The Harriet Incident

On 29 April 1834, caught in the grips of west-sou-wester gale, the barque Harriet washed up on a beach not far from Rahotū. On board were Captain Hall, two mates, 23 ordinary seamen and the Guard family, returning from Sydney to their Cook Strait whaling station. The Guard family were looking forward to getting home. Instead they would find themselves stranded on the wild Taranaki coast.

Elizabeth (Betty) Guard, at 19, was buxom and good looking, with long flowing black hair. She had met her husband, Captain John Guard, or Jacky as he was known, back in 1827. When she was just 13 years old, Betty had been a passenger on his ship Waterloo. Jacky was a tough character. Shipped from England to Port Jackson, he served seven years for theft, but later became a sealer, earning enough to buy into his first ship.

When Betty turned 15, Jackie sailed back to Sydney to marry her. Despite being 23 years younger, she agreed. Together, they set up home at Jacky's pioneering shore whaling station at Te Awaiti - or Tar White as the whalers called it - where Betty became the first Pākehā woman to settle in the South Island. Later, she gave birth to the first Pākehā child born there. 

It was 4am when the Harriet floundered, and by nightfall she'd been wrecked. But all the travellers were landed safely in one of the ship's boats, after grabbing everything that might be useful - ten muskets, powder, sails and other supplies.

Betty held tight to little John, aged two and a half, and Louisa, five months old, while the crew made tents on the beach to ward off the harsh Taranaki winds. For three days there was nothing to do but try to decide what to do next. Two more boats were rowed ashore. Guard prepared one as best as he could to sail to Cloudy Bay. Over the hills came 30 Māori from Ngāti Ruanui.

Guard was a man of average height, strong and powerfully built. He didn't think the strangers a threat. Two sailors left with them, fancying their luck in the bush with natives more than staying on the beach.

A week later, a larger party of some 200 Māori appeared, this time with spears slung over their backs, and muskets and tomahawks. They took whatever they wanted and said they'd kill anyone who complained. Betty Guard tucked her baby into her breast and hushed little John, hiding him in her skirts to keep him quiet.

The Māori launched their first attack next morning. The crew of the Harriet were appalled to see two of their comrades immediately killed, and arbitrarily chopped into pieces to be eaten. They began a counter attack, but the Māori fought well from holes in the sand and 12 more seamen fell. Betty reeled from tomahawk blows, but a large tortoiseshell comb in her hair saved her life. The teeth dug so deep into her skull, they remained there all her life.

Betty fully expected to die as blood gushed from her wounds and Māori scrambled over each other to get to her first in a wish to lick it off, to taste it. When the blood stopped flowing they fought for more, and tried to open a vein in her throat with part of an iron hoop. Then she and her babies were roughly stripped, and dragged to Te Namu pā. There they would have been slaughtered, if not for a chief's wife who threw a rug over Betty's head as a symbol of protection. Who knows why she did it?

As the spoils from the Harriet were argued over, little John and Louisa fell to the ground, where they were trampled under careless feet. Betty scooped the baby up, but Louisa was badly bruised by the stampede. And little John disappeared into the bush, carried aloft on a warrior's shoulder.

Back on the beach, Guard and the remaining 13 sailors decided to go for help. They began to pick their way to Moturoa, the rough port they'd passed on their way down the coast. They stumbled into another tribe, the friendlier Taranaki iwi, who took them as prisoners to Ngāmotu. 

How Guard must have suffered as he waited to learn the fate of his wife and children, all the while fearing for his own skin! But he was a tough, resourceful man. All he needed was a plan, and at last, he found one.

Guard spoke fluent Māori, a fact he'd not divulged. When he overheard talk of a single boat remaining at the wreck, he made a bid to his captors to let him have it. In return, he promised a cask of gun powder as well as a large, rich ransom for the safe return of Betty and the babies. The paramount chief said yes, but only if he took three of his tribal chiefs with him. Guard agreed, though it meant leaving eight of his crew, including his own brother behind.

Guard used the only tools he had, a pocket-knife, hammer and a few salvaged nails to patch the boat left at the wreck, and on 20 June set out for Cloudy Bay. Despite taking on water and having to bail all the way, the trip took only a week.

At Cloudy Bay, the captain of the Marianne immediately offered his help. He'd supply the goods for ransom, and a safe passage to Wellington, where the Joseph Weller was about to leave for Sydney. Aboard the Joseph Weller, Guard and the chiefs made preparations to leave for Motorua but foul weather blew in like an omen. While Guard paced the decks like a caged lion, the Joseph Weller lay becalmed and tied up at the wharf.

When they finally reached Moturoa, raging seas there meant the ship was unable to land. With no choice but to push on, it sailed for Sydney with Guard and the chiefs still on board.

Though promises had been made of a large and bountiful ransom, when Guard arrived in Sydney, he immediately changed his mind. The town was full of talk of the trouble looming in New Zealand. The Lucy Anne, fresh from Otago, brought news that the whaling stations were under constant fear of attack. All this talk fuelled the fires of Guard's apprehension.

He went to the New South Wales Government and talked them into a rescue plan. "These Māori need to be punished," he told them. "They need to be taught a lesson. I will not rest here if a force is not sent down to intimidate them." The Executive Council offered him a British man of war - the HMS Alligator - and Captain Lambert to sail it, while Captain Johnston was to accompany him on the colonial schooner Isabella. Orders were to “obtain” Betty and the children “peacefully or by force”. These two ships, carrying three officers and 60 men, plus Guard and the chiefs, left for Taranaki.

Who knows what Guard was expecting when he reached Te Namu? At Moturoa, he'd learned that his wife was still alive, held captive at the pā not far from where the Harriet went down. Perhaps he hoped for an easy return. Perhaps he expected that the sight of two war ships filled with soldiers would work magic if reason failed.

The HMS Alligator and Isabella dropped anchor opposite two imposing pā, the Waimate and Orangi-tuapeka, and an officer sent in to kōrero, without success. The chiefs demanded their reward. A ransom had been promised, they said, so a ransom must be paid. "No ransom," Guard said, digging his heels into the sand. Again, the weather cut up, and in the midst of all the wrangling, both ships were forced to make a dash down south for shelter.

It wasn't until mid-September that they made it back to Taranaki waters.

So on 25 September, the ships again dropped anchor in the bay. The two sailors who had gone with the Māori clambered eagerly back on board. They had not seen a fellow white man for more than four months. The weather eased enough for the boats to go ashore, where talk continued of safe return and ransom.

The iwi seemed almost friendly and quite pleased with the prospect of swapping hostages for reward. Though the tribe was scattered and negotiations bogged down, Betty and her baby were eventually delivered to the beach, as promised, by her self-appointed protector, Oaoiti.

This is Betty's account: "When the vessels arrived off Te Namu, they brought me down and expected the long promised payment for my release. My husband, seeing me, immediately caught hold of the man who had guard over me.

A scuffle ensued when the natives fired several shots at Captain Guard - and the soldiers not coming to his assistance quite soon enough to secure me - the Maoris carried me off into the bush.

The Maoris again threatened to kill me, but the majority of them were opposed to it, still believing a ransom would be forthcoming if they allowed me to live."

Instead of the expected peaceful handover, the Captains of the ships signalled attack, landed their troops and began an all-out assault.

Oaoiti was seized by Guard's sailors and thrown into a boat. Half way to the man o war, he dived overboard, so they raised their guns and shot him. By the time he was hauled on deck of the Alligator, he was bleeding from twelve bullet and bayonet wounds.

Te Namu sat on a triangular arch of sand, bounded on one side by a steep cliff and cut off on another by a stream. As a stronghold, it was almost impenetrable. One narrow strip fixed it to the mainland, leaving just two entrances to defend. A few men might have held it from an entire army of soldiers. But without firing a single shot, the Māori abandoned Te Namu, leaving just one solitary pig on the ramparts to meet Guard and his men.

As the tribe fled to Waimate and Orangi-tuapeka, 30 kilometres away, they dragged Betty and Louisa with them, while behind them soldiers pounded through the bush.

Back on the beach, the last of the iwi stole oars and a rudder from the ship's boats. Had they realised that all the boats lay on that beach, the fight might have ended very differently. The soldiers returned to their boats and miraculously found them still intact.

Betty and Louisa were hauled towards Te Namu, while the fleet sailed south in pursuit. Inside both the Waimate and the Orangi-tuapeka pā, the hearts of the chiefs filled with vengeance. They decided on a cunning plan to use Betty as bait to lure the troops in. They stood her on this new beach, babe in arms, and sang so-called songs of welcome. "Haere mai, haere mai…" But somehow, Betty managed to warn Jacky of the danger, and before the boats reached the sand, they headed back. Guard had a single card up his sleeve and he threw on the table hard. He sent word to the chiefs that Oaoiti was still alive.

From the ships, the Pākehā watched the chiefs gather their people into circles, seeking ideas on what to do next. At last a decision was made. Ngāti Ruanui would indeed trade Betty and Louisa for their beloved Oaoiti. That night, under a darkening sky, a boat took a bandaged Oaoiti back to his people. He wore a blanket, shirt, cloth cap and jacket, buttoned up back-to-front. Betty wore a native dress of two finely woven mats, as she waited for delivery back to her own people.

How grateful she must have been for her rescue! How happy she must have been to see her man! How awful it must have been to stand there, Louisa in her arms, and mourn for John, still missing, and now aged three. Though John had been passed to another tribe and different trade must be sought for him, his father sent a message demanding the child be brought to the beach. As he waited for word, several waka pulled in alongside the fleet, and a strange, disorderly barter in curiosities began.

And things might have stayed peaceful, if only Captain Lambert had not suddenly grown wary of the close proximity of canoes and banned all communication between the warriors and his men. When next the boats left the ships, the soldiers returned with reports that they'd been fired on from shore. The Captain's anger was immediate. He fired on the canoes.

It was only a reef of rocks that stopped Lambert from sailing his ships as far in as he would have liked, but still, he steered them till their hulls hit the sand. And for the next three hours, he unleashed all their combined might.

Stuck inside the pā, there was nothing the tribe could do, except watch and wail as their waka turned into kindling, their whare and their stronghold, completely destroyed. Muskets were useless against the cannon on the ships.

A warrior held little John, who had been brought as requested, up over the ramparts for his family to see, and raised a white flag, time and a time again, but the Captain would not be appeased. 

How every one of those 306 shots from the biggest guns must have wrenched at Betty's heart, but the firing went on and on, with such an enormous amount of ammunition spent that relics can still be found today.

Eventually, the fleet sailed off on a northerly gale and stayed away for several days, while and Guard and his cohorts plotted their next move. Back to Waimate, they went, and once again requested little John's return.

The Māori said no, they would not give up the child. Yet the following morning, they changed their minds. They would bring him to the beach, they said, if an officer stepped forward as a hostage. Despite a brave volunteer, this time it was Lambert who said no.

On 8 October 1843, almost six months after the shipwreck, 112 soldiers, including Guard and his remaining sailors, hauled themselves on ropes up the cliff, well-armed with muskets and ammunition. It was probably fear that made the chiefs call another meeting, but a meeting was denied.

There is no record of what Betty did as she waited for her son to be returned. Perhaps she watched from the rails of the ship, or sat below in the gloom, anxiously praying he'd be brought out alive… And he was. He arrived on the beach on a chief's back, wrapped in a cloak and with feathers in his hair. Oaoiti, still in his funny clothes, brought up the rear.

Once again, the chief asked for his ransom. Once again he was denied. He decided to go on board the ships to find it. "There is no ransom," one of Guard's sailors told him, while another made a grab for the boy. As he reached to cut the cloak cord that held John on the chief's back, he very deliberately drew his knife across the warrior's throat. Then, as the child fell, he scooped him up. A single shot rang out. The Māori fell in the sand with a bullet in his back. 

The beach erupted in gunfire, from one end to the other, along the cliff, in the bushes, volley after deafening volley, felling Māori whose only choice was to run or crouch down behind boulders in the sand. "Stop your firing!" two officers screamed, as they rushed among their men, but it seemed a long time before the shooting stopped.

Finally, it did, and though the orders that followed were to return to ship, a squall blew up and the boats could not push off. A few Māori left in the pā fired a few last desultory shots on the stranded soldiers, until a second battle began. But the heavy artillery proved too much for the overwhelmed natives and the last sad remnants of the tribe fled into the bush.

Later, much criticism was levelled at all those involved, and a House of Common's select committee condemned the use of excessive force in the rescue of Betty Guard. Most of the blame was laid at the door of the Harriet crew: “The butchery therefore took place through the Harriet's men being allowed to have arms in their hands while taking part in the expedition, and when they saw that the child was secure, taking advantage of that fact to have their revenge.” 

In 1936, the Guard family went back to Kākāpō Bay, Port Underwood, where Betty and Jacky had seven more children and lived together until Jacky died in 1857. Little John lived hale and hearty for another 85 years and married the daughter of George Ashdown, one of Dicky Barrett's crew. He died in 1918, and is buried in the family cemetery in Kākāpō Bay, beside his parents. Louisa was not so lucky and died in Sydney, in January 1835, just eight months after her release, probably as a result of the injuries received when she was captured.

Betty Guard was the first white woman to step ashore in Taranaki and her rescue marked the first exchange between British troops and Māori.

Grady, D. (1978). Guards of the Sea. Christchurch: Whitcoulls.

Marshall, W.B. (1836). A personal narrative of two visits to New Zealand, in His Majesty's ship Alligator, A.D. 1834. London: J. Nisbet.