NZ history - the first hanging

On the 7th of March, 1842, 16 year old Maketū Wharetōtara became the first person to be hanged in New Zealand.

At his trial, he would not confess to the killing of five people on the 20th of November 1841, while he was working on Motuarohia Island (Bay of Islands).

• Thomas Bull (fellow farm worker)
• Elizabeth Roberton (his employer)
• Elizabeth's two children
• Eliza Isabella Brind¹ (possibly being fostered by Mrs Roberton)

It was said that Maketū used an adze to kill Thomas Bull, who had supposedly been mistreating him both verbally and physically. For Maketū it had been a matter of mana (honour).

a Toki - stone halfded adze (axe), 19th century
image source
It was also alleged that Mrs Roberton (a widow) had sworn at Maketū, and this was why she had been killed. It was never understood why the Roberton children or the girl Isabella Brind were also targeted. Maketū had even gone so far as to set the Roberton house on fire, which burned the bodies inside.

It was only on the morning of his hanging, when he also asked to be baptised into the Anglican faith and thus able to ask God to forgive his sin, that he acknowledged what was about to befall him:

"it is my own doing"³.

From a newspaper account, dated 26 March 1842 (the reporter may have waxed a little lyrical in his recounting):

The prisoner, a fine young man, whose stature was upwards of six -feet, was brought from the condemned cell soon after 12 o'clock, to the press-room. Here the precept was read to him, and interpreted by Mr. Moraunt. He was dressed in a blue blanket, of native manufacture, and exhibited the peculiarly dignified demeanor and appearance for which the native chiefs are so peculiarly distinguished.⁴

In no accounts I have read (see bibliography list) did it mention Maketū himself being a chief. This would most certainly have complicated matters even more than they already were. His father, however was a chief - named Ruhe². We can assume, though, that Maketū would have been in line to eventually become chief.

Queen Street, in the 1850s
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the beginning of a Maori Messenger newspaper report on the incident, published 1 January 1842
image source
Matters were complicated by the fact that Maketū had murdered Isabella, as she was the granddaughter of another chief - Rewa, who could have demanded utu (retribution), and which could then have sparked an inter-tribal war. It was likely for this reason that Maketū's father Ruhe gave him up to the Government. A (translated) public statement was published in the newspaper stating the tribe's position.

full transcript in source link
source

After the hanging, there was some debate over the legalities of the government's stance vs Maori sovereignty and whether the decision had overstepped the Treat of Waitangi boundaries; but in the end the government held firm in its position that it had seen justice upheld.

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Endnotes

1. Eliza Isabella Brind's father was Captain William Darby Brind, a whaler and master mariner who settled in New Zealand. He took a chief's daughter - Moewaka - for his wife and was famously known for sparking the Girls' War in 1830.
2. Ruhe was apparently so heartbroken over the death of his son, that in 1865 he committed suicide. Ruhe was also one of the chiefs who had signed the Treaty of Waitangi in 1840, although he was opposed to it.

References

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiremu_K%C4%ABngi_Maket%C5%AB
2. https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/NZGWS18420326.2.4

Bibliography
https://nzhistory.govt.nz/first-official-execution-in-new-zealand

https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/MMTKM18420101.2.3

https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/NZGWS18420326.2.4

https://nzhistory.govt.nz/politics/treaty/signatory/1-29

https://nzhistory.govt.nz/culture/the-death-penalty/the-first-execution

https://www.nzgeo.com/stories/the-queen-of-streets/

http://www.nzlii.org/nz/cases/NZLostC/1842/3.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Girls%27_War

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruhe_(M%C4%81ori_chief)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Darby_Brind

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiremu_K%C4%ABngi_Maket%C5%AB

http://maoridictionary.co.nz/word/8937