Maori warfare

[King James I]

Hey guys, I'm am from Aetearoa or New Zealand as it is more commonly known and I'd like to start a thread about warfare and the the wars that have taken place in my country. Ethnically I am both Maori and (Pakeha) so I am a descendant of both sides in the historial conflicts. I'd like to first post some information about my Maori descendants as well as there fighting style etc. Not alot of you may know about this subject and some may find it of interest. I am also posting it because it is part of my country's heritage and therefore is part of my heritage which I'd like to share it with you

The literal meaning of the word 'Maori' is natural, normal or local. The expression "Wai
Maori" for example means normal or fresh water. It has been used relatively recently to distinguish the descendants of the original inhabitants from the colonial settlers. In pre-colonial times, the term 'Maori' was not used to describe the indigenous people because there was no need to distinguish between the various iwi and hapu on one hand and any other distinctive ethnic group on the other hand.The 'ethnicity' of 'Maori' was then tribal they were nationals of iwi and hapu. So a person was a Ngati Porou or a Tuhoe (etc) in the first instance. These in turn were defined by a person connection to the Tribal boundaries by whakapapa (geneology). For example the famous pepeha.The oral tradition maintains that the Maori ancestors came from “a hot country named Irihia (Elsdon, 1923)”, an ancient name for India. These ancestral voyagers came east out of Southeast Asia into Melanesia and Western Polynesia. Then, sailing from Central Polynesia, the first New Zealanders arrived around 1000AD. A small migration wave settled with low population densities and numerous resources
The large Moas, sea animals, fishing and foraging, and the plentiful birds sustained the small population. Anthropologists and historians refer to these people as the Moa-hunters or the tangata whenua, people of the land.

Tribal wars on Tahiti and Ra’iatea were taking a toll on the resources and residents of those islands. Migration to less populated areas including New Zealand resulted (Reed, 1974).

This wave of people brought new technologies and practices that added to the development of today’s Maori.

Origin of Maori Warfare
Tribal wars on Tahiti and Ra’iatea were taking a toll on the resources and residents of those islands. Migration to less populated areas including New Zealand resulted.

In addition, a sedentary agricultural settlement pattern was introduced to complement the new plants that could be cultivated and stored. Walker characterizes the time period with this new wave of settlers as the Proto-Maori phase. These Proto-Maori overtook the Moa-hunters through conquest, intermarriage or both. As small sedentary populations grew, boundaries were created. As tribes began to experience conflict between neighbors, a village and fort type of settlement developed. Papakainga, or villages, and the Pa forts allowed for the development of food caching and the ability to support specialized laborers. Carving and tattooing are results of this new lifeway. Sedentary life also further reinforced the Maori sense of belonging to the land, as they relied on it for every aspect of their lives.


Maori Warfare
Haka:
There were quite a number of different types of haka performed in pre-European times, depending on the occasion. There were hakas of song and joy, and warlike hakas of "utu", performed before going into battle.

There were two types of war haka - one performed without weapons, usually to express public or private feelings, known as the "haka taparahi", and the war haka with weapons, the "peruperu". The "peruperu" was traditionally performed before going into battle. It was to invoke Tumatauenga, the god of war, and warned the enemy of the fate awaiting him. It involved fierce facial expressions and grimaces, poking out of the tongue, eye bulging, grunts and cries, and the waving of war weapons.

Before actually going into battle, the warriors would generally assemble together. The warrior leading the "taua", or war party, would move into the centre of the men and cry :

"Tika tonu mai
Tika tonu mai
Ki ahau e noho nei
Tika tonu mai I a hei ha"

Which means :

"Come forth this way, towards me
To this place where I now stand
Come straight this way
I a hei ha"

War parties
War parties were usually composed of males, although female tribal members were not exempt from this activity.

The Māori warriors excelled in the art of ambush and surprise raids, appearing and disappearing swiftly and noiselessly into the thick New Zealand natural rainforest environment. They usually attacked at dawn. The aim was to kill all members of the enemy war party, so that no survivors would remain with the risk of "utu" (revenge).

If a lasting peace was considered with a former enemy, an inter-tribal marriage between families of aristocratic or chiefly rank was arranged to ensure the peace pact.

A war party was prepared with care, involving intricate ritual and the abstinence of certain foods and practices. The war party dedicated itself to Tumatauenga, the god of war, and special rites placed a "tapu" around the warrior.

The fighting season was generally between late November and early April, the summer months, when food and fishing was plentiful for warriors on a long war trail.

A war party led by a chief (rangatira), would be made up of around 70 warriors, which was the average compliment of a war canoe (waka taua). It was not uncommon, however, for a war canoe to carry up to 140 warriors. This was a "Te Hokwhitu a Tu".

On arrival back home, a cleansing rite was performed to lift the "tapu".

War was a splendid affair for Maori - to die in battle was noble, and to gain revenge for previous insult or defeat was also noble.

To eat an enemy, to drink his blood, to preserve his head, to use his bones for fish-hooks, or at the very least to enslave him - any means to steal his prestige - were also noble and desireable.

The tribes engaged in a localised warfare that was guerilla-like. There were skirmishes and ambushes between neighbouring tribes, and battles were fought preferably hand-to-hand, or with club (patu), or spear (taiaha). The haka was a traditional war dance before battle to instil terror in the enemy.

Spearheads were made from the wood manauka, rimu or kahikatea - the tewhatewha, with axe-like top had feather ornamentation. A vicious handheld weapon was a flesh ripper - a carved piece with shark's teeth set into it, as a blade.

The more common handheld weapons, or patu, above, were wooden, stone or in exceptional cases, greenstone or pounamu.

Mana was a quality that imbued many aspects of Maori life - and most importantly, themselves as people. Mana is another word that is difficult to anglicize, but can mean in different circumstances, honour, prestige, authority, psychic power, influence, skill, or nobleness.

Mana could be lost, or gained, and battle was a perfect arena for the loss and gain of mana, for the victor and defeated.

Mere of valuable pounama that might have been handed down from generation to generation had such high levels of mana that prisoners might request to be killed by such a weapon.

A great deal of mana was instantly bestowed on the first-born of a leading or chief's family.

Maori-Pakeha Conflicts
The Maori Wars, now more commonly being referred to as The Land Wars, refers to a series on conflicts that happened in New Zealand between 1845 and 1872. Ostensibly they involved the original natives of New Zealand, the Māori, and the new European settlers, known as the Pakeha who were assisted by hundreds, later thousands of experienced British or Imperial troops.

The First Māori War or 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 mana or tribal prestige and customs duties. It was really a war between rival Māori chiefs with the British fighting on one side, fighting for the prestige of the British Empire.

This was followed almost immediately by the Hutt Valley Campaign, March-August, 1846 and the Wanganui Campaign, April-July, 1847 in the south west of the North Island. Both of these conflicts were about the encroachment of the European settlers on to Māori land.

In the first three wars the Māori fought the British to a standstill each time; they had no wish to beat the British or to drive them from New Zealand. From them emerged an understanding, British Law prevailed in the townships and settlements and Māori Law and Custom elsewhere. There followed a period of relative peace and economic cooperation, from 1848 to 1860.

During this time European settlement accelerated and in about 1859 the number of Pakeha came to equal the number of Māori. By now the British had largely forgotten the painful lessons of the earlier conflicts. They tried to use military might to push through a very dubious land sale, one their own courts later repudiated. The result was the First Taranaki War Once again the British military machine found itself evenly matched by the Māori and after 12 months both sides were happy to settle for a draw.

However this was clearly just a preliminary. The Pakeha were not prepared to countenance the Māori controlling and ruling most of the territory of the North Island. War broke out again in 1863 with the Invasion of the Waikato. The Waikato War including the Tauranga Campaign was the biggest of all the New Zealand Land Wars. The outcome of this war was the major confiscation of Māori land which quickly provoked the Second Taranaki War 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 or civil wars in Māori tribes between adherents of the Pai Marire or Hau Hau sect; a vehemently anti-Pakeha religious group who were intent upon destabilizing the developing cooperation between the Māori and Pakeha This is 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 as separate conflicts.

This virtually ended the major, violent conflicts between the new colonial government and the original occupants of the land.

There were other conflicts and incidents subsequently that were a part of the overall conflict but are not usually seen in the context of the New Zealand Wars. The invasion of Parihaka in 1880 was certainly one of these. There was an incident in the 1890s that became known as the Dog Tax War. Another was the arrest of Rua Kenana in 1916. It is even possible that Bastion Point in the 1970s should be considered as part of the same scenario.

The protagonists
Some time in 1859 the Europeans in New Zealand reached numerical parity with the Māori, at about 60,000 each. However neither population was stable. The Māori population was declining so fast that some people saw their racial extinction as a distinct possiblity. Meanwhile immigrant ships were arriving from Britain on an almost a weekly basis. As early as 1841 one Māori asked if the whole British tribe was moving to New Zealand.

There were other inequities. The Imperial Troops were supplied and paid for by Britain, not by the fledging colony. So the Māori were fighting against the economic base of Industrial Britain. The Māori on the other hand, 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 campaigning before they had to return to their home base. They developed a system to rotating shifts for the longer conflicts but they were never able to deploy their entire force.

The Invasion of the Waikato was by far the largest conflict. The Colonial side mustered some 18,000 men, with a peak deployment of possible 14,000. Opposing them were between four and five thousand 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 the British command. Waka Nene was at war with Hone Heke. Indeed the only really serious engagement of the war, 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. The Ngati Porou formed their own regiment. In the latter stages, the hunt for Te Kooti through the Urewera's, some incidents were once again Māori fighting Māori. Usually though the Māori fought as allies, not as subordinates. When their interests divereged from Pakeha interests they tended to go their own way.

The Māori were fighting the Pakeha. They too can be divided into two groups. One was the Imperial Army, the forces of the British Empire, including ironically, Australians going overseas to war for the first time -- to fight New Zealanders The other was the various militia formed from the Settlers which eventually evolved into the New Zealand Army, answerable to the New Zealand Government and not to London. The first war was fought by the Imperial Army, probably assisted informally by a few Settlers. The Taranaki War involved organized units of settler militia. The Imperial Government was increasingly reluctant to become involved in New Zealand Wars. To get their support for the Invasion of the Waikato, Governor Grey had to present a false picture of the seriousness of the situation. What became known as the Second Taranaki War was basically the reaction of the Māori to the wholesale confiscation of their land by the Colonial Government. They originally used the Imperial Troops for this but their commander, General Cameron, resigned in protest and it was shortly after this that the last British troops were withdrawn.

Then too there were a few Pakeha who fought for the Māori, not many but there always were some arrivals in New Zealand who identified completely with the Māori, they were know as Pakeha Māori, meaning strangers who have become Māori. Perhaps the most notorious was Kimble Bent who acted as Titokowaru's armourer and later became a noted tohunga or priest.

A group or category that is seldom mentioned and never considered in the histories is the half castes, the people of mixed Māori and Pakeha descent of which there would have been several thousand in New Zealand at the time of the Wars. That is probably because then, as now, they did not constitute a separate identifiable group. They saw themselves as either Māori or Pakeha and chose their sides according to other criteria.


Strategy and tactics
The British Army were professional soldiers who had experienced fighting in various parts of the Empire, they were led by officers who were themselves trained by men who fought at Waterloo. The Māori fighters were warriors, survivors of the Musket Wars, 20 years of bitter inter tribal fighting. It has to be said that one of the reasons for the First Māori War was curiosity by the Māori warriors to see what kind of fighters these Pakeha soldiers were.

Both sides found their opponent's way of waging war totally incomprehensible. The British set out to fight a European style war, one that had worked for them almost everywhere else in the world. When you find an enemy strong point or town you attack it. Your enemy feels obliged to defend the strongpoint. Either there is a battle or you besiege and then capure the strong point. Theoretically you win and the enemy loses.

The first British action of the Flagstaff War was the capture and destruction of Pomare's Pa near Kororareka. Now this was a substantial Māori settlement so it seemed like British victory but all the Māori warriors escaped with their arms so they didn't see it as defeat.

The British then set out to do the same to Kawiti's Pa at Puketapu. But this was not a residential settlement, it 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 mud, thick sticky mud. Getting there was a major expedition. The British troops were already exhausted when they arrived in front of the Pa. The next day they tried a frontal attack and discovered that the bush and gullies they were advancing across were full of hostile warriors. Some of the British troops reached the pallisade and discovered that attacking a thick wooden walls with muskets was not effective. After several hours of costly but indecisive skirmishing the British withdrew. Fortunately their Māori 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. The Māori would build a fortified Pa, sometimes provocatively close to a British fort or reboubt and the British would feel they had to attack it. Their aim was always to bring the Māori to battle where they knew they could inflict a decisive defeat. In European warfare besieging an enemy fortress usually provoked a battle. However the Māori also knew that they would probably lose heavily in open conflict, indeed they did the few times it happened. Generally they were successful in avoiding it.

A Māori Pa was not the same as European fortress but it took British years to appreciate the difference. The word “Pa” had meant a Māori village or community. They were always fortified and built with a view to defence. But primarily they were residential. Puketapu Pa and then Ohaeawai Pa were the first of the so called “Modern Pa”. They were built to stop enemies armed with muskets and cannon. A strong wooden pallisade was fronted with flax leaves Phormium tenax whose tough, stringy foliage took a lot of penetrating. The pallisade was probably lifted a few cms from the ground so that muskets could be fired from beneath it rather than over the top. There were trenches and rifle pits to protect the occupants and later, very effective bomb 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. They were cheap and easily built - Waitara Pa was built by 80 men overnight - and they were completely expendable. Time and time again the British would mount an elaborate expedition to besiege an annoying Pa which would absorb their bombardment and possibly one or two attacks and then be abandoned by the 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.

For a long time the modern Pa effectively neutralized the overwhelming disparity in numbers and armaments. At Ohaeawai Pa in 1845, at Waireka in 1860, and again at Te Ngutu o Te Mana in 1868 the British and Colonial Forces discovered that a frontal attack on a defended Pa was both ineffective and extremely costly. At Gate Pa during theTauranga Campaign, in 1865 the Māori withstood a day long bombardment in their bomb shelters. One authority calculated 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. The pallisade being destroyed the British troops entered the Pa whereupon the Māori popped out of their bomb shelters and killed a hundred of them in only a few minutes. They then abandoned the Pa.

The Imperial Troops and then later the Colonial Forces never captured a completed and defended Pa but they did learn how to neutralise the problem. Although cheap and easy to build a modern Pa did require a significant input of labour and resouces. By the wholesale destruction of the Māori economic base in the area around the Pa, the destruction of the tribal society, they were sometimes able to render them unaffordable. This was the reasoning behind the bush scouring expeditions of Chute and McDonnell in the Second Taranaki War.

The biggest problem for Māori however was that their society was ill-adapted to supporting 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 found it difficult to defeat the Māori in battle, they were able to outlast them in war.

The two final Māori Wars, those of Te Kooti and Titokowaru, present an interesting contrast. Titokowaru used the Pa system to devastating effect, at one stage the New Zealand Government thought they had lost the war. Titokowaru's War. Te Kooti on the other hand was a good guerilla leader but he showed little or no skill in fighting from a fixed position. His Pa were ill built, inadequately supplied and he held on to them for too long. Te Kooti's War was lost at Nga Tapa and Te Porere.

Battles

Battle at Pomare's Pa
Pa is a fortfied village or community. Because of the almost constant inter-tribal warfare the art of defensive fortifications had reached a very high level among the Maori. A Pa was usually situated on top of a hill, surrounded by a formidable pallisade and backed up by trenches. Since the introduction of muskets they had learnt to cover the outside of the pallisade with layers of flax, Phorium tenax leaves making them bullet proof. They also began to raise the pallisades a few centimetres above the ground so that muskets could be fired from beneath them rather than over the top. The British were to discover, to their considerable cost, that a defended Pa was a very hard nut to crack.

In this respect they were lucky in their first endeavour. When they arrived at Pomare's Pa the chief himself came down to see what all the fuss was about and was promptly made prisoner. He then ordered his men not to resist the British and they escaped into the surrounding bush. This left the British a free hand to loot and burn the Pa. This action caused considerable puzzlement since up until that time Pomare had been considered neutral, by himself and almost every one else. When they burnt the Pa the British also burnt two pubs or grog shops which Pomare had established within his Pa to encourage the Pakeha settlers, sailors, whalers etc to visit and trade with him.

Encouraged by this success their next target was Heke's Pa at Puketutu on the shores of Lake Omapere, some 30 kilometres inland from the Bay of Islands. It was also close to Waka Nene's Pa at Okaihau where they could expect shelter and logisitical support.

Battle at Hone Heke's Pa
After a difficult cross country march they arrived at Okaihau on [May 7], [1845]. Col Hulme and his second in command Major Cyprian Bridge made an inspection of Heke's Pa and found it to be quite formidable. Lacking any better plan they decided on a frontal assault the following day.

The British troops had no heavy guns but they had brought with them a dozen rockets. The Maori had never seen rockets used and were anticipating a formidable display. Unfortunately the first two missed their target completely. the third hit the pallisade; duly exploded and was seen to have done no damage. This display gave considerable encouragement to the enemy Maori. Soon all the rockets had been expended leaving the pallisade intact.

The storming parties began to advance, first crossing a narrow gulley between the lake and the Pa. Here they came under heavy fire both from the pallisade and from the surrounding scrub. It became apparent that there were as many enemy warriors outside the Pa as there were inside. There followed a savage and confused battle. Eventually the discipline and cohesiveness of the British troops began to prevail and the Maori were driven back inside their fortress. But they were by no means beaten, far from it. Without artillery the British had no way to overcome the defences of the Pa. Hulme decided to disengage and retreat back to the Bay of Islands.

In this engagement, the Battle of Puketutu Pa, the British suffered 14 killed and 38 wounded. The Maori losses were 47 killed and about 80 wounded. The return to the Bay was accomplished without incident.

A week later, on May 15th, Major Bridges and three companies of troops attacked another Pa, Kapotai's, on the Waikare Inlet which they could reach easily by sea. The Maori chose not to defend this Pa and fled as soon as the shooting started. The Pa was soon burnt and destroyed.

Col Hulme returned to Auckland and was replaced by Col Despard, a soldier who did very little to inspire any confidence in his troops.

The Battle of Te Ahu Ahu
Histories of the First Maori War tend to ignore the Battle of Te Ahu Ahu yet it was in some ways the most desperate fight of the entire war. However there are no detailed accounts of the action. It was fought entirely between the Maori, Hone Heke and his tribe against Waka Nene and his tribe. The British were not invited. There was no glory to be milked from it by the politicians or the military so they saw no need to mention it in contemporary accounts and this trend has continued.

After the successful defence of Puketutu Pa Hone Heke returned to his Pa at Te Ahu Ahu, a major residential settlement. Some days later he went on to Kaikohe to gather food supplies. During his absence one of Waka Nene's allies, the Hokianga chief, Makoare Te Taonui, attacked and captured Te Ahu Ahu. This was a tremendous blow to Heke's mana or prestige, obviously it had to be recaptured as soon as possible.

The ensuing battle was a traditional formal Maori conflict, taking place in the open with the preliminary challenges and responses. It was no small affair. Heke mustered somewhere between 400 and 500 warriors while Waka Nene had about 300 men. Contemporary European accounts suggest that there were only a few dozen casualties but this is almost certainly wrong. One of Heke's chiefs was killed while both he and another chief were severely wounded and nearly made prisoner. Heke and his forces were driven from the field leaving Nene in control of his Pa. Waka Nene later described it as a "most complete victory over Heke" It was the only battle of the entire war that Hone Heke lost.

Battle of Ohaeawai Pa
Although it was now the middle of the southern winter, Despard insisted on resuming the campaign immediately. With a formidable body of men and supported by artillery they sailed across the bay to the mouth of the Keri Keri River and began to march inland to Ohaeawai where Heke had built himself a formidable Pa. The conditions were atrocious: continual rain and wind on wet and sticky mud. It was several days before the entire expedition was gathered at the Waimate Mission by which time Despard was apoplectic; so much so that when Waka Nene arrived with 250 men, Despard said that if he had wanted the assistance of savages he would have asked for it. Fortunately the interpreter delivered a completely different message.

The British troops arrived before the Ohaeawai Pa on June 23 and established a camp about 500 metres away. On the summit of a nearby hill they built a four gun battery. They opened fire next day and continued until dark but did very little damage to the pallisade. The next day the guns were brought to within 200 yards of the Pa. The bombardment continued for another two days but still did very little damage. Partly this was due to the elasticity of the flax covering the pallisade but the main fault was a failure to concentrate the cannon fire on one area of the defences.

After two days of bombardement without effecting a breach, Despard ordered a frontal assault. He was, with difficulty, persuaded to postpone this pending the arrival of a 32 pound naval gun which came the next day, July 1st However an unexpected sortie from the Pa caused great alarm and further infuriated Despard. He ordered an attack the same day. This caused consternation among the Maori allies and indeed among the Maori defenders of the Pa who tried to persuade the British soldiery to retreat and and not persist in such a suicidal attack.

The British persisted in their attempts to storm the unbreached pallisades and five to seven minutes later 33 were dead and 66 injured.

The Maori allies' opinion of the British fell even further when Despard decided to abandon the siege, but he agreed to wait for a few more days. More ammunition and supplies were brought in and the shelling continued. On the morning of July 8th the Pa was found to have been abandoned; the enemy had disappeared in the night. When they had a chance to examine it the British officers found it to be even stronger than they had feared. It was duly destroyed and the British retreated once again to the Bay of Islands. Kawiti and his warriors escaped, Heke recovered from his wounds, and a new and even stronger Pa was being built. Meanwhile many men had been killed.

The final battle of the war, Ruapekapeka Pa
A few months slipped by and a new governor, Sir George Grey was appointed. He tried to make peace. The Maori rebels were not interested, they thought they were winning. A considerable force was assembled in the Bay of Islands. Between 7th and 11th December, 1845, it moved up to the head of the Kawa Kawa River, one of the tributaries of the Bay of Islands. They were then faced with 15 to 20 kilometers of very difficult country before they could reach Kawiti's new Pa, Ruapekapeka or the Bat's Nest. It took two weeks to bring the heavy guns into range of the Pa, they started the bombardment on December 27th. The siege continued for some days with enough patrols and probes from the Pa to keep everyone alert.

Then, early in the morning of Sunday, 11 Jauary 1846, some of the British troops were attempting to capture or steal the Maori's potato crop when they realised that the Pa was very quiet. A large group of them managed to push over the pallisade and entered the Pa discovering that it was almost empty. They were quickly reinforced just as the Maoris tried to re-enter the Pa from the back. A brisk fire fight ensued before they were driven off leaving the British in control. Twelve British were killed and twenty nine injured.

It was later suggested and is now believed that most of the Maoris had been at church. Many of them were devout Christians. Knowing that their enemy, the British were also Christians they had not expected an attack on a Sunday. It would seem ironic that they lost their stronghold by showing more respect for the religion their enemies had brought to the country. This however may not be true. It seems possible that the Maori had actually abandoned the Pa and laid an elaborate trap in the bush behind it. They expected the British to rush through the Pa in pursuit of the rear guard straight into an ambush. To some extent this is what happened, most of the British losses happened at this stage and overall they lost more men than the defenders.

Later examination of the Pa showed that it had been very well designed and very strongly built. In different circumstances it could have been a long a costly siege. The earthworks can still be seen just south of Kawa Kawa.

This marked the end of the Flagstaff War. Kawiti and Heke both sued for peace and Tamati Waka Nene argued on their behalf suggesting that clemency was the best way to ensure peace in the North. Grey agreed to this, Heke and Kawiti were granted free pardons and none of their land was confiscated.

Just in time as a new war was about to break out at the bottom end of the North Island, around Wellington.

During the course of the whole war the British Casualties were 82 killed and 164 wounded. Heke and Kawiti assessed their losses at 60 killed and 80 wounded although the British estimated 94 killed and 148 wounded. There is no record of the numbers of allied Maori hurt during the conflict.

So who won the war?
To answer this question it is necessary to examine the objectives of the various combatants. The British objectives appear fairly straightforward, to re-establish their authority and authority and the rule of law. When the hostilities were over and from the remoteness of Auckland Governor Grey announced a victory and claimed that their objectives had been achieved. This does not now appear so obvious.

The destruction of Ruapekapeka Pa left the Maori forces intact and undefeated. Indeed the British return to Kororareka was almost a fighting retreat Some days later Kawiti and Heke approached Tamati Waka Nene about a cease fire. This was agreed upon without reference to the British who were presented with a fait accompli to which they agreed. This left the British Government with very little influence in the north and what influence they did have was largely exercised through Waka Nene. Contrary to their earler threats no one was arrested and no land was confiscated. In April 1846 Heke still had 600 men under arms. At the end of that year he revisited Kororareka with a large force of men and could have destroyed the town once again. However all he did was remove the bodies of the men killed in the first battle and retired peacefully, having demonstrated that he could come and go wherever he wished.

Also, symbolically but very significantly, the Flagstaff was not re-erected. It was left lying on the ground where it fell until a new one was erected, by the Maoris, in 1858.

So the British did not win the war.

What were Hone Heke and Kawiti's objectives in going to war?

The Treaty of Waitangi confirmed the authority of the Maori chieftains. It also promised them the preservation of their land and their customs. The Maori took these promises seriously. So too did the original British signatories. But time passed, new men came who hadn't signed the Treaty and promises were broken.

Even without the changes wrought by time the potential for conflict lay in the Treaty. For one thing it immediately established two systems of justice, Maori and Pakeha. It also established two centres of authority, that of the chiefs and that of the British Governor and his representatives. The Treaty did not say that one system should apply to the Maori and one to the British, both systems applied to everybody.

Apart from any other implications this was a serious erosion of chiefly authority. Restoring their authority as Maori Chiefs was a major objective for Kawiti and Heke and in this they were successful.

The other major question was land. Before the Treaty the Maori owned the whole of New Zealand. The flood of European settlers after the signing of the Treaty made it obvious that their land was under threat. Subsequent history proved that they were right in their apprehensions. Heke and Kawiti did achieve their objectives in the short term but it was only a temporary postponement.

So for the Maori, a partial victory at least

Hutt Valley Campaign
The Hutt Valley Campaign of 1846 during the Maori Wars could almost be seen as a sequel to the Wairau Massacre. The causes were the same and the protagonists almost the same. The careless or unscrupulous purchase of land from the Maoris by the New Zealand Land Company and the impatience of the settlers to move on to disputed land, were the triggering factors. Complicating this was dispute among the Maori as to who owned the land. Originally the area had been occupied by three small tribes or hapu, Rangitane, Ngati Apa and Muaupoko. They had been displaced during the Musket Wars by other hapu, Ngati Toa and Ngati Rangitane. Seeing that they had been disposessed of the land Rangitane did not mind selling it to the Pakeha. Of course the new occupants, who saw themselves as the owners by right of conquest, objected strongly. Meanwhile the New Zealand Company did not question the vendors' right to sell the land.

Tension had been high around Wellington since 1842 particularly concerning the fertile bottom land of the Hutt Valley. The occupants, Nga Rangatahi were determined to retain possession. They assembled a force of about 200 warriors led by Te Rangihaeata, one of the participants in the Wairau Massacre. The British began moving men into the area and by February had assembled nearly a thousand men together with some Maori allies from the Te Atiawa hapu.

The conflict started in February 1846 with both sides plundering and destroying each other's property. The British probably struck first when on February 27th they burnt the Maori settlement at Maraenuku. Te Rangihaeata then began to systematically destroy the settlers farms and property in the Hutt Valley. However at this stage he appears to have deliberately avoided attacking persons and caused no casualties however that soon changed. On 3rd March he attacked a company of militia but was driven off. Governor Grey then declared Matial Law and strengthened the garrisons.

On April 2nd, 1846, two settlers were murdered, possibly by men answering to Te Ragihaeata. On 16th May there was a major attack on a defended position; Boulcott's Farm, one of the most forward homesteads in the Hutt Valley. The siege lasted several hours before reinforcements arrived and the Maori withdrew leaving behind sixteen British casualties. A month later an armed patrol in the same area was ambushed and four men wounded.

Meanwhile the British had effected a landing on the coast north of Wellington. They could have attacked the Maori from the rear and also cut off the flow of reinforcemnts from the Wanganui area. Instead the British commander, Major Last, wasted time building a strong fortress near Porirua. This gave Te Rangihaeata enough time to build his own fortress or Pa at Pauatahanui from where he could block any further British advances from that direction.

They successfully defended this against a British attack on August 5-7th and then withdrew.

This was effectively the end of the Hutt Valley Campaign. Te Mamaku returned to the Wanganui region. Te Rangihaeata built himself a strong Pa near the Manawatu River from which he was able to block European penetration onto that area until he died in 1856.

The Maori were not beaten. Indeed until now they appear to have had the better of all the skirmishes. They simply withdrew and chose to no longer resist European settlement into some area. There were probably several reasons for this. With their main stronghold in the Wanganui area, some distance north, they were operating with extended supply lines and were short of food and ammunition. This problem was considerably aggravated when a shrewd move by Grey recruted the Te Atiawa to his side However, the principal factor was probably the British decision to arrest the paramount chief of the area, Te Rauparaha. He had been the other main protagonist in the Wairau Massacre and was Te Rangihaeata's uncle. Hitherto he had been inactive in the conflict and there was no evidence to justify his arrest. The move was taken to forestall any trouble he might cause. Justified or not, the effect on Maori morale was great and it seems to have been a strong factor in their decision to end the campaign.

Wanganui Campaign
The Wanganui Campaign was centred on the settlement that eventually became the town of Wanganui which was established in 1841. By 1846 it had some two hundred European settlers. Following the conflict in the north, known as the Flagstaff War and the recent and nearby Hutt Valley Campaign, they felt increasingly isolated and insecure. They were seriously outnumbered by the local Maori, some of whom were known to have participated in the Hutt Valley fighting, the most notable of these being Te Mamaku, their leader. The Maori had already been angered by the aftermath of the recent campaign as some of the tribe had been captured and put on trial for rebellion. One had been hanged and several sent to jail for long terms.

The Government knew that sending troops to the area was liable to make matters worse. The Maori were not particularly angry with the settlers so much as the government as represented by the military. On the other hand the settlers were demanding protection. In the end Captain Laye with some two hundred men were sent to establish a garrison, arriving in December 1846.

They immediately began to build a fort overlooking the town, The Rutland Stockade, which was completed and ocupied in April, 1847. During this period there was increasing tension between the two races.

Then on April 16th an English sailoraccidentally shot and wounded a friendly Maori in the cheek. The Maori made it clear that it had been an accident but the incident was taken by other, disaffected Maori as a cause for war. Two days later an outlying farm was attacked and a woman and three children killed. The perpetrators had tried to implicate the neutral or friendly Maori of the area in the attack but they were captured by these same Maori and handed over to the British who hanged four of them on April 26th.

By the following day the stockade had been surrounded by hostile Maori and was essentially under siege. One soldier, maintaining his right to go duck shooting despite the situation, was killed but otherwise there were few incidents. Merely a large hostile presence.

Reinforcements arrived for both sides, another company of soldiers for the British and large bodies of Maori from the Upper Wanganui River area. Many of the outlying farms were burnt and destroyed but not before the settlers had retreated to the town. On the morning of May 19th the Maori made a serious and concerted attack on the fort but were driven off by heavy gunfire, both from the fort and from a gunboat on the river. Although the Maori occupied part of the town, they did little damage beyond burning seven houses and withdrew when night fell.

Most of the Maori then withdrew from the immediate vicinity of the town although the siege was maintained in a desultory way. By June the British had 750 men under arms and they began to make reconnaisance raids in force hoping to bring the Maori to battle. There was plenty of sniping but the Maori were not to be drawn. Later they tried the same tactics, making shadowy attacks on the fort and trying to draw out the British.

Then on July 19th it was discovered that the Maori had begun building a defensive position about 2km from the British Stockade. The British immediately sallied forth to deal with it and discovered that most of the enemy Maori were waiting in ambush well in front of their barricades. Soon there was heavy fighting in the broken ground between the two positions. As was usually the case, the discipline of the British soldiers prevailed and the Maori gradually fell back onto their prepared position. The British then brought up a small cannon. The Maori charged out and captured this but were immediately driven away again by a counter charge by the British.

The British, no doubt remembering the Battle of Ohaeawai, see First Maori War, were not prepared to attack the barricades in front of them. Te Mamaku, remembering the discipline and the effectiveness of the British bayonets quite sensibly declined to leave the protection of the barricades.

The British returned to their stockade as night fell. The fighting was not resumed the next day or indeed at any time. A few days later Te Mamaku sent a meassage via the friendly Maori that since neither side appeared willing to attack the other he would retire. The campaign was over.

Governor George Grey was quite prepared to continue fighting and demanded the surrender of the Maori ringleaders or chiefs. However the officer on the spot, Major Wyatt, believed that there was no point in seeking retribution. He spread the word that all the Maori involvced would be pardoned and if Te Mamaku and his fellow chiefs would undertake to keep the peace they too would be left alone.

In February, 1848, Te Mamaku met with Major Wyatt in Wanganui and and made a firm commitment to keeping the peace.

There followed twelve years of economic cooperation and development together with the gradual alienation of yet more Maori land which, inevitably, only lead to more conflict.

The Battle of Waireka, March 28th, 1860
Hearing that some settlers were trapped by the rebellious Maori at Omata, south of New Plymouth, a British force of some 300 men set off in two columns to rescue them, one inland and the other along the beach.

What actually happened during that day depends upon the historian you read. It appears that the larger, inland party which consisted mainly of professional soldiers encountered heavy sniping from the bush surrounding them. They were effectively pinned down all day and retired to New Plymouth at dusk. As they returned they encountered a party of sailors who pushed on to a nearby Pa which they promptly stormed. Since they suffered only four casualties it seems probable that the Pa was largely undefended. However they returned to New Plymouth claiming a great victory. Meanwhile the column marching up the beach, composed largely of inexperienced settlers were in trouble. Trapped by the rising tide, surrounded by actively hostile Maori and running short of ammunition; the militia had been issued with only 18 rounds to last all day, and then they realised they had been abandoned by the professional soldiers. The retreated to a farmhouse and were preparing for hand to hand fighting, a last stand scenario, when the shooting of the sailors storming the Pa was heard. The attacking Maori immediately broke off the fight, the tide went down and the militia, no doubt greatly relieved, went home.

The action that day created heroes, villains and cowards in abundance. The settlers in New Plymouth felt besieged and they needed a victory. So it was reported in the press as a victory, the estimates of the number of Maori killed ranged from two to one hundred and fifty; the phrase "cart loads of bodies" was widely used. The Army were condemned as cowards for abandoning the smaller column. The Sailors were seen as the heroes of the day and their part was written up large. The men of the Settlers column were told that their dangers had been imaginary. And so on, truth was not in the picture. All that can be said with certainty is that several hundred men spent an afternoon shooting at each other, a few were killed and some wounded.

One of the combatants was Harry Atkinson who went on to become Prime Minister of New Zealand.


The King Movement Intervenes
The British Settlers saw the King Movement as a direct challenge to the Queen, Victoria, and themselves. In a way they were right although they perceived the Movement as being far more aggressively anti-British than it probably was, as a direct affront to colonial authority. Because they were confident of victory in Taranaki they were hoping that the Kingites would become involved and thereby learn the futility of resisting the British. The Governor on the other hand feared that if the Kingites did get into the war their first move would be to attack Auckland.

After Waireka hostilities were suspended for two months while both sides approached King Potatou in the Waikato. He appears to have come down on the side of the Taranaki Maori but stopped short of a total commitment. When Wiremu Kingi returned to Taranaki he was accompanied by a Kingite war party. Kingi was too astute a strategist to let such an opportunity pass. Be wanted a battle with the British but he wanted it on his terms; he knew he was still outnumbered and out-gunned.

Early in June 1860, he began building a Pa which was only a mile away from the British base at Waitara. This was both a military threat and was seen as extreme provocation. The British forces had been severely criticised for their inaction, the press and the settlers had come to realize that the Battle of Waireka had not in any way been the substantial British victory it was claimed to be. The appearance of a hostile Pa so close to their own base could not be ignored.

Then on June 23 a British patrol was fired upon from the Pa. Colonel Gold immediately authorized and attack and on June 27 the garrison marched out, 350 elite troops and two howitzers. They were opposed by less than two hundred Maori.

The Maori had occupied two small hills lying between some swampy ground. Only one of the hills, Onekukaitara appeared to be fortified. The other hill, Puketakuere, which eventually gave its name to the battle appeared to be unoccupied and completely undefended. The British divided their forces into three groups and planned to surround the two hills. A group of 125 men commanded by Captain Messenger had the hardest task, to march around the back of the Maori and occupy Puketakauere in order to cut off the Maori retreat. they had a difficult march and were exhausted when they got into position, just as the action was beginning.

The howitzers began their bombardment and soon made a breach in the stockade on Onekukaitara Hill. The British commander ordered an immediate attack.

And the whole plan went disastrously wrong. There were very few Maori inside the Pa. Most of them were in deep trenches and rifle pits in front of it. When the British advanced on the stockade they entered the killing ground and faced " a most destructive fire" There was a pause while the British went to ground during which the remainder of the Maori emerged from the Pa and joined the battle. The British could make no progress, even holding their position was costing them casualties. Soon they were in danger of being out flanked. They began to retreat and continued retreating until they were all the way back in their base at Waitara. What was particularly shameful about this retreat was that the wounded were abandoned.

Meanwhile Captain Messenger was attempting to approach the battle from the rear over Puketakauere Hill. Contrary to appearances the hill was heavily trenched and the Maori were waiting for them. What happened subsequently is unclear but fully a third of the men died before they reached Camp Waitara.

The abandoned wounded were all killed by the Maori; altogether the British lost over a hundred men killed. They claimed to have themselves killed between 130 and 150 of the enemy but within a few days it became clear that the Maori had lost only five dead. The Battle of Puketakauere ranks with the Battle of Ohaeawai, First Maori War as one of the worst defeats suffered by the British troops in New Zealand.


What happened? What went wrong?
Basically the Maori out-thought, out-planned and then out-fought the British. The British were over-confident but given their superior numbers, about two to one and their heavy guns they had every reason to be confident. Given also what they could see of the battlefield their plan was good one. But a good British commander was opposed by a brilliant Maori tactician. The Pa was an obvious target, the British could not afford to ignore it. But it was a cruel hoax. The real battle for them only began when they thought they had already won and merely had to mop up the demoralized defenders. Instead they died in large numbers.

The consequences of the defeat at Puketakauere were predictable. An attack on New Plymouth was feared or even a general Maori uprising. Incredibly the politicians instructions to military command remained unchanged—to bring the rebellious Maori to bay and force them into a decisive battle. They were confident that this was all that was needed to teach them the futility of opposing the British Army and spread of European settlers across the land. The Maori on the other hand, also knew that they would be no match for the British in open battle and they had no intention of allowing it to happen.

The next few months were very difficult for the British. New Plymouth was grossly over crowded with refugee settlers and disease was spreading. The military were being abused for their inaction and they couldn't find any Maoris to kill. It was planting season. Unlike their enemies the Maoris were only part time warriors; after a few weeks in the field, many of them necessarily had to return to their home base and attend to the business of living, matters like planting food crops.

There were a couple of small skirmishes in September and October which did nothing to change the situation. Then in early November the British surprised and drove off a small force of Maori who were in the process of building a Pa. Even this small victory did nothing to change the stalemate. The military were beginning to realise that their objective was unobtainable; the Maori were never going to face them across an open battlefield. The British had discovered to their cost the folly of attacking a strongly defended Pa. Weaker Pa were abandoned as soon as they were seriously threatened. But in order to credible each threat involved mounting a major expedition .

New tactics were required. The British response was sapping, a technique as old as siege warfare. It meant starting from a safe distance and digging a trench towards the Pa in such a manner that the sappers were protected from enemy fire. As a technique it worked. The Maori were forced to abandon two strongly held Pa without a costly frontal assault. On the other hand it took an enormous effort on the British part.

In fact at one stage the Maori were provoked into making a frontal assault on one of the British redoubts protecting the trench lines. They were repulsed with heavy losses. It seems that they felt they had a choice of dying from bullets or dying from boredom.

In mid February, 1861, the British began operations against a major Maori defensive line at Te Arei. They were making slow progress but could see the Maori building further defences behind the ones under attack. Then Wiremu Tamehana arrived on the scene. He was one of the architects of the King Movement and had enormous mana or prestige. He tried to persuade both sides to accept a cease-fire based on the status quo. The combatant Maori chiefs were willing but the British military, feeling that they had a winning strategy rejected the terms. After a brief cease-fire fighting resumed. Then Governor Browne intervened and the cease-fire came fully into effect on March 18th.

This was the end of the Taranaki War but it only postponed the confrontation between the British and the Maori King Movement.

The original cause of the war, the sale of the Waitara Block was to be investigated, by now many of the British had their doubts about the legality of the sale. Furthermore the Maori seized a block of 4000 acres, 1600 hectares, which they held hostage for several years. Eventually the Waitara Block was handed back to the Maori.

Overall the Taranaki War was a Maori success. They demonstrated to the British they did not, yet, have the military strength to impose their will on the Maori and that they could not impose British Law beyond the recognized boundaries.

On the other hand the economic and social costs of the wear had been very hard on both sides. The settlers had the population and the economic base from which to begin their recovery almost immediately. The Maori population no longer had that resilience.

Bypassing the Mere Mere Line
The real invasion of the Waikato Region began on 31 October, by water. Cameron had two armored steamers on the River Waikato which between them could carry six hundred men. The Maori had established a very strong defensive line at Mere Mere which effectively blocked any advance south of the British position. By now the British were learning that frontal attacks on defended Maori positions were very costly and usually ineffective. So they decided to by-pass the Mere Mere Line using their water transport. Two trips were made and 1200 men were successfully landed at Takapau where they could attack from the rear.

The Maori had cannon and they used them to try and stop the steamers but they didn't have cannon balls. Apparently rocks, grocers weights and old iron do not make effective missiles—they hit the steamers as they went past but they couldn't stop them.

Recognizing that they were now in danger of being surrounded the Maori evacuated the Mere Mere line on 1 November and withdrew south.


Rangiri
Work had already begun on another defensive line a short distance further south at Ragiriri. Hurried efforts were made to finish it or at least prepare it for a siege. However the Maori had expended a huge effort on the Mere Mere Line and their resources were stretched, not least because planting season was coming up and many warriors had to return to their home bases at least for a period. They probably mustered about five hundred men against an attacking force of about twelve hundred men.

General Cameron launched his attack on 20 November. His strategy was the same as at Mere Mere—some of his troops were transported by river to the south of the Maori defensive position while the remainder attacked from the north. This time the Maori stood and fought. Parts of the line were quickly overrun but the central redoubt proved to be deceptively strong and easily repelled several desperate attempts to capture it, at the same time inflicting heavy casualties on the attackers. According to James Bellich† the British lost 132 men killed and wounded during the fighting that day.

The British spent an uncomfortable and dangerous night. Then in the morning the Maori hoisted a white flag and shortly afterwards surrendered. The nature of this surrender is open to debate. They were not short of ammunition and they were not surrounded; quite number of them had slipped away during the night. It emerged later that they had not intended to surrender immediately but wished to discover what terms the British might offer them if they did surrender. However when they saw the white flag numerous British soldiers entered the redoubt, shook hands with the Maori and mingled amicably. It was only when Cameron arrived twenty minutes later that he demanded that the Maori yield up their weapons and surrender.

These circumstances, whether it was a misunderstanding or duplicity, did a lot to complicate matters during the subsequent fighting. But it also saved a lot of lives. Few Maori were killed in the fighting, certainly less than the British losses. However 180 were taken prisoner and this made a serious dent in the already stretched Maori forces. Most of them subsequently escaped and returned to the Waikato but by then the war was long over.

The Maori withdrew to the south abandoning their ancestral lands. On 8 December the British forces occupied Ngaruwahia, which had been the main center for the King movement.


The Paterangi Line
The Maori would have accepted peace at this stage but the Colonial Government was still hungry for land and were also still demanding the total extinction of any vestige of Maori authority.

Construction of a new and even more formidable defence line was begun at Paterangi some thirty kilometers south of Ngaruwahia. By the end of January, 1864 it was at least as strong as the Mere Mere line. However Cameron and his army merely bypassed the fortification and advanced on Rangiaowhia, a major Maori population center but, more importantly, the supply center for the Paterangi Line. Cameron was probably hoping that the Maori would commit themselves to the defence of Rangiaowhia thereby giving him the decisive pitched battle he was looking for, one he knew the British would win decisively. It didn't happen although there was some ugly fighting around a building where numerous Maori had taken refuge. They were invited to surrender but refused to do so and all of them died, possibly one of the repercussions of the "White Flag" incident.

The occupation of Rangiaowhia put the British in control of a large area of territory and largely rendered the Paterangi Line redundant. However the British began advancing on the fortifications and once again began evacuating. To delay the British advance the Maori threw up a hurried defence line on the Hairini ridge and defended it against a British attack but only for so long as was needed for the bulk of the Maori forces to escape with their supplies of food and ammunition.

But the British were denied still their decisive battle and a clear victory. They were soon to get it but on terms dictated by the Maori.


The Battle of Orakau (also known as Rewi's Last Stand)
The Waikato Maori did not fight alone. Of the twenty seven North Island Tribes fifteen had sent war parties to assist in the fighting. As they were withdrawing from Paterangi one of the Waikato chiefs, Rewi Maniopoto, encountered a party of Ngati Kahungungu and Tuhoe, about 170 men, who had come a long way to join in the war, all the way from the East Cape and the Urawera. They told Rewi quite forcefully that they had not carried their guns all that distance simply to go home without a fight. After consultation with the other Waikato chiefs Rewi decided that they should have their battle.

Orakau was chosen as the site of the battle, a low hill surrounded by rolling country. It was apparently a very bad choice as it broke at least two of rules the Maori always observed when building a fortification or Pa (see Maori Wars). Firstly it had no internal water supply and secondly it would be relatively easy to surround it completely, leaving the defenders with no means of escape. Why? Maxwell has suggested that Rewi intended to make a sacrificial last stand; he was offering the British their decisive victory. Possibly he was being even more subtle. He was well aware of the serious rift between the Colonial Government and the General Cameron and his officers. Possibly Rewi was hoping that a gallant but forlorn last stand, 300 brave Maori against thousands of British soldiers, would finally sicken them of the war. He even allowed about thirty women and a few children to join their men in the redoubt.

Beginning on 28 March, 1864, two days of hard digging had produced a defensible redoubt. The first British attack came on the morning of 31 March, and was easily repulsed. Then began a three day siege. Numerous assaults were turned back as were sallies by the Maori defenders. The bunkers were deep enough and strong enough to neutralize the artillery.

The Maori ran out of water and were short of ammunition. The British pulled back and invited the Maori to surrender. They refused; they were determined to fight to the last man, woman and child. Then suddenly late in the afternoon of the third day about 250 of the Maori emerged and broke through the cordon of troops surrounding them and escaped into the bush. There was final assault on the Pa and the remaining defenders were massacred, including many of the women.

Some historians, e.g. Bellich, believe that this was due to British incompetence while others such as Maxwell†† suggest that Cameron deliberately weakened the cordon of troops on one side and pulled them back, that he deliberately engineered their escape because he did not wish to be responsible for the apparently inevitable massacre of all the defendants. This seems improbable but we do know from his correspondence that he was sick of fighting. A few months later he resigned his commission, his last orders being that the Imperial troops should take no further aggressive action against the Maori (see Second Taranaki War).

The Maori established yet another defensive line some twenty kilometers south of the furthest British advance and announced that it would be defended vigorously. After some preliminary skirmishing the British decided they had gone far enough. In addition they were suddenly faced with the prospects of serious conflict in other areas of the North Island (see Tauranga Campaign and Second Taranaki War). The War in the Waikato was over by 5 April just as the ramifications of it were spreading to the rest of the Island.

The fourth Waikato defensive line became the new frontier of the King Movement Territory. This area did not become fully integrated with the rest of New Zealand until well into the twentieth century and is still known as the King Country.

Maketu
The invaders fell back towards Maketu, a small settlement on the coast south east of Tauranga. A contingent of British troops and Colonial Militia hastily occupied the area and built a substantial redoubt on a nearby hilltop. In the event the enemy did not arrive for two weeks, until 27 April by which time a pair of field guns had also been installed. When they eventually arrived the East Coast Maori surrounded the redoubt and began digging trenches. The rest of the day was spent in desultory gun fire that achieved very little.

The following day reinforcements for the defenders arrived in the form of 300 Arawa and two British naval steamships, one of the a heavily armed corvette. These were able to anchor close in to shore and bombard the attackers at will. The East Coast Maori soon found their position untenable and had to retreat. They tried to dig in further down the coast but were promptly attacked by the militia, the New Zealand Forest Rangers lead by Captain Thomas McDonnell. A running fight through the sand dunes ensued and continued until dusk and was then resumed in the morning with the Arawa Maori lending enthusiastic assistance. Meanwhile the two naval ships kept pace with the fighting and any of the enemy Maori coming too close to the shore line was met with cannon fire.

Eventually the East Coast Maori dispersed into the swamps and returned home.


The Battle of Gate Pa
Gate Pa is the name given to provocative fortress the Maori built only 5km from the main British base at Tauranga. The name comes from it appearance, the palisade looked liked a picket fence while a higher part in the middle resembled a gate. By the end of April the British were ready to attack. They had 1700 men and were opposed by merely 230 Maori, it looked like a good opportunity to score a decisive victory.

A heavy bombardment was begun at daybreak on 29 April 1864 and continued for eight hours; the British had fifteen artillery pieces including one of 110 pounds. By mid afternoon the Pa looked as if it had been demolished and there was a large breach in the center of the palisade. At 4 p.m. the barrage was lifted and 300 troops were sent up to capture and secure the position.

Within ten minutes well over a hundred of them were dead or wounded. There was no second assault. During the night the Maori gave assistance to the wounded and collected their weapons; by day break they had abandoned the position.

Gate Pa was the single most devastating defeat suffered by the British military in the whole of the Maori Wars. What happened.?

General Cameron was probably the most able of the different commanders of the Imperial forces to serve in New Zealand. He knew from experience the likely cost of making a frontal assault on a defended Pa and he was usually very careful with his men's lives. But a frontal assault is what he ordered. It seems likely that he believed the bombardment had been long enough and intense enough to extinguish all resistance from within the Pa. One historian calculated that Gate Pa absorbed in eight hours a greater weight of explosive per square metre than did the German trenches in the week long bombardment leading up to the Battle of the Somme in World War I. If true then Cameron's assumption seems to have been a reasonable one.

But Gate Pa wasn't quite what it appeared to be. From the British positions it looked like fairly large strongpoint occupying the entire hill top. In fact it was much smaller being two low redoubts on either side of the ridge joined by a deep trench about forty metres long and the whole shielded by a strong wooden palisade. It seems likely that British concentrated their barrage towards the center, that is where the palisade had collapsed and that is where the attack went in. Meanwhile the two redoubts had been built very strong with deep and effective bomb proof shelters. The Maori may have been deafened by the bombardment but as soon as it ended they were able to unleash a devastating ambush.

To contemporaries Gate Pa was seen as a shattering defeat. Indeed it was. The perception was that 1700 elite British troops had been defeated by 230 half naked savages. The arrogance of the settlers and the hubris of the British Empire took a serious blow. Governor George Grey came down to Tauranga and began peace negotiations. Cameron returned to Auckland leaving Colonel Greer in command, strictly on the defensive.


Tauranga Campaign
The Battle of Te Ranga
The Tauranga campaign seemed to be over and then suddenly balance swung once again. Colonel Greer was conducting patrols around his base, in strength, i.e. with 600 men. On 21 June he came upon a force of about 500 Maori building a new Pa at Te Ranga, some seven kilometers from his base. They had done little more than dig a few trenches. However Greer had sufficient respect for his enemy that he immediately called for reinforcements. This was the opportunity Cameron had always been looking for, to be able to meet the Maori in the open. The Maori fought desperately but they were overwhelmed by the British soldiery. They only broke and fled when their commander, Rawiri, was killed.

The success at Te Ranga was hailed as a great British victory, one that wiped out the shame of the defeat at Gate Pa. It certainly did a great deal to restore British morale particularly for the 43rd Regiment which was involved in both engagements and had lost many men at Gate Pa.

Peace negotiations were resumed but for once the Pakeha were negotiating on equitable terms, they were not in a position to insist on an unconditional surrender. A few firearms were surrendered, mostly old and trusty muskets. Some land was confiscated but very little compared with what was happening in the Waikato. Also the Government agreed to supply the Maori with food and seed until they got their crops reestablished.

At the time it was said that the Maori achieved this favourable settlement only because Governor Grey had a Ngai te Rangi girlfriend. Possibly, although it might have been because General Cameron withdrew the British Imperial Troops from Tauranga and would allow them no further involvement.

Furthermore they were needed in the Wanganui area. By now the Second Taranaki War was well underway and the New Zealand government was fighting on two fronts.

The Battle of Te Ranga, 21 June 1864 was the last serious engagement of the Tauranga campaign. In so far as the Tauranga Campaign was a sideshow of the Waikato War it also marks the end tacit end of that conflict. There was no real peace treaty or truce, the two sides just stopped fighting each other.


Ambush
6th April, 1864, a few kilometers south of New Plymouth. A party of militia and settlers had spent the morning destroying Maori crops, part of a scorched-earth policy to force the Maori to retreat by denying them food. While they were resting from their labours, apparently without lookouts, the owners of the crop crept up behind them and opened fire, killing seven and wounding twelve.


Sentry Hill
30th April 1864 Pay back time. This battle was in many ways a complete reversal of the usual scenario in British-Maori warfare. The British and Settler troops seventy of them, were secure in a well built redoubt; the Maori were attacking across open country into the killing ground. They even fired their guns in advance to give any neutral Maori a chance to get out of the way but it also warned the British defenders. In a few moments fifty Maori were killed and as many wounded. The British lost one soldier killed and no other casualties.

Pai Marire faith, or lack of it, were the reason for this fiasco. The Hau Hau warriors apparently believed that if their faith was strong enough the Pakeha bullets would be diverted harmlessly away from them.


Moutoa Island
14th May 1864.

This battle involved two Maori tribes fighting each other but none the less was very much a part of the Maori-Pakeha Wars..

The town of George Grey and the Imperial troops lead by General Cameron.. Grey ordered the army to advance and attack a major Maori Pa at Weraroa.. After his experiences with Pateragi Pa Invasion of the Waikato and Gate Pa, Tauranga Campaign Cameron was not having this, he knew that such an attack would be extremely costly and also achieve very little in that he did not have the resources to prevent the majority of the Maori from escaping. In early February Cameron resigned, he took no further part in the fighting and returned to Auckland in August of that year. However influence prevailed and the troops advanced extremely slowly, taking two month to cover sixty miles, one hundred km. They were attacked once more by a force of Hau Hau, at Te Ngaio, but were better prepared and inflicted heavy casualties. Despite this the Government was unable to persuade them to leave their base on the coast and attack the Maori inland.

In late July a small group of colonial militia, attacked and captured a small Maori village behind Weraroa Pa. Since it was by now obvious that the Imperial troops were not going to attack the Pa it had lost its strategic significance and the Maori abandoned it. Despite this it was reported as a great victory for Grey and the Colonial forces and widened even further the rift between Grey and British Imperial Troops. Basically the troops were very reluctant to be used as the tools to confiscate Maori land. In this they wer upheld by the Imperial Government in London who maintained that their role was peace keeping not conquest.

The attack on Weraroa Pa is quite significant in terms of New Zealand history. The initiative for the attack came from the Ngatihau, not to be confused with the Hau Hau Movement. NgatiHau were the tribe who had successfully defended Wanganui from a Hau Hau war party the previous year. The Hau Hau Pa at Weraroa was seen as an encroachment upon their territory and Mana. They wanted to destroy it. Governor Grey said no but they went ahead anyway. Grey hurried down to Wanganui and did everything he could to organize and ensure the success of the attack. A combined force of Maori and Pakeha were assembled, 450 men fighting as allies. Major Rookes was in overall command but the effective leadership was provided by Captain Thomas McDonell and Kepa Te Rangihiwinui. Due to a combination of circumstances complete surprise was achieved and the village was captured without any casualties. The Hau Hau then abandoned the Pa without a fight.

This successful cooperation between friendly Maori and Colonial Militia , sometimes as allies, sometimes as an integrated force and sometimes independently continued and developed during the remaining years of the conflict. At the time they were sometimes called Kupapa, a term meaning “to be neutral in a quarrel” but the word is seldom used these days. Unfortunately in contemporary history the important role of the Maori allies in securing the supremacy of the colonial government is often ignored.

Thomas McDonnell and Kepa te Rangihiwinui, later known as Major Kepa for that is the rank he achieved in the Armed Constabularly were to prove a formidable combination. McDonnell had originally been a sheep farmer in Hawkes Bay while Kepa was the fighting chief, warlord, of the Wanganui Maori. For the next five years they fought together in almost every theatre of the New Zealand Wars. Shortly after the events being described here they were together shipped off to the other side of the country to deal with the insurgency following the Volkner Incident During Te Kooti's War McDonnell was at one stage appointed commander of all the New Zealand forces in the field. Even with overwhelming superiority he refused to start fighting until Kepa had arrived with his men.


The Siege of Paparika.
19 – 30 July 1865.

Meanwhile on the other side of Wanganui a force of about 1000 Hau Hau warriors were attacking a force of 200 colonial militia lead by Captain Brassey. At Pipiriki. This seems to have been a very strange affair as the attacking Hau Hau appear to have lost or abandoned all their military skill and wisdom. The defenders were spread between three redoubts, they were short of ammunition and had no internal water supply. The Hau Hau quickly captured a hill top over looking the principal redoubt from where they accurately ire down upon the defenders. However they were easily driven from the hill top and then they established a perimeter surrounding the four positions but at a range of about five hundred meters which allowed the defenders access to water. It also meant they could move men between the different positions as needed.. After eleven days relief arrived, the defenders were short of food but otherwise in good spirits. They had suffered only two wounded and no deaths.

But the potential had been there for a major defeat for the Colonial forces. However to quote Maxwell

“At Pipiriki Hau Hauism revealed itself for what it had become – a regressive cult, dysfunctional and malevolent. The cult inspired its devotees to pray for results its leaders made no rational plans to achieve” True but the Hau Hau leadership was not always to be so ineffective.


Search and Destroy,
There was a lull in the fighting for a few months. Meanwhile Major General Chute took command of the British forces and they once more began to play an active role in the conflict.. On 3 January, 1866 a combined force of Imperial Troops, Colonial Militia and Maori Allies marched out of Wanganui following the route taken by Cameron a year earlier but much more aggressively.. By 15 January they had destroyed three Hau Hau settlements. As they continued their march through southern Taranaki they burnt every Maori village they came to, destroyed the crops and killed anyone who resisted.

The expedition then took a bizarre turn. Taranaki Province is shaped like a large triangle sticking westwards from the body of the North Island. New Plymouth is at the northern end of the base of the triangle and Wanganui at the southern end. Most of the area of the triangle is filled with a bloody great mountain, Mt Taranaki or Egmont. Until this time all travel between the two settlements had been by sea. No Pakeha had ever traversed the base of the triangle.

This is what Chute set out to do, force a way across country from Southern Taranaki to the New Plymouth area.. The weather was good, the distance was known to be only about sixty miles, 100 km, and they were well equipped. Even their food supplies seemed adequate, enough for two and half days. It wasn't. The weather turned bad and the country turned out to be extremely difficult, steep slippery gullies and thick bush. They ate the horses and then they starved until a relief expedition from New Plymouth met them with supplies. General Chute very nearly became one of the few army commanders who managed to lose his army without any assistance from the enemy.

None the less this was hailed as a great triumph largely because of the contrast with General Cameron's caution the previous year. In truth the experience tended to vindicate Cameron, a large army was unlikely to operate successfully in the New Zealand bush.

This was the last active role the Imperial Army played in the New Zealand Wars, within a few months the regiments had all been withdrawn. But not necessarily the soldiers, many of the men chose to take their discharge in New Zealand and become settlers. Or members of the Colonial Militia, the new New Zealand Army.


More Search and Destroy
June to November 1866 Major McDonnell was placed in command of the New Zealand forces in the area., Maori and Pakeha. They reoccupied the redoubts built by Cameron the previous year and from these bases began systematically scouring the bush. This meant approaching Hau Hau villages, surprise attacks, the killing of everyone who resisted, burning the houses and destroying the food supplies.. The tribes either surrendered or withdrew towards the mountain. By October the men were sick of their task and McDonnell was being called to account for some of the atrocities committed. The fighting ended in November although it was hard to describe what replaced it as Peace.

This was the end of the Second Taranaki War. The Third Taranaki War began two years later, it is generally known as Tikowaru's War

Early Actions
The first and most notorious incident was the murder of missionary Carl Volkner outside his church at Opotiki on March 2, 1865, which came to be known as the Volkner Incident. This outraged the European settlers who demanded justice, but New Zealand government had committed almost all of their forces to fighting the Second Taranaki War. It took five months before they were able to free up men to deal with the murders. Several units of Colonial Militia and a large contingent of Taranaki Maori were shipped around the coast to Opotoki and turned loose in the area with instructions to burn, pillage and destroy as much as possible. Faced with starvation and no effective weapons the locals had no choice but to surrender.

Meanwhile the Hau Hau had provoked a civil war among the Ngati Porou, one of the major tribes of the area. They successfully preached violence when the tribal leaders were urging caution. The Ngati Porou chiefs, who were opposed to the Hau Hau fanaticism, wrote to the Government requesting assistance, particularly arms and reinforcements. Their appeal reached Donald McLean, a major landowner in the Napier region. He already had available a sizeable store of weapons, enough to equip a force of 100 militia and arm the Ngati Porou. They sailed up the coast and the two forces joined up on July 6, 1865.

Over the next few months there were a series of skirmishes all over the East Cape during which the government forces were almost always successful. Hitherto in the various conflicts with the Pakeha the Maori had always shown themselves to be consummately skillful warriors, so skillful that although heavily outnumbered they had already fought the British Army to a standstill on several occasions. Surprisingly their military abilities seemed to have left them, and the Hau Hau had an almost perfect record for losing every skirmish, fight and battle they got into.

Early in October, 380 Pakeha and Ngati Porou loyalists surrounded a force of about 600 Hau Hau. Even though the Hau Hau had a strongly fortified Pa and the weather conditions were atrocious (one of the attackers died of hypothermia) 500 of the Hau Hau were forced to surrender. This was complete reversal of the trend; a fortified and defended Pa was virtually unassailable.

At about the same time a Hau Hau war party attacked a group of Ngati Porou women who had only a few shotguns and well flung rocks to defend themselves. They did so with such good effect that when the Hau Hau retreated they left behind thirteen dead.

In the event this attack cost the Hau Hau even heavier casualties. The loyalist Maori of the Ngati Porou were angered because non-combatants had been attacked. Particularly incensed was a rising leader or war chief among them, Ropata Wahawaha. He lead a group that tracked down and captured the Hau Hau responsible, and personally executed the ones who came from his own hapu, or sub-tribe.


Waerenga a Hika
Early in November of the same year a large group of Hau Hau built a Pa on the outskirts of a Pakeha settlement in Poverty Bay, some 10 km from Gisborne. There is some doubt about the nature of this group. Some authors suggest that they were refugees fleeing from Ropata and the Ngati Porou. However there were at least 200 armed men with the party, threat enough to the settlement which seemed to be confirmed by their building a Pa. Once again it fell to Donald McLean to assemble of force to deal with the threat and to organize the shipping to move his warriors into the area. This was completed by about November 12, including Ropata and some 300 Ngati Porou.

They surrounded the Pa on three sides and began a siege. The first day was spent in ineffectual rifle fire from both sides. The next day Major Fraser ordered his men to begin digging a trench towards the Pa but this was ambushed and a dozen of his men killed or wounded. There were two more days of rifle fire.

On Day five a large party of men, about 200, emerged from the Pa carrying white flags as if to surrender. However they were fully armed and by all contemporary accounts appeared to have no intention of surrendering. In the fighting that followed about sixty Hau Hau were killed while only one of the militia was slightly wounded.

On Day seven the militia acquired a small cannon from Gisborne but no ammunition. Instead they fired empty salmon tins packed with bullets, about a hundred per tin. The effect must have been impressive because after the third shot the Hau Hau did surrender, properly this time. Some 400 of them were made prisoners although many others escaped into the surrounding bush.


Ngati Kahungunu Civil War
December 1865 to January 1866 This conflict happened in the northern Hawkes Bay area. It appears to have been very similar to the Ngati Porou civil war, conflict between those of the tribe who converted to Hau Hauism and those who remained loyal to the New Zealand Government, the kupapa. In this case the conflict was on a much smaller scale, possibly because each faction involved only a small proportion of the tribe, the bulk of the Ngati Kahungunu remaining neutral.

The loyalist faction won because they were able to call on support of the Colonial Militia and from the Ngati Porou warriors.


Napier
In October 1866 one group of Hau Hau attempted to invade Napier in a desultory fashion: they moved into the area in a threatening manner but did little more than camp on the outskirts of the settlement. However they could not be ignored. Once again a mixed force of Pakeha and Maori, commanded by Colonel Whitmore, was formed. They marched out and surrounded the Hau Hau at Omaranui. The Hau Hau were given a chance to surrender which they refused; in fact they refused even to negotiate. They were given an hour to reconsider and then the militia opened fire. The result was a massacre in which most of the Hau Hau were killed


Tauranga again
January to March 1867 The peace agreement of 1864 had been accepted by most of the Maori of the Tauranga district and the area was relatively quiet. However thee was to be some confiscation of land and this was resisted by one small hapu or sub-tribe, the Piri Rakau lead by a Hau Hau Prophet, Hakaraia. Unlike most of the Hau Hau adherents he seems to have had some military wisdom. They were able to avoid either capture or destruction and for a brief time they had a considerable impact on the stability of the district particularly on the Arawa Tribe. However the arrival of Colonial reinforcements forced them to retreat towards the King Country. Hakaraia later joined Te Kooti.

Similarly south of Opotiki the Tuhoe were not prepared to accept the arrival of Pakeha settlers on their northern border and made some raids on the farms being established in the area. Attempts by the militia to deal with the Tuhoe were largely unsuccessful because they could always retreat into the mists of the Uraweras.

So this was the East Cape War, it wasn't a war but it certainly wasn't peace either. Two factors kept the area unsettled. The Government pressed ahead with the confiscation of Maori land and this in its turn provided the Hau Hau with a constant flow of recruits. Then in June of 1868 the situation changed drastically with the arrival in Hawkes Bay of Te Kooti

Sources
http://www.zealand.org.nz/whakapapa7.htm
http://www.nationmaster.com/encyclopedia/Maori-Wars

Sorry about the long post guys, but I thought that this is a subject that not many people would know a lot about and I thought some of you might be interested.

P.S Definiton of Pakeha
The most likely derivation seems to be from ‘Pakepakeha’ (George, 1999) mythical creatures who are mischievous, human-like beings, with fair skin and hair who lived deep in the forest, coming out only at night. (Biggs, 1988). The derivation of ‘Pakeha’ from ‘Pakepakeha’ is given added weight when we consider that the first term used to describe Cook and his crew was ‘tipua’ or ‘tupua’, a goblin or a supernatural object of terror

Source http://maorinews.com/writings/papers/other/pakeha.htm

[spmetla]

I haven't read all of your post yet, but I'm a quarter of the way through. So far very interesting. I'll finish it tomorrow.

[Basileus]

ohh man thats awesome of you, im realy enjoying this thank you http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/bigthumb.gif

[Lechev]

Its one of the longest article i had read. Great post and well done King James I. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/bigthumb.gif

Cheers http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/cheers.gif

[King James I]

Hey guys, thanks for your kind replies to my post I hope you have learnt something of the history and ways of my ancestors and my country. I also thank you for your patience and persevarance in reading such a lengthly post.

I am prepared to post more information regarding the weapons, tactics, and even the ways that warfare and especially impacted on the society of the "Maori people"
if you would like me to.

[meravelha]

Kia ora a koe King James I
Thank you for a most excellent post.
I too whakapapa from those times and places.

We are blessed are we not that our land has been relatively free from war.

[Rob The Bastard]

http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/gc-2thumbsup.gif

[Dead Moroz]

King James I, you was Leo Tolstoy in previous life. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

Thanks for info http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/bigthumb.gif