairau Massacre, New Zealand [April 1851]
[Gold, Charles Emilius] 1809-1871 :Scene of the Wairau Massacre, New Zealand [April 1851]
Shows a Maori warrior in the centre foreground, walking in a partly crouched position through low bushy growth, towards the right. He wears a feather cloak and carries a spear. To the left is a str...
Newspapers
WAIRAU AFFRAY. (Daily Southern Cross, 23 March 1844)
Articles
The Wairau incident
Four Māori and 22 Europeans were killed in the first violent clash between Māori and Pākehā since the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi.
Images
Liardet, Wilbraham Frederick Evelyn 1799-1878 :[Scene of the Wairau Massacre at Tuamarina, Blenheim. 1866?]
Liardet, Wilbraham Frederick Evelyn 1799-1878 :[Scene of the Wairau Massacre at Tuamarina, Blenheim. 1866?]
Flax and toitoi in the foreground, a group of Pakeha and Maori to the right, the Tuamarina Hotel with verandah and a shed in the middle ground, the Picton-Blenheim road with horse-drawn carriage, t...
Newspapers
WAIRAU—THE GRAVES. (New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, 12 September 1849)
Newspapers
ACCOUNT OF THE MASSACRE OF WAIRAU, AND SUBSEQUFNT EVENTS. (New Zealand Gazette and Wellington Spectator, 02 September 1843)
Other
Samuel Ironside
Samuel Ironside
Missionary Samuel Ironside carried out a burial service for those Pakeha killed in the Wairau Affray. The dead were buried in a "large, deep grave...in sadness and tears".
Images
Nelson Haven, November 1841
Nelson Haven, November 1841
This watercolour by Charles Heaphy shows the three ships of the New Zealand Company's expedition to chose a site for its second settlement, Will Watch, Whitby and Arrow, anchored in Nelson Haven. ...
Images
Charles Heaphy, 'Part of Lambton Harbour'
Charles Heaphy, 'Part of Lambton Harbour'
Charles Heaphy was employed by the New Zealand Company as a draughtsman. He drew this image of Lambton Quay and Wellington Harbour in April 1841, and it was published by the company the following y...
Images
Hall, R :Rangihaeta, Raparaha's fighting general and chief actor in the Wairau Massacre [After Isaac Coates, painted after 1843]
Hall, R :Rangihaeta, Raparaha's fighting general and chief actor in the Wairau Massacre [After Isaac Coates, painted after 1843]
Shows head and shoulders profile of left side of this Maori chief, with hair pulled back and with decorative rolls. He wears feathers including a peacock feather in his hair, and wears large albatr...
Images
William Wakefield
William Wakefield
William Wakefield was responsible for a number of pre-Treaty purchases by the New Zealand Company which were drawn up at Port Nicholson (Wellington Harbour). This sketch shows him at his 1826 trial...
Images
Edward Gibbon Wakefield, 1823
Edward Gibbon Wakefield, 1823
Etching of Edward Gibbon Wakefield
Other
FitzRoy, Robert
A brief biography of Robert FitzRoy
Images
Wairau affray: Arthur Wakefield
Captain Arthur Wakefield
Captain Arthur Wakefield was the New Zealand Company's Nelson agent. He was also the brother of Colonel William Wakefield, Principal Agent for the New Zealand Company. Shortly before Capt. Wakefie...
Images
Saxton, John Waring 1806-1866 :The town and part of the harbour of Nelson in 1842, about a year after its first foundation / drawn by John Saxton Esqr; Day & Haghe lithrs. London, Smith Elder & Co., [1845]. [Central section]
A plan for more land
It seems extraordinary but by 1843 settlers in Nelson were running out of flat arable land to take up as farm lots. However, Captain Arthur Wakefield had a solution. There was plenty of, fertile la...
Newspapers
Utu
At Fitzroy’s Waikanae inquiry in 1844, the Ngati Toa leader, Te Rauparaha told Fitzroy. “It is not our custom in war to save the chiefs of our enemies. We do not consider our victory complete unles...
Newspapers
Captain Fitzroy leaves New Zealand
“No other man could have demolished a character and the remains of a colony, in so short a time as Captain Fitzroy has done. The prestige of a new Governor vanished in a fortnight, or rather prostr...
Images
Wairau Plain.
Wairau Plains
New Zealand governor, Robert Fitzroy, had a lot on his plate when he arrived in Aotearoa New Zealand late 1843. Barely 5 months earlier the Wairau Affray had left 22 Pakeha settlers dead. The new c...
Articles
Wairau incident memorial
A memorial at the Tuamarina cemetery was erected in 1869 to commemorate the 1843 Wairau incident.
Videos
Trouble at Tuamarina – roadside stories
A sleepy settlement between Picton and Blenheim, Tuamarina was the site of bloody Wairau Affray in June 1843.
Articles
Wairau Affray
In New Zealand history, the Wairau Affray on June 17, 1843, was the first serious clash of arms between the Māori natives and the British settlers after the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi.
Articles
Te Rauparaha Part 3: Wairau
Although the first settlers to arrive at Wellington in 1840 were favourably received by the Māori, some of the chiefs soon realized with feelings of apprehension that these ever increasing Pakeha w...
Books
The most important event in New Zealand during Mr. Shortland’s administration was the Wairau Affray at Tuamarina
A detailed Pakeha account of the Wairau affray taken from, ‘History of New Zealand [Vol. I to 1861]’ by Alfred Saunders.
Articles
Pivotal piece of colonial history explored in a moving and sensitive way
Like much of our nation's history, the Wairau massacre either draws a blank for many New Zealanders or is retold as a one-sided and unprovoked attack on innocent settlers
Newspapers
Original correspondence
A letter to the editor commenting on the events of the ‘Wairau massacre’ that notes “justice to those who have so few friends to plead their cause, demands, that the Māori statement of the case, sh...
Websites
WWW
EPIC
Find more information about the Wairau Affray using EPIC databases like New Zealand Geographic, Australia New Zealand Reference Plus centre and The New Zealand History Collection. School login requ...
Articles
Te Rauparaha’s account of the Wairau Affray
An account of the Wairau Affray proceedings at the Waikanae hui between Fitzroy, Ngai Toa and its chiefs Rauparaha and Rangihaeata.
Articles
Wairau Affray
Time to look back at the Wairau Affray with 'compassionate mindset.'
Audio
Sally Burton's rendition of the notorious Wairau Incident
Nelson artist Sally Burton has re-created the moment when a shot was fired, killing a member of Te Rauparaha's family, which in turn led to the death of another 25 people.
Books
The New Zealand Company
Edward Jerningham Wakefields book about his time (1839 – 1844) with the New Zealand Company in New Zealand.
Articles
Edward Gibbon Wakefield
The driving force in Edward Gibbon Wakefield's life was his appetite for power and influence.
Articles
The New Zealand Company
The New Zealand Company, a commercial enterprise formed in Britain, dispatched an expedition to establish its second New Zealand settlement, to be named Nelson, in 1841.
Articles
The Blenkinsop Indenture
The story of the 1832 deed for the purchase of the Wairau valley from Ngāti Toa by Captain John William Dundas Blenkinsop.
Articles
Dirty deeds done dirt cheap! part two
The 1832 deed for the purchase of the Wairau valley from Ngāti Toa by Captain John William Dundas Blenkinsop.
Articles
The Wairau Affray of 1843 was the first of many land wars in New Zealand
Exemplar for internal assessment resource: History for Achievement Standard 91435.
Articles
Te Rangihaeata
Te Rangihaeata, born probably in the 1780s in the Kawhia district, was a leader of Ngati Toa.
Articles
Te Rauparaha
Te Rauparaha was the son of Werawera, of Ngati Toa, and his second wife, Parekowhatu (Parekohatu), of Ngati Raukawa. He is said to have been a boy when Captain James Cook was in New Zealand.
Images
Wairau Incident
This record is from a Colonial Secretary's file of depositions given by witnesses of the event. It is the front page of the deposition given by George White Bennett, manager of a whaling station at...
Articles
An Alistair Paterson poem
A poem titled Bend of the river about the Wairau incident, 17 June 1843.
Newspapers
The Wairau massacre, the story of a survivor. Part 1
A detailed account by Mr. Eugene Bellairs, one of the survivors of the Wairau massacre, of 1843.
Images
Te Rauparaha
Te Rauparaha
In this 1840s image of Ngāti Toa leader Te Rauparaha, he wears a feather in his hair and a pōhoi (feather-ball earring). Te Rauparaha is famous for the role he played during the musket wars. His br...
Images
New Zealand Company expedition
New Zealand Company expedition
From the late 1830s the British-based New Zealand Company actively recruited settlers to colonise New Zealand. Its first settlement was in Te Whanganui-a-Tara, which settlers called Port Nicholson ...
Images
The monument at Wairau
The monument at Wairau
The monument at Wairau, Nelson to the settlers killed by Māori in the Wairau affray. Inset is a picture of houses in Wairau valley.
Images
Gold, Charles Emilius, 1809-1871: Wairau April 1851.
Gold, Charles Emilius, 1809-1871: Wairau April 1851.
Shows a view looking west over the Wairau Plain with the Tuamarina Stream winding across it. In the foreground is a fenced grave, that of the Pakeha participants of the 'Wairau Affray' of 17 June 1...
Articles
Te Rauparaha’s Account of the Wairau Affray
Te Rauparaha, a Ngati Toa chief, was one of the key figures of the Wairau Affray. Blamed by the Europeans for a massacre, Te Rauparaha provides the Maori story of the incident.
Images
Wairau affray
This information panel at Tuamarina explains the background to the confrontation between settlers and Māori which took place there on 17 June 1843. At least 26 people died in the incident.
Images
Site of Wairau affray
Site of Wairau affray
This benign pastoral setting at Tuamarina was the site of a bloody episode in June 1843 when a law enforcement posse from the year-old Nelson settlement clashed with Ngāti Toa leader Te Rauparaha a...
Newspapers
WAIRAU AFFRAY. (From the London "Spectator," Dec. 16.) (Daily Southern Cross, 15 June 1844)
Images
[Gold, Charles Emilius] 1809-1871 :Scene of the Wairau Massacre, New Zealand [April 1851]
[Gold, Charles Emilius] 1809-1871 :Scene of the Wairau Massacre, New Zealand [April 1851]
Shows a Maori warrior in the centre foreground, walking in a partly crouched position through low bushy growth, towards the right. He wears a feather cloak and carries a spear. To the left is a str...
Newspapers
WAIRAU AFFRAY. (Daily Southern Cross, 23 March 1844)
Articles
The Wairau incident
Four Māori and 22 Europeans were killed in the first violent clash between Māori and Pākehā since the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi.
Images
Liardet, Wilbraham Frederick Evelyn 1799-1878 :[Scene of the Wairau Massacre at Tuamarina, Blenheim. 1866?]
Liardet, Wilbraham Frederick Evelyn 1799-1878 :[Scene of the Wairau Massacre at Tuamarina, Blenheim. 1866?]
Flax and toitoi in the foreground, a group of Pakeha and Maori to the right, the Tuamarina Hotel with verandah and a shed in the middle ground, the Picton-Blenheim road with horse-drawn carriage, t...
Newspapers
WAIRAU—THE GRAVES. (New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, 12 September 1849)
Newspapers
ACCOUNT OF THE MASSACRE OF WAIRAU, AND SUBSEQUFNT EVENTS. (New Zealand Gazette and Wellington Spectator, 02 September 1843)
Other
Samuel Ironside
Samuel Ironside
Missionary Samuel Ironside carried out a burial service for those Pakeha killed in the Wairau Affray. The dead were buried in a "large, deep grave...in sadness and tears".
Images
Nelson Haven, November 1841
Nelson Haven, November 1841
This watercolour by Charles Heaphy shows the three ships of the New Zealand Company's expedition to chose a site for its second settlement, Will Watch, Whitby and Arrow, anchored in Nelson Haven. ...
Images
Charles Heaphy, 'Part of Lambton Harbour'
Charles Heaphy, 'Part of Lambton Harbour'
Charles Heaphy was employed by the New Zealand Company as a draughtsman. He drew this image of Lambton Quay and Wellington Harbour in April 1841, and it was published by the company the following y...
Images
Hall, R :Rangihaeta, Raparaha's fighting general and chief actor in the Wairau Massacre [After Isaac Coates, painted after 1843]
Hall, R :Rangihaeta, Raparaha's fighting general and chief actor in the Wairau Massacre [After Isaac Coates, painted after 1843]
Shows head and shoulders profile of left side of this Maori chief, with hair pulled back and with decorative rolls. He wears feathers including a peacock feather in his hair, and wears large albatr...
Images
William Wakefield
William Wakefield
William Wakefield was responsible for a number of pre-Treaty purchases by the New Zealand Company which were drawn up at Port Nicholson (Wellington Harbour). This sketch shows him at his 1826 trial...
Images
Edward Gibbon Wakefield, 1823
Edward Gibbon Wakefield, 1823
Etching of Edward Gibbon Wakefield
Other
FitzRoy, Robert
A brief biography of Robert FitzRoy
Images
Wairau affray: Arthur Wakefield
Captain Arthur Wakefield
Captain Arthur Wakefield was the New Zealand Company's Nelson agent. He was also the brother of Colonel William Wakefield, Principal Agent for the New Zealand Company. Shortly before Capt. Wakefie...
Images
Saxton, John Waring 1806-1866 :The town and part of the harbour of Nelson in 1842, about a year after its first foundation / drawn by John Saxton Esqr; Day & Haghe lithrs. London, Smith Elder & Co., [1845]. [Central section]
A plan for more land
It seems extraordinary but by 1843 settlers in Nelson were running out of flat arable land to take up as farm lots. However, Captain Arthur Wakefield had a solution. There was plenty of, fertile la...
Newspapers
Utu
At Fitzroy’s Waikanae inquiry in 1844, the Ngati Toa leader, Te Rauparaha told Fitzroy. “It is not our custom in war to save the chiefs of our enemies. We do not consider our victory complete unles...
Newspapers
Captain Fitzroy leaves New Zealand
“No other man could have demolished a character and the remains of a colony, in so short a time as Captain Fitzroy has done. The prestige of a new Governor vanished in a fortnight, or rather prostr...
Images
Wairau Plain.
Wairau Plains
New Zealand governor, Robert Fitzroy, had a lot on his plate when he arrived in Aotearoa New Zealand late 1843. Barely 5 months earlier the Wairau Affray had left 22 Pakeha settlers dead. The new c...
Articles
Wairau incident memorial
A memorial at the Tuamarina cemetery was erected in 1869 to commemorate the 1843 Wairau incident.
Videos
Trouble at Tuamarina – roadside stories
A sleepy settlement between Picton and Blenheim, Tuamarina was the site of bloody Wairau Affray in June 1843.
Articles
Wairau Affray
In New Zealand history, the Wairau Affray on June 17, 1843, was the first serious clash of arms between the Māori natives and the British settlers after the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi.
Articles
Te Rauparaha Part 3: Wairau
Although the first settlers to arrive at Wellington in 1840 were favourably received by the Māori, some of the chiefs soon realized with feelings of apprehension that these ever increasing Pakeha w...
Books
The most important event in New Zealand during Mr. Shortland’s administration was the Wairau Affray at Tuamarina
A detailed Pakeha account of the Wairau affray taken from, ‘History of New Zealand [Vol. I to 1861]’ by Alfred Saunders.
Articles
Pivotal piece of colonial history explored in a moving and sensitive way
Like much of our nation's history, the Wairau massacre either draws a blank for many New Zealanders or is retold as a one-sided and unprovoked attack on innocent settlers
Newspapers
Original correspondence
A letter to the editor commenting on the events of the ‘Wairau massacre’ that notes “justice to those who have so few friends to plead their cause, demands, that the Māori statement of the case, sh...
Websites
WWW
EPIC
Find more information about the Wairau Affray using EPIC databases like New Zealand Geographic, Australia New Zealand Reference Plus centre and The New Zealand History Collection. School login requ...
Articles
Te Rauparaha’s account of the Wairau Affray
An account of the Wairau Affray proceedings at the Waikanae hui between Fitzroy, Ngai Toa and its chiefs Rauparaha and Rangihaeata.
Articles
Wairau Affray
Time to look back at the Wairau Affray with 'compassionate mindset.'
Audio
Sally Burton's rendition of the notorious Wairau Incident
Nelson artist Sally Burton has re-created the moment when a shot was fired, killing a member of Te Rauparaha's family, which in turn led to the death of another 25 people.
Books
The New Zealand Company
Edward Jerningham Wakefields book about his time (1839 – 1844) with the New Zealand Company in New Zealand.
Articles
Edward Gibbon Wakefield
The driving force in Edward Gibbon Wakefield's life was his appetite for power and influence.
Articles
The New Zealand Company
The New Zealand Company, a commercial enterprise formed in Britain, dispatched an expedition to establish its second New Zealand settlement, to be named Nelson, in 1841.
Articles
The Blenkinsop Indenture
The story of the 1832 deed for the purchase of the Wairau valley from Ngāti Toa by Captain John William Dundas Blenkinsop.
Articles
Dirty deeds done dirt cheap! part two
The 1832 deed for the purchase of the Wairau valley from Ngāti Toa by Captain John William Dundas Blenkinsop.
Articles
The Wairau Affray of 1843 was the first of many land wars in New Zealand
Exemplar for internal assessment resource: History for Achievement Standard 91435.
Articles
Te Rangihaeata
Te Rangihaeata, born probably in the 1780s in the Kawhia district, was a leader of Ngati Toa.
Articles
Te Rauparaha
Te Rauparaha was the son of Werawera, of Ngati Toa, and his second wife, Parekowhatu (Parekohatu), of Ngati Raukawa. He is said to have been a boy when Captain James Cook was in New Zealand.
Images
Wairau Incident
This record is from a Colonial Secretary's file of depositions given by witnesses of the event. It is the front page of the deposition given by George White Bennett, manager of a whaling station at...
Articles
An Alistair Paterson poem
A poem titled Bend of the river about the Wairau incident, 17 June 1843.
Newspapers
The Wairau massacre, the story of a survivor. Part 1
A detailed account by Mr. Eugene Bellairs, one of the survivors of the Wairau massacre, of 1843.
Images
Te Rauparaha
Te Rauparaha
In this 1840s image of Ngāti Toa leader Te Rauparaha, he wears a feather in his hair and a pōhoi (feather-ball earring). Te Rauparaha is famous for the role he played during the musket wars. His br...
Images
New Zealand Company expedition
New Zealand Company expedition
From the late 1830s the British-based New Zealand Company actively recruited settlers to colonise New Zealand. Its first settlement was in Te Whanganui-a-Tara, which settlers called Port Nicholson ...
Images
The monument at Wairau
The monument at Wairau
The monument at Wairau, Nelson to the settlers killed by Māori in the Wairau affray. Inset is a picture of houses in Wairau valley.

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Top results for The Wairau Affray 1843 from DigitalNZ

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Cairn commemorating the Wairau Affray, 1967
Cairn commemorating the Wairau Affray, 1967

The cairn marking the site of the Wairau Affray, 1843

images
Wairau affray, 1843
Wairau affray, 1843

Relations between Māori and Europeans were badly shaken by the 'Wairau affray' of June 1843. A group of Europeans led...

stories
The Wairau Affray 1843
The Wairau Affray 1843

This brief New Zealand Wars | Ngā Pakanga o Aotearoa affray was also known as the 'Wairau incident’ and earlier,...

other
Wairau affray

This information panel at Tuamarina explains the background to the confrontation between settlers and Māori which...

See all 29 related entries on DigitalNZ

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