Thomas Bull

In 1839, a former whaling captain, John Roberton (1776-1840), purchased the isle from the mainland Ngapuhi chiefs but he died in a boating accident the following year before he could enjoy his isolation in paradise. Mrs Roberton, her two young children and a man named Thomas Bull remained to farm the island. Their existence came to an abrupt end in November 1841 when Mrs Roberton, her two children, Robert Bull, and the daughter of a Ngapuhi leader, Isabella Brind, who was staying as a guest at the time, were murdered by 17 year old Maketu, son of a Maori chief. Maketu was tried and convicted the following year and became the first person to be legally hanged in New Zealand under British law. Source: https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=572313929617487&i...

In 1839, a fresh wave of European settlers were arriving to NZ. Among them were John and Elizabeth Roberton and their son 6-year-old Gordon. Arriving from Britain, the Robertons settled in the Bay of Plenty and purchased Motuarohia island from a consortium of Ngāpuhi Māori chiefs for £213, paying about half upfront. They renamed it to Roberton Island. John Roberton was a former whaling ship captain that was looking for a change in career. With the purchase of the formerly named ‘beloved island’, the Robertons were wanting to try their hand at farming. The Robertons built a small wooden house on the eastern side of the island and soon their family grew. They welcomed a daughter.

With the birth of the nation of NZ in 1840, a change in capital followed. The capital city soon moved from Russell, 4km from Roberton Island, to Auckland, approximately 180km away. With this move, an exodus of settlers followed, harming the Roberton’s financial prospects. Slowly, the area fell into an economic slump. Even if the Roberons wanted to sell their property, the colonial government was in the slow process of investigating all land purchases that had occurred prior to 1840. This process had the effect of freezing any land transactions in the interim.

Further hardship was ahead. Sometime in 1840, John Roberton went out sailing ‘merely for his own amusement’ as his wife put it. A gust of wind capsized John’s boat, he drowned that day leaving behind his now widowed wife, Elizabeth. She wrote home to Britain to inform her inlaws of the terrible news “Your only son and my dear and affectionate husband died on the 17th day last month. He was unfortunately drowned opposite our house and island… What to do I cannot tell I am here on an inhospitable island in a cannibal country with only one servant in the house”.

To make matters worse, some Māori were now demanding the return of the land. Traditional Māori custom dictated that with the death of the landowner; the land be returned to its former owners. Elizabeth had to go to court to prove that the land was left to her in her husband’s will to try to mitigate the continued ‘threats’.

EVENTS LEADING UP TO TRAGEDY Struggling to maintain the farm on her own, Elizabeth enlisted the help of another settler, 50-year-old farmer, Thomas Bull. Bull joined Elizabeth and her two children on Roberton Island. Soon afterwards, she procured additional assistance from the local Māori. She hired ‘…a remarkably powerful’ 16-year-old, Maketū Wharetōtara, the son of Māori Chief Ruhe.

On the 6th of February 1840, the Treaty of Waitangi was signed, bringing together two different cultures, the Europen and the Māori people. Not everyone was happy with this union that day. Ruhe, a Ngāpuhi chief from Kaikohe, although signing the treaty earlier that day, protested the signing with another chief. As T. Lindsay Buick writes in his 1914 book ‘The Treaty of Waitangi: or, how New Zealand became a British colony’ “Both warriors delivered themselves in the style characteristic of their people when they have serious business on hand, running sharply up and down a beaten avenue, gesticulating energetically, stamping their feet, and pouring out their denunciations with a volubility that was difficult to follow.” Ruhe had a son, Maketū Wharetōtara. An early missionary to NZ, George Clarke jr. wrote of Ruhe and his families temperament “There was madness in [the] family of a homicidal character… His brother and sister were both deranged, his aunt strangled herself in a paroxysm of rage, and his father Ruhe was subject to fits of frenzy, that made it dangerous for his best friends to go near him”.

The complement of people on the farm was completed with the arrival of three-year-old Isabella Brind, the illegitimate granddaughter of Rewa, a Māori chief and head of the Ngāpuhis. It is probable that this inclusion to Elizabeth’s family was designed to earn favour with the Māori community closest to her farm.

Bull and Maketū, from the beginning; clashed. As Paul Moon writes in a paper on the subject “Bull and Maketū possessed characters that were inflamed almost every time they came into contact with each other. Bull allegedly provoked Maketū on several occasions, and threatened the latter that ‘he should have little or no food unless he worked better for Mrs. Roberton’. Bull threatened Maketū’s source of employment, and belittled his mana as the son of a chief. In return, Maketū became sullen, which Bull mistook for laziness, thus exacerbating the ill-will between them.”

Maketū felt his mana, his ‘spiritual power’ had been jeopardised. He felt ‘utu’ was necessary. Utu is commonly cited as revenge. It is more accurate to describe utu as a type of realignment of karmic balance. The Ministry of Justice describes utu in their report on ‘Māori Perspectives on Justice’ as “The general principles that underlie utu are the obligations that exist between individuals and groups. Utu is concerned with the maintenance of balance and harmony within society, whether it is manifested through gift exchange, or as a result of hostilities between groups. The aim of utu is to return the affected parties to their prior position.”

MURDERS

Thomas Bull continued to mistreat Maketū for the better part of a year. The final straw for Maketū came in the form of being kicked by Bull during a dispute over payment. Maketū’s interpretation of utu was acted out on the night of the 30th of November, 1841. He silently approached a sleeping Bull, using an axe, he plunged the weapon into Bull’s skull, splitting it open.

The events that followed are chronicled in Bronwyn Sells book ‘Law Breakers & Mischief Makers’. When Elizabeth Robertson stumbled upon the murder, she “flew into a rage and screamed at him that he would be hanged for murder. Maketū lost it. He had considered his slaying of Bull an understandable act of utu for the insults to which he had been subjected. Roberton’s outburst pushed him further into a rage. He violently attacked the woman, killing her and leaving her body horribly mutilated. Then he butchered the two little girls. Roberton’s terrified seven-year-old son, Gordon, escaped through the back door. Maketū pursued him to the top of a hill, punched him repeatedly and hurled him over a cliff, [he fell 200ft] to his death. The young murderer returned to the house and set it on fire before leaving the island in a canoe with some of the family’s possessions including a bloodstained sack of rice, a watch and an umbrella.”

‘Mrs Roberton was well known and respected at the Bay of Islands, and her frightful fate has created there feelings of the deepest horror, and [a] universal sadness’ wrote the New Zealand Gazette a couple of days later. Upon escaping the island, Maketū returned to his father, Ruhe. There, he confessed to the murders. Reports of his actions, quickly spread throughout the region. Fearing reprisal from the Crown, as well as Rewa for the murder of his granddaughter, Isabella. Ruhe surrendered his son to the government.

BRITISH LAWS OVER MĀORI

Ngāpuhi leaders, among them Rewa, and Ruhe, met at Paihia on 16 December 1841. They were called to discuss the situation with Maketū. Only Hōne Heke, another influential Māori Chief, spoke against handing him over to the government. Heke was already disillusioned by the failure of colonisation to bring his people economic fortune and by the increased control of the British government over Māori affairs. In the mind of Heke, this was a Māori issue, therefore should be dealt with by Māori, not the British Government.

The interesting part is, Heke, might have had a point. British rule, and therefor its laws, at that time in NZ only applied to the British settlers. Paul Moon explains in his paper on the subject “During 1839, when the final touches were being put on the British policy to annex New Zealand, consideration turned to the issue of over whom would British sovereignty would apply. The decision boiled down to two options: either the sovereignty of the Crown would blanket everyone in the country, or it would apply just to British subjects living there. The Colonial Office went for the latter (cheaper) option… [the] decision to put Maketū on trial stretched the elasticity of Colonial Office policy to an extreme degree, making the law that was supposed to govern settlers now apply to the country’s Māori population.”

Heke did not persuade the other Ngāpuhi leaders to accept his stance. The meeting concluded with Hōne Heke and his supporters conducting a Haka, a ceremonial war dance, on the beach and firing their muskets into the air.

The result of this meeting was a document signed by around twenty Ngāpuhi chiefs. The document seemed to endorse the extension of British criminal law into their communities, addressing the Governor it read “Sir, Maketū’s work is his alone, his own; we have nothing to say for him. That man is with you; leave him there. Do not bring him back here to us, lest there be a disturbance: leave him there. Governor, do not listen to the reports that have flown about in the wind….Sir, Governor, let your regard be great for us, the children of the Queen Victoria, the Queen of England, of Europe also. Now, this is the word of the book: “Love one another.” This is a good word. Shew us the greatness of your regard to us and our children, and we shall all turn without one exception to Victoria to be her children. But if not, what shall we do? Governor, here we are sitting in ignorance; we have no thoughts; you are our parent”.

EXECUTION

On the 1st of March 1842. Maketū appeared in the new Supreme Court building in Auckland, before Chief Justice William Martin. He plead not guilty. Although he had previously on several occasions admitted his guilt and witnesses were called to confirm his presence on the island the day of the murders. He was found guilty. The Judge handed down his sentence, the words were translated into Māori “Maketū! It has been declared in front of this Judging Panel, that you deliberately murdered [Thomas Bull]; this case has been thoroughly investigated and the laws regarding this have been disclosed to you. The charges brought against you have been found to be true, and so the last thing left for this Judges Panel to do is to discuss the extent of the law in terms of the this terrible crime you have committed this is also the law of England, who still reigns over the people of this land, no matter whether some are Pakeha and some are Māori, if the blood of an innocent person is deliberately spilt by someone, this panel will hand out the harshest sentence possible under the law; anyone whose hands are covered with the blood of the innocent should never be allowed to live if the victim is a child, and they shouldn’t be allowed to live because they are a chief either; the law that this Judges Panel is applying is not a new law, you may believe this law only applies within England, – no that is not the case this is a law applies to all, the death sentence being discussed by this Judges Panel; is one that has been agreed to by your own people… This is the harshest sentence possible under the law. Therefore it will decided that he be executed in a place suitable to the Governor and his committee members, on a day that also suits them, and it will be said, may god have mercy on his soul.”

The morning of the 7th March 1842. An apparently extremely repentant Maketū asked for the presence of a Christian minister. A reverend baptised Maketū that day, christening him William King. At noon, the prison bell tolled, a few thousand people showed up on Queen Street in Auckland for the public hanging. A large military guard was present, in case of an attempt at rescue from any sympathetic Māori. Maketū was escorted up the hastily erected gallows. A few minutes later, Maketū was cast off, his neck snapped, and he died ‘almost instantly’.

The British legal process was seen as drawn-out and cold-blooded by the observing Māori. Their custom would have resulted in almost immediate death and, as the son of a chief, Maketū could have expected to receive a blow from a mere, a short, broad-bladed weapon, to the back of his head. The execution being public was seen as a great source of shame and humiliation. Sometime after, Ruhe asked for his son’s body, which was then exhumed. His bones were scraped according to traditional custom before he was reburied by his family.

It is said that Ruhe, still mourning his son, sang a lament for Maketū, “Kaore te aroha mohukihuki ana, Te panga mai ki ahau, me he ahi e tahu”. Translating to “Alas, this all-devouring grief, That burns within me like a flame”. Hōne Heke, witnessed his pain. This only deepened his negative feelings towards the government.

Source: https://truecrimenz.com/2019/07/25/case-5-maketu-wharetotara-death-...