Sealers' War

This resulted in a period of mistrust and animosity between Māori and sealers fueling several conflicts, leading to the deaths of about 74 people and the burning of the village of Ōtākou on the Otago Peninsula.

At Waipapa Point one of Sydney Cove's gangs landed and proceeded overland to the Mataura River mouth, where they were surprised and killed by Māori under Honekai.

[1][2] In a separate but related incident later that same year men from Brothers, who had been in the vicinity of Otago Harbour, proceeded south seeking a passing ship to take them back to Sydney.

[5] In 1815 William Tucker, who had been in the Otago Harbour area as early as 1809, landed again and settled at Whareakeake (later called Murdering Beach).

There he kept goats and sheep, had a Māori wife, built a house, and apparently set up an export trade in ornamental hei-tiki – pounamu neck pendants made from old adzes.

He left but returned on Sophia, a Hobart sealer commanded by James Kelly, apparently with other Europeans meaning to settle.

[6] Historians caution that Kelly's account of events, made to justify the actions he took, exaggerates the danger he and his men were in.

[12] Another account accused Tucker of having stolen a Māori preserved head in 1811 and inaugurated the trade in these items;[6] this is considered to be poorly evidenced.

Local Māori tradition has it that the trouble arose over the Sophia's crew's treatment of the women at Ōtākou.

It seems this was unknown to Captain Abimeleck Riggs of the American sealer General Gates, who in late 1819 landed a gang at Stewart Island.

The Māori pursued the rest of the gang and killed two members before the survivors came across Captain Edwardson of Snapper in Chalky Inlet.