New Zealand Wars

New Zealand Land Wars
Memorial in the Auckland War Memorial Museum for those who died, both European and Māori, in the New Zealand Wars. "Kia mate toa" can be translated as "fight unto death" or "be strong in death", and is the motto of the Otago and Southland Regiment of the New Zealand Army. The flags are that of Gate Pā and the Union Flag.
Date 1845–72 Location New Zealand Result New Zealand Settlements Act 1863; confiscation of four million acres (16,000 km²) of Māori land
Belligerents
British Empire Māori	Māori
Strength
18,000 (peak deployment)	5,000 (peak deployment)

The New Zealand Wars, sometimes called the Land Wars and also once called the Māori Wars, were a series of armed conflicts that took place in New Zealand between 1845 and 1872. The wars were fought over a number of issues, the most prominent concerning Māori land being sold to the settler population.

The Treaty of Waitangi, signed in 1840, guaranteed that individual Māori iwi (tribes) should have undisturbed possession of their lands, forests, fisheries and other taonga (treasures) in return for becoming British subjects and selling land to the government only. The majority of Māori were keen to sign to consolidate peace and end the long inter-tribal Musket Wars 1807–1842.

All pre-treaty colonial land-sale deals had been completed directly between the two parties. In the early period of contact, Māori generally sought trade with Europeans.Mission stations were established, and missionaries receiving land for houses, schools, churches and farms.

Some traders acquired large tracts of land prior to 1840 and the British government was concerned to protect the Maori from exploitation. Following the 1840 Treaty of Waitaingi, the newly constituted British colonial authorities decreed that Māori could sell land only to the Crown (the Right of Preemption). Often, new settlers did not appreciate that Māori owned their land communally under the mana of a chief and that permission to settle on land did not always imply sale of that land. Settlers had little understanding of the widespread redistribution of land during the bitter musket wars. This meant that conquering chiefs were keen to profit from these newly acquired assets by selling them to settlers while the original, defeated owners, were bitterly against this. Sometimes the reverse happened, as in the Hutt Valley, where the conquered Rangitane sold their land to the New Zealand company, much to the anger of the great conqueror Te Rauaparaha. Under pressure from settlers, the colonial government tried to speed up land sales and permitted settlers to settle in areas where ownership was still disputed between Maori hapu. This included huge areas of the North Island that had been depopulated, and, in many cases, repopulated with new hapu and iwi, following the musket wars of 1805–1842.

Kingitanga Māori began resisting the purchase of their land by British settlers and started using violence against those Maori who wished to sell. The Kingitanga refused to swear an oath of allegiance to the crown. The crown honoured the treaty by protecting loyal Maori, who were British citizens, from attacks by rebels who were attempting to set up an alternative government. This action sowed the seeds of eventual war between loyal Maori, British and New Zealand governments versus the minority rebel Kingitanga.

Conflicts

The first battle of the New Zealand Wars was the 1843 Wairau Affray at the north end of the South Island. It was a massacre caused by the Nelson settlers deputised by the local magistrate trying to arrest Rangatira Warrior Chief after he had burnt down a whare (a Māori house) on land claimed by settlers. The settlers had a title to the land which had been originally sold to a British sea captain. The land deed was never actually investigated and this rash action lead to 22 settlers,who had been deputized as police, being killed. News of the defeat of the magistrate and his constables spread to the nelson where the settlers barricaded their town in fear. However Te Rauparaha, fearing a military reprisal, fled to his island stronghold of Kapiti hoping that the New Zealand land tribunal would rule in his favour, which it did. However he never returned to his lands in the Wairau. The Flagstaff War took place in the far north of New Zealand, around the Bay of Islands, in March 1845 and January 1846. This was about the poverty brought on by the movement of the New Zealand capital of Kororareka to Auckland by Governor Hobson after the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi. Hone Heke and his 80 year old ally needed to get the attention of the government who were incapable of helping them with their lack of funding. So due to the governments ineptitude chose to try and throw them out. The pair did this by attacking the flag pole at Kororareka felling the British flag yet leaving the town itself mostly unharmed for the first three times the pole was cut down. The fourth time however the governor Grey banded together every fighting soldier he could muster from sailors to militia and put a cordon about the town. Heke and Kawiti found themselves outnumbered however splitting their forces Kawiti leading a diversionary raid while Heke lead an assault on the flag staff itself overpowering the platoon garrisoning the nearby church and felling the flagpole a fourth time. Mass looting of the township followed with citizens and Maori alike taking what ever they could. This was not the end of the Northern war however after Heke and Kawiti were branded fugitives and were chased into their lands. There the two chiefs supposedly invented trench warfare, this is up to debate as the British already used similar tactics however only in sieges unlike the Maori who would throw up the earthworks to confound the British forces. Since the invention of these modern gunfighter Pa (Maori fortress) not a single British force has ever successfully captured such a force by storm as the Maori would abandon them should they ever be outnumbered . They fought a short series of campaigns until Kupapa Maori ( Government supporting Maori tribes) put Heke out of the fight and he was forced to abandon Kawiti to the British forces. With less than one hundred men Kawiti constructed a Pa he labelled Ruapekapeka, the bats nest. This Pa was bombarded for extended periods until the Commander of the force decided to attack. 151 men marched to take the supposedly empty Pa. The trenches dug into the walls of the Pa had kept casualties to zero and as the British advanced the 80 Maori defending opened fire at point blank range from gun slits at the base of the Pa's wall felling a full third of the force and sending them running. Kawiti then abandoned the Pa knowing that he could easily build another in less than two days. After this battle however Heke and Kawiti, not wanting to alienate the British settlers of Auckland offered peace to the governor, who begrudgingly accepted. This was followed almost immediately by the Hutt Valley Campaign, where a small number of soldiers attempted to protect farmers and isolated settlers from marauding attacks between March and August 1846. British soldiers did not realise that Te Rauparaha,who had befriended the settlers and the government, was at the same time orchestrating the Hutt attacks. When the military intercepted secret letters sent by Te Rauparaha to his warlike nephew, he was captured in a surprise attack and taken prisoner of war. This ended the Hutt war but lead to the Wanganui Campaign, April to July 1847, in the south-west of the North Island. The Wanganui conflict was caused by the Maori demand for utu (a Māori concept involving payback or revenge) when one of the ringleaders of the Hutt valley campaign was hanged. The take (just cause) for a new war was the accidental injury of a Maori by a British soldier. Maori felt confident in taking on the settlers as they vastly outnumbered them.

In the first three conflicts, Māori proved to be warlike and at times treacherous opponents, who fought by their own rules which appeared barbaric to the settlers. Maori targeted isolated British settlers but many had no wish to drive them from New Zealand as they were the only source of money and trade goods. From the engagements emerged a purely Maori understanding: English law prevailed in the townships and settlements, and Māori law and customs elsewhere. The government believed the rule of law prevailed everywhere but the Wairau massacre had taught them that Maori felt they could do as they pleased. There followed a period of intermittent threats and haphazard economic cooperation from 1848 to 1860 although even during this time there were very serious threats to Pakeha such as the threatened attack on Auckland at Mechanics Bay by 250–300 Ngati Paoa in 1851 that was only prevented by the arrival of British troops and a warship and the stealing of a large amount of gunpowder from Kawau Island in 1856 by the same Iwi.

During this time, European settlement accelerated and in about 1859, the number of Pākehā came to equal the number of Māori, at around 60,000 each. Settlers were keen to obtain land and some Maori were willing to sell but were prevented by Kingitanga Maori wishing to exert their mana. Settlers and the government tried to avoid involvement in these largely inter Maori squabbles until settlers were harmed. The result was the First Taranaki War. Once again, the local British forces were evenly matched by Kingitanga Māori, and after 12 months there was no decisive result. The government became aware that a large number of the Toa (warriors) were from the lower Waikato tribe, Maniatoto.

However, the Government was not prepared to countenance the rebel Māori kingitanga controlling and ruling most of the central North Island. War broke out again in 1863 with the ambush and killing of British soldiers taking soldier to court Invasion of the Waikato. Wiremu Tamihana previously considered a moderate, as he had sold tribal land to Scottish settlers, sent a series of 18 threatening letters to Grey. Rewi Maniapoto attempted to kill a missionary, Mr Gorst, in Te Awamutu. Rewi stole the printing press and burnt down the school. Farmers and missionaries who had bought land in the Waikato and helped Maori establish a prosperous farming area where threatened and forced to leave. Settlers were continually smarting under a sense of wrong as Maori grew insolent filled with an overweening confidence in their own power and contemptuous of the British. These acts convinced Grey that the Maori rebels posed a serious threat. The Waikato War, including the Tauranga Campaign, was the biggest of all the New Zealand Land Wars but pales into insignificance alongside the Musket wars. The outcome of the War of Suppression of the Kingitanga was the confiscation of Māori land, totalling 4% of Nz's land area, which quickly provoked the Second Taranaki War. By the mid 1860s, the conflict had forced the closing of all the native schools.3 months after the confiscation,in 1865, large amounts of land were returned to both rebel and loyal Maori.By 1873 120,000 acres were returned to rebel Kingitanga. They also received large amounts of cash in 1926 and even more cash in 1946.

The period from the second half of 1864 until early 1868 was relatively quiet. Possibly the most notorious incident during this time was the murder of the missionary Carl Volkner. There were also two serious intra-tribal conflicts, civil wars in Māori tribes, between adherents and non-adherents of the Pai Marire or Hau Hau sect—a vehemently anti-Pākehā religious group which was intent on destabilising the developing cooperation between the Māori and Pākehā. These are sometimes known as the East Cape War, but that label oversimplifies a complicated series of conflicts.

The last major conflicts were Te Kooti's War and Titokowaru's War. These were fought at the same time but were not related to each other and should be considered separate conflicts. This virtually ended the major, violent conflicts between the British and colonial government and the rebel Maori.

There were later incidents that were a part of the overall conflict, but are not usually seen in the context of the New Zealand Wars. One of these was the police raid on Parihaka in 1881 to arrest the prophets Te Whiti and Tohu, leaders of a campaign of passive resistance to land confiscation. Another was an incident in the 1890s that became known as the Dog Tax War. Another was the arrest of Rua Kenana in 1916.

Participants

In 1859, the Europeans population in New Zealand was about 10,000 less than the Maori Population. However, neither population was stable. The Māori population had declined so fast during the Musket Wars that some people saw their extinction as a distinct possibility.It is estimated that at least 20,000 Maori were killed but more importantly many iwi were driven from their traditional lands and Crosby says that 8 complete iwi were wiped out by their fellow Maori. Meanwhile, immigrant ships were arriving from Britain almost every week. Surprised by the hundreds of settlers arriving at Wellington, Māori chiefs asked if the whole English tribe was moving to New Zealand. The imperial troops were supplied and paid for by Britain and not by the fledgling colony. So rebel Māori were fighting against the economic base of industrial Britain. Additionally, Māori had an agrarian economy—their warriors were also their farmers and food gatherers. As such, they were limited to periods of only two or three months of campaigning each year before they had to return to their home base although during the Musket Wars they had managed to leave their turangawaiwai(home territory) for a year at a time . They developed a system of rotating shifts for the longer conflicts, but were never able to deploy their entire force.

The Invasion of the Waikato was the largest conflict. The colonial side mustered some 18,000 men, with a peak deployment of possibly 14,000. Opposing them were 4,000 to 5,000 Māori, of whom only about half were actively involved at any one time.

None of the wars were simple two-sided conflicts. To some degree there were four sides to each war.

There were always Māori on both sides of the conflict—fighting for and against the British. In the Flagstaff War, the Māori allies were wholly independent of British command; Tāmati Wāka Nene was at war with Hone Heke. Indeed, the Battle of Waimate Pa, where the two forces met and fought with determination, did not involve the British at all.

By the 1870s, in Te Kooti's War, there were Māori fighting as part of the colonial forces. Ngāti Porou formed their own regiment. In the latter stages—the hunt for Te Kooti through the Urewera Ranges—some incidents were once again Māori fighting Māori. Usually though, these Māori were allies only while fighting. When their interests diverged from Pākehā interests, they tended to go their own way.

The Pākehā can also be divided into two groups. One was the British imperial forces—the combined forces of the British Empire, including Australians going overseas to war for the first time. The other consisted of the various militia formed from the settlers, answerable to the New Zealand government, not to London. (These units eventually evolved into the New Zealand Army). The first war was fought by imperial forces, probably assisted informally by a few settlers and loyal kupapa Maori. The Taranaki War involved organised units of settler militia. The British government was increasingly reluctant to become involved in New Zealand wars. To get its support for the suppression of the Kingitanga rebels, Governor George Grey had to present a picture of the seriousness of the situation to the Colonial Office in London. What became known as the Second Taranaki War was the reaction of the Māori to the confiscation of their land by the colonial government, which originally used imperial troops for this. The commander, General Duncan Cameron, worn out and tired of arguments with the colonial government, retired to England .

In 1870 the last British troops were withdrawn from New Zealand; this was in line with both the “self-reliant" policy of Premier Frederick Weld and the Cardwell reforms of the Army in Britain.

There was one British ex soldier who fought for Māori, known as Kimball Bent,who was actually an American by birth. He had been convicted of theft and desertion. Kimball Bent, who acted as Titokowaru's armourer and later became a noted tohunga (priest). However the majority of Maori either supported the government or fought alongside the government. In 1864 the total rebel Kingitanga population who went into hiding, was estimated at 15,000 or about 25% of the Maori population, although this number is uncertain as the rebels killed Pakeha who went into the King Country and refused to complete the census. At that time half caste Maori-many of whom lived in Pakeha settlements, were included in the European population statistics in the census which distorts population figures. Demographer professor Ian Poole estimates that this boosted the nominal European population by as much as 5 to 10,000.

There was also a significant anti-war movement among the British settlers. Led by the Anglican Church Missionary Society and a number of prominent humanitarians, this group opposed government aggression and the confiscation of land. Members included Bishop George Augustus Selwyn, Archdeacon Octavius Hadfield, Sir William Martin, South Island politicians like James Fitzgerald and other public figures. Most active during the First Taranaki War, the group divided over the government's invasion of the Waikato and response to the Kingitanga. Eventually, some chose to support the government, a decision they immediately regretted as the Māori backlash placed missionary lives in danger. Selwyn, in particular, suffered from his association with the invasion and had to leave the country in disgrace. Some missionaries later tried to prevent wholesale confiscation of Māori land, but were ignored by the government.

Strategy and tactics

The British Army were professional soldiers who had experience fighting in various parts of the Empire, many from India and Afghanistan, although front line units were never sent (in contrast to, say, South Africa or other parts of the Empire). They were led by officers who were themselves trained by men who fought at Waterloo. The Māori fighters were warriors from many generations of warrior—survivors of the Musket Wars, thirty two years of bitter inter-tribal fighting. One of the reasons for the First New Zealand War was curiosity by the Māori warriors to see what kind of fighters these Pākehā soldiers were.

Both sides had developed distinctive war strategies and tactics. The British set out to fight a European-style war, based on defending or attacking an enemy strong point or town. Either there is a battle, or you besiege and then capture the strong point. Conversely Māori fought for mana and economic advantage, to obtain slaves, goods or control of lands, and for the challenge of a good battle. New Zealand units which gradually took over much of the fighting in the latter parts of the conflict, introduced a range of new units, tactics and weapons to match the demands of the campaigns from 1863.

The first British action of the Flagstaff War was the capture and destruction of Pomare's Pa near Kororareka. This was a substantial Māori settlement, so to the British it was a victory, but the Māori warriors escaped with their arms, so they did not see it as defeat.

The British then set out to do the same to Kawiti's Pa at Puketapu. But this was a purpose-built strong point with only one objective; to invite attack by the British. It was several kilometres inland, across very difficult country—steep gullies, dense, bush-clad hills and thick, sticky mud. The British troops were already exhausted when they arrived in front of the pa. The next day, they made a frontal attack and discovered that the bush and gullies they were advancing through were full of warriors. Some British troops reached the palisade and discovered that attacking thick wooden walls with muskets was not effective. After several hours of costly but indecisive skirmishing, the British withdrew. Their Māori kupapa allies were able to feed them and they were not attacked by their Māori enemies on the retreat back to the coast.

The attack on Puketapu Pa was typical of Māori-British warfare. Māori would build a fortified pa, sometimes provocatively close to a British fort or redoubt, and the British would attack it. Their aim was always to bring Māori to battle to inflict a decisive defeat. In European warfare, besieging an enemy fortress usually provoked a battle. However, Māori also knew that they would probably lose heavily in open conflict; this had been the result on the few times that it happened. Generally, they were successful in avoiding it.

A Māori pa was not the same as a European fortress, but it took the British years to appreciate the difference. The word “pa” meant a fortified strong point neara Māori village or community. They were always built with a view to defence,but primarily they were built to safely store food. Puketapu Pa and then Ohaeawai Pa were the first of the so-called “ gunfighter pa”. They were built to engage enemies armed with muskets and cannon. A strong wooden palisade was fronted with woven flax leaves (Phormium tenax) whose tough, stringy foliage took a lot of penetrating. The palisade was lifted a few centimetres from the ground so muskets could be fired from underneath rather than over the top. Sometimes there were gaps in the palisade, which led to killing traps. There were trenches and rifle pits to protect the occupants and, later, very effective artillery shelters. They were usually built so that they were almost impossible to surround completely, but usually presented at least one exposed face to invite attack from that direction. They were cheap and easily built—the L-Pa at Waitara was constructed by eighty men overnight—and they were completely expendable. Time and again, the British would mount an elaborate, often lengthy, expedition to besiege a pa, which would absorb their bombardment and possibly one or two attacks and then be abandoned by Māori. Shortly afterwards, a new pa would appear in another inaccessible site. Pa like this were built in their dozens particularly during the First Taranaki War, where they eventually formed a cordon surrounding New Plymouth and in the Waikato campaign.

For a long time, the modern pa effectively neutralised the overwhelming disparity in numbers and armaments. At Ohaeawai Pa in 1845, at Rangiriri in 1863 and again at Gate Pa in 1864, the British and colonial forces discovered that frontal attacks on a defended pa were extremely costly. At Gate Pa during the Tauranga Campaign in 1864, Māori withstood a day-long bombardment in their bomb shelters. Belich estimated that Gate Pa absorbed in one day a greater weight of explosives per square metre than did the German trenches in the week-long bombardment leading up to the Battle of the Somme but this has been challenged by military historians. The palisade being destroyed, the British troops rushed the pa whereupon Māori fired on them from hidden trenches, killing thirty-eight and injuring many more in the most costly battle for the Pākehā of the New Zealand Wars. The troops retired and Māori then abandoned the pa.

British troops soon realised an easy way to neutralise a pa. Although cheap and easy to build, a gunfighter pa did require a significant input of labour and resources. The destruction of the Māori economic base in the area around the pa, made it difficult for the hapu to support the fighting men. This was the reasoning behind the bush-scouring expeditions of Chute and McDonnell in the Second Taranaki War.

The biggest problem for Māori was that their society was ill-adapted to support a sustained campaign. The Māori warrior was a civilian part-time fighter who could not afford to be away from home for too long. The British force consisted of professional soldiers supported by an economic system capable of sustaining them in the field almost indefinitely. While the British could defeat Māori in battle,the defeats were often not decisive but they were able to outlast them in war.

The two final New Zealand Wars, those of Te Kooti and Titokowaru, present an interesting contrast. Titokowaru used the pa system to such devastating effect that, at one stage the New Zealand government thought they had lost the war (see Titokowaru's War). Te Kooti, on the other hand, was an effective guerrilla leader, but showed little or no skill in fighting from a fixed position. He had ill-built pa, inadequately supplied, and he held on to them for too long. Te Kooti's War ended due to his defeat at Nga Tapa and Te Porere.

Aftermath

Main article: New Zealand land confiscations

Large areas of land were confiscated from Māori by the government, under the New Zealand Settlements Act in 1863, supposedly as punishment for rebellion. In reality, land was confiscated from both "loyal" and "rebel" tribes alike. More than four million acres (16,000 km²) of land in total was confiscated. Although about half of this was subsequently paid for or returned to Māori, it was often not returned to its original owners. The confiscations had a lasting impact on the social and economic development of the affected rebel tribes.

The legacy of the New Zealand Wars continues, but these days the battles are mostly fought in courtrooms and around the negotiation table. Numerous reports by the Waitangi Tribunal have criticised Crown actions during the wars, and also found that Māori too had breached the Treaty.

The Crown has conceded that aspects of the warfare and confiscation breached the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi, and apologised for its actions in relation to Waikato Tainui, Taranaki and Bay of Plenty tribes, as part of negotiated out of court settlements of these tribes' historical claims (Treaty of Waitangi claims and settlements).

See also

• History of New Zealand
• List of Māori battles
• Māori culture
• Military history of New Zealand
• New Zealand land confiscations
• Early naval vessels of New Zealand
• Siege warfare
• Trench warfare
• Indian Wars

Further reading

• Barthorp, Michael (1979). To Face the Daring Māori. Hodder and Stoughton.
• Belich, James (1988). The New Zealand Wars. Penguin.
• Belich, James (1996) Making Peoples. Penguin.
• Binney, Judith (1995). Redemption Songs: A Life of Te Kooti Arikirangi Te Turuki. Auckland: Auckland University Press.
• Buick, T.L. (1976). Old Marlborough. Christchurch: Capper Press. (Originally published in 1900)
• Cowan, J., & Hasselberg, P. D. (1983) The New Zealand Wars. New Zealand Government Printer. (Originally published 1922) Online: Volume 1 1845–64, Volume 2 1864–72
• Fletcher, Henry James, Rev., Turnbull, Alexander (ed.), National Library of New Zealand, Index of Māori Names, The New Zealand Collection of the University of Waikato Library, unpublished manuscript compiled about 1925 [1]
• Hobbins, Peter (2004). Maori and Pakeha: British Colonial wars in New Zealand (Part 1). Paper on the Victorian Military Society website. (Part 2 not yet published)
• King, Michael (2003). The Penguin History of New Zealand. Penguin.
• Lee, Jack (1983). I have named it the Bay of Islands. Hodder and Stoughton.
• Lee, Jack (1987). Hokianga. Hodder and Stoughton.
• Maning, F.E. (1862). A History of the War in the North of New Zealand against the Chief Heke. (A near-contemporaneous account, although written primarily with an aim to entertain rather than with an eye to historical accuracy)
• Maxwell, Peter (2000). Frontier, the Battle for the North Island of New Zealand. Celebrity Books.
• Pugsley, Chris (1998). Manufacturing a War: Grey, Cameron and the Waikato Campaign of 1863–4. Paper by noted NZ military historian on the New Zealand Society of Genealogists website
• Ryan, Tim & Parham, Bill. The Colonial New Zealand Wars (1986, Wellington, Grantham House) ISBN 1-86934-006-X
• Simpson, Tony (1979). Te Riri Pākehā. Hodder and Stoughton.
• Sinclair, Keith (ed.) (1996). The Oxford Illustrated History of New Zealand (2nd ed.) Wellington: Oxford University Press.
• Smith, S. Percy, Maori Wars of the Nineteenth Century, Whitcombe and Tombs Limited, Christchurch, 1910 [2], New Zealand Electronic Text Centre
• Stowers, Richard (1996). Forest Rangers. Richard Stowers.
• Stringfellow, Olga (1960). Mary Bravender. Fictional treatment of the New Zealand Wars as seen through the eyes of a young Englishwoman.
• Vaggioli, Dom Felici (2000). History of New Zealand and its inhabitants, Translated by J. Crockett. Dunedin: University of Otago Press. (Original Italian publication, 1896).
• Walker, Ranginui (2004) Ka whawhai tonu matou: Struggle without end Penguin.
• "The people of Many Peaks: The Māori Biographies". (1990). From The Dictionary of New Zealand Biography, Vol. 1, 1769–1869. Bridget Williams Books and Department of Internal Affairs.

External links

• The New Zealand Wars / Nga Pakanga Whenua O Mua. Scholarly and comprehensive website run by Professor Danny Keenan of Victoria University of Wellington, NZ
• New Zealand's 19th Century Wars on NZHistory.net.nz
• Historical Chronology on New Zealand Army website
• New Zealand Wars (1845–1872) collection at the New Zealand Electronic Text Centre
• The Encyclopedia of New Zealand
• The Maori Wars in the 1966 Encyclopaedia of New Zealand
• Myths of Origins of the Maori Wars in the 1966 Encyclopaedia of New Zealand
• Documenting research of New Zealand War Medal recipients