The two head-chiefs of Port Nicholson. Plate 1. From the book: Illustrations to Adventure in New Zealand

Accompanying text reads: These two chiefs sold the site of the present Wellington Settlement to Colonel Wakefield, the Principal Agent of the New Zealand Company, in September 1839. Warepori was renowned as a great warrior and an eloquent orator. His former high rank was scarcely acknowledged by the Government authorities, after their establishment in June 1840. He pined under the degradation; repudiated his bargain in 1841; and died, a beggar and a drunkard, in December 1842... These portraits were drawn at the time of the purchase in 1839. The Company's ship the Tory, ... appear[s] in the back-ground.

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This extract originally appeared in Te Ata o Tū The Shadow of Tūmatauenga: The New Zealand Wars Collections of Te Papa (Te Papa Press, 2024).
This extract was authored by Matiu Baker and Rebecca Rice.

The Tory arrived in New Zealand in August 1839, visiting Te Awaiti shore whaling station in the Marlborough Sounds, where it picked up resident whaler Dicky Barrett, who would act as the ship’s pilot. Sailing on, it entered Te Whanganui-a-Tara Wellington Heads on 20 September 1839. Inside the heads the Tory was met by two large waka taua headed by Te Āti Awa rangatira Hōniana Te Puni and Te Kakapi-o-te-rangi (later known as Te Wharepōuri), who boarded the ship.1 Both rangatira remained on board overnight, discussing William Wakefield’s plans for a settlement at Port Nicholson (now Wellington). Te Puni and Te Wharepōuri recognised the opportunity to further their people’s prosperity and security, and pointed out the lands they would sell to the company. But they almost certainly failed to fully grasp the sheer scale and impact the purchase would have on their autonomy and way of life. The early support of these two prominent and influential rangatira seems to have been instrumental in influencing the purchase, which was signed on 27 September 1839. Charles Heaphy, who was only 19 at the time, made drawings of the two rangatira which were later reproduced and circulated as lithographs to advertise the success of the New Zealand Company’s negotiations. Te Wharepōuri appears to be gesturing to the land available, while Te Puni stands in front of a flagpole on which the New Zealand Company flag was raised on 30 September. The captions correctly translate Te Wharepōuri’s name as ‘dark house’, but offer a more uncomfortable English name for Te Puni, referring to him as ‘Greedy’, no doubt in reference to his apparently ready agreement to exchange land for goods. 

1 Some years later, Te Puni recounted to Wellington settlers that he could not tell ‘when he saw the Europeans entering the harbour, whether it would bring him and his tribe good or evil. The only white man he had known was Dicky Barrett, and from his knowledge of him he had no occasion to fear that the Pakehas would bring him evil.’ ‘Founder’s Festival’, Wellington Independent, 8 March 1854, p. 4.