TE PAHI (? 1760-1809), a powerful and intelligent chief who resided at Kerikeri, Bay of Islands. He was a near relative of Hongi Hika. The return of Tuki and Huru from Norfolk Island (whither they had been taken by H.M.S. Daedalus in 1793), with pigs and potatoes presented by the Governor of New South Wales, so impressed Te Pahi with the advantages of intercourse with civilisation that he decided himself to visit New South Wales. He had exercised a beneficial influence in the intercourse of visiting ships and was regarded with gratitude by whalers and traders. In 1805, with four sons and two attendants, he embarked in the whaler Venus, which landed them at Norfolk Island. They were subjected to some ill-treatment on the voyage. Hearing that Captain King, formerly governor of the island, was now governor of New South Wales, Te Pahi obtained a passage in the transport Buffalo, which landed them at Port Jackson on 27 Nov 1805 after touching at Hobart.

Captain King treated Te Pahi and his sons with great kindness and consideration, entertaining them as his guests at Government House, and having them to eat at his table. He considered Te Pahi 'a worthy and respectable chief in every sense of the word,' showed him every industry that might interest him, and was much struck by his determination to learn anything that might be of service to his people. There were 'few things of real utility that did not engross his attention; to say that he was merely civilised falls short of his character, as every action and observation showed an uncommon attention to decency of manners.' The farms, the linen and wool industries, the smiths' shops, and rope works all engaged his attention. He visited Captain Macarthur at Parramatta and was much in the company of Samuel Marsden, who had not before met a New Zealand chief. It was this encounter that fired Marsden with the determination to do something for the civilisation of a people so capable of enlightenment. Te Pahi conversed much about God, and attended divine service with great regularity and decorum. Marsden found him possessed of a 'clear, strong and competent mind, and anxious to gain what knowledge he could of our laws and customs.' Te Pahi agreed to send to New South Wales for training as shepherds a number of his own people of the middle class, and went himself.

In order that the visitors should suffer no indignity on the voyage back to New Zealand, King sent them in the Government vessel Lady Nelson. Besides many minor gifts, they received boxes of fruit trees, pigs and goats and fowls to improve the stock in New Zealand, and a frame house and bricks with which to erect a residence at Bay of Islands which might be used by Europeans visiting there. As a token of the esteem of the people and government of New South Wales, King had a silver medal struck and presented to Te Pahi. The party embarked on 24 Feb 1806, and after a very stormy passage, in which Te Pahi suffered much from seasickness, they were landed at their home in Bay of Islands. The cottage was erected on a small, defensible island in the Kerikeri river, three miles below the mission station. The Lady Nelson received some spars and a quantity of seed potatoes (then very scarce in Sydney) as a return cargo. George Bruce, (or Druce), a seaman who had attended to Te Pahi on the voyage, remained in New Zealand and married his daughter. He was treacherously carried off with his wife in the H.E.I.C.S. General Wellesley three years later and had many vicissitudes in the East Indies before regaining New Zealand. Te Pahi's son, Matara, spent some months in London in 1807 and was presented to the King.

When the Boyd was captured and burned in Whangaroa harbour in 1809 by a party of Maoris (of whom Te Puhi was one of the leaders) the whalers on the coast suspected Te Pahi, owing to the similarity of their names. Accordingly one night armed boats from seven whalers in Bay of Islands pulled up the Kerikeri river and attacked Te Pahi's people, murdering every man and woman who came under their fire. Te Pahi himself received seven wounds, from which he died shortly afterwards. The Boyd incident delayed for some years the arrival of the first New Zealand mission, and the attack on Te Pahi was the cause of a long drawn out feud between the Bay of Islands and the Whangaroa tribes. Taua, a son of Te Pahi, lived for some months with Marsden at Parramatta in 1810. A passage was arranged for his return in the whaler Frederick, the captain of which, untaught by the lesson of the Boyd, ill-treated his Maori seamen during the fishing season, and then abandoned them on Norfolk Island. During the minority of Te Pahi's daughter his two nephews governed at Rangihoua, and it was from one of them, Te Uri-o-Kanae, that Marsden in 1815 purchased 200 acres of land upon which the mission station was established. Marsden found Te Pahi's island desolate, without any inhabitants, and the cottage dilapidated. Hongi and Ruatara promised to afford to the mission the protection that Marsden had expected from Te Pahi. This promise was duly honoured, and Marsden eventually brought about peace between the tribes of Bay of Islands and Whangaroa.

Te Pahi at the time of his visit to New South Wales was a fine athletic man 5 feet 11½ inches in height, inclined to stoutness, and fully tattooed. He was believed then to be about 46 years of age. Marsden had implicit faith in his innocence in respect to the Boyd and did not rest until he had fully established it.

Marsden, L. and J. and Lieutenants; Ramsden; CMS. Register; Hist. Rec. N.S.W.; S. P. Smith, Wars.

Reference: Volume 2, page 75

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