The burning of the Boyd
- When
- December 1809
- Where
- Whangaroa Harbour · Whangaroa
- Reach
- Local
Around 66 crew and passengers were killed and the ship burned at Whangaroa, after the flogging of a rangatira’s son aboard. European shipping avoided the north for years.
Te Ara, son of a Whangaroa chief, had worked his passage on the Boyd and was flogged for refusing duty. The utu that followed destroyed the ship and most of those aboard. News of it reached Sydney and London in lurid form, delaying missionary and trading ventures in the far north for a decade and hardening European attitudes. It also triggered a revenge raid on the wrong community, at Te Pahi’s island in the Bay of Islands.
Regions affected
Sources
Written for this project from these references rather than copied from them. Follow a link to check the account against the original.
Related
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Musket-armed war parties reshaped the map of Māori New Zealand. Perhaps 20,000 died and whole districts changed hands before the fighting burned out around 1840.
The Northern War
Te riri Pākehā ki te Tai Tokerau
Hōne Heke felled the flagstaff at Kororāreka four times and sacked the town. The war ended at Ruapekapeka, an engineered pā built to absorb artillery.
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Ngāti Toa left Kāwhia and fought their way south, seizing Kapiti Island as a base that controlled Cook Strait and the trade passing through it.
Kapiti IslandThe Elizabeth affair
A British captain hid Te Rauparaha’s war party aboard his brig to capture the Ngāi Tahu chief Te Maiharanui — a scandal that helped convince Britain it needed an official presence.
Akaroa Harbour