The Sealers' War, also known as the "War of the Shirt", was a conflict in southern New Zealand started in 1810 by a Māori chief's theft of a red shirt, a knife and some other articles from the sealing vessel the Sydney Cove in Otago Harbour, and the excessive revenge of unidentified Europeans from the ship. Many of its events have long been known to European historians, though not its original cause, giving rise to the view it was the product of a supposedly treacherous nature of the Māori.[1] After much speculation its true cause was revealed by the discovery of the Creed manuscript in 2003, recording the views of Māori who were alive at the time of the events.[2]
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Late in 1810 the Sydney Cove, a big English sealer, was anchored in Otago Harbour while its crew were at Cape Saunders on the Otago Peninsula about their work. Māori were in the habit of visiting such vessels to trade for pork and potatoes and a Māori chief, Te Wareripirau according to one of Creed's informants, Te Wahia according to the other, stole the red shirt, the knife and the other things. Later some of the sailors "fell upon" Te Wahia with cutlasses "who fled from them with his bowels protruding through the wound in the side" and died. "The Europeans fled, ship & boats to the Molyneux" - the modern Clutha River Mouth - where they attacked and killed another chief Te Pahi. In the same place they left a boy, in fact James Caddell,[3] known to New Zealand history as a Pākehā-Māori.
At Waipapa Point one of the Sydney Cove's gangs landed and proceeded overland to the Mataura mouth but were there surprised and killed by Māori under Honegai. The Sydney Cove paused at Stewart Island before continuing its voyage. Men from the Brothers who had been in the vicinity of Otago Harbour proceeded south late in 1810 seeking a passing ship to take them back to Sydney but four of their number were surprised and killed, apparently just because they were Europeans in the wrong place at the wrong time.[4]
These tensions still existed when six lascars, Indian seamen, from the Matilda, Captain Fowler, absconded from her in a long boat somewhere on the south west coast in 1814. Encountering Māori, apparently at Dusky Sound three were killed and eaten and the others enslaved. The Matilda went on to Stewart Island and from there sent Robert Brown in an open boat to look for the missing men. He came up the east coast and touched at Cape Saunders before going on up the coast to a point some eight miles north of Moeraki. There he and his seven companions hauled the boat ashore and went to sleep under it but were seen by Māori and attacked. All but two were killed and eaten the others fleeing through the night to what is now Bobby's Head near the Pleasant Valley. Māori there first entertained them but when other Māori arrived who had taken part in the earlier attack, after a discussion, the two survivors were killed and eaten too. The mere, greenstone club, used to dispatch one of them was long remembered. Meanwhile Fowler brought the Matilda into Otago Harbour where he had a friendly reception which he later reported as a corrective to the view Māori were hostile to Europeans and unlikely candidates for conversion to Christianity.[5]
The following year, 1815, William Tucker who had been in the Otago Harbour area as early as 1809, landed again from a Hobart sealer and settled at Whareakeake, later called Murdering Beach. He kept goats and sheep, had a Māori wife, but no children, built a house (or houses) and apparently set up an export trade in ornamental hei-tiki - jade neck pendants made from old adzes. He left but returned, apparently with other Europeans meaning to settle, on the Sophia, a Hobart sealer commanded by James Kelly. The Sophia anchored in Otago Harbour and Tucker - "Taka" to Māori - was well-received but the harbour chief Korako wouldn't ferry across other Māori from Whareakeake who wished to be first among those to receive the returning Tucker's gifts. This was late in 1817. Two or three days later Kelly went to visit Whareakeake in an open boat, with Tucker and five others, having been persuaded by Tucker not to take their firearms. At Whareakeake they had a friendly reception and encountered one of the Matilda's lascars, an Indian seaman who told them of his countrymen's fate.It seems Tucker had gone in to his house but Kelly was attacked, at the instigation of the Whareakeake chief Te Matahaere. In the ensuing melee Veto Viole, John Griffiths and William Tucker were killed. (Griffiths was Kelly's brother-in-law.) The dead were eaten. Escaping by longboat Kelly returned to the Sophia in Otago Harbour but suspecting Māori there were planning an attack he attacked them first. Then, and over the next few days, he apparently killed several people, possibly including Korako, destroyed canoes and set fire to the harbourside village "the beautiful City of Otago."[6]
These hostilities and the diminution of seal populations saw a decline in sealing ventures to southern New Zealand. It seems this was unknown to Captain Abimeleck Riggs of the American sealer General Gates who landed a gang at Stewart Island late in 1819. He had a troubled cruise and it wasn't until 1821 that he returned to the gang's relief when he dropped a second gang and then a third at Chalky Inlet. The second gang was attacked by Māori in October that year when six of its men were captured, taken north up the west coast where eventually four were killed and eaten. Meanwhile the gang at Chalky had left a boy looking after their stores who was also attacked by Māori and eaten. The rest were pursued by Māori and two killed before they came across Captain Edwardson of the Snapper in Chalky Inlet. Their pursuers included women and dogs under the leadership of "Te Pehi" "Topi" and "Te Whera". With them were two Pākehā-Māori, James Caddell, originally captured from the Sydney Cove, now acculturated to Māori society, tattooed and married to a high-born Māori woman, and James Stuart who had come with the General Gates, with an aboriginal wife and children. (She had gone into hiding after they were attacked by Māori and one of the children was killed. Eventually Stuart found her and took her and one child to Sydney.) Edwardson now took Caddell to Sydney where his arrival caused a sensation in 1823 and where a peace was brokered. Thereafter sealing resumed although it soon petered out again because the animal populations had been severely depleted.[7]
The Sealers' War - really a rolling feud - may have seen seventy-four people killed, among them forty-three Pākehā, or non-Māori. William Tucker was not a cause of it, as has previously been thought, but one of its victims. The Creed manuscript clearly reveals the original cause, invisible to history for nearly two hundred years, identifies the later triggers of particular events while observing they were all consequences of the first theft and its revenge, often visited on people unaware of what had set these events in motion. When people of different cultures clash they are quick to react against any member of the other group, regardless of personal responsibility. The Sealers' War is a classic example of the tendency of incident to turn into inter-communal strife at the interface of cultural contact.