New Zealand Wars

The New Zealand Wars were a series of nineteenth-century military conflicts between Indigenous Māori peoples and British colonial forces in New Zealand. Also involved in the fighting were Māori who supported the British and colonial settlers who supported the Māori. Arising over disputes related to land rights and sovereignty, hostilities in the New Zealand Wars first occurred in the Wairau Valley in 1843 and continued intermittently until 1872. The single largest battle of the war was the Invasion of the Waitkato, an 1863–1864 North Island encounter that ended in a British victory.

When the New Zealand Wars finally concluded in 1872, thousands of Māori were left dead. Those who survived lost control of more than 2.5 million acres (1 million hectares) of their native land to the New Zealand government. Although some of that lost land was later returned, the devastating social, cultural, and economic effects of the New Zealand Wars continued to plague the Māori for decades.

Background

The Māori were New Zealand’s earliest inhabitants, arriving on the island after likely traveling from Polynesia somewhere between the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. European explorers and settlers did not reach New Zealand until the seventeenth century. While the Māori initially welcomed their new European neighbors, relations quickly soured. The weapons and diseases the European settlers brought with them proved to be devastating for the Māori as did missionaries’ attempts to convert them to Christianity. As more European settlers arrived in the nineteenth century, Māori culture became increasingly marginalized and threatened.

In hopes of protecting themselves and their place in New Zealand, several Māori tribes signed the Treaty of Waitangi with the British government in 1840. The English version of this treaty stated that the Māori accepted British sovereignty over their land and placed Māori possessions under royal protection. It also gave the British government the exclusive right to purchase Māori land. The wording of the Māori version of the treaty was slightly different, however. This translation issue led the Māori to believe that they would retain sovereignty over their land even though they were allowing the British to govern it.

The British used the Treaty of Waitangi to annex New Zealand’s North and South Islands later that same year. Although the treaty’s land-selling article was intended to protect the Māori from largescale land purchases, the colonial government found a loophole that allowed them to purchase land at a low cost and resell it to Europeans at a great profit. As this practice continued over time, the Māori gradually lost more and more of their land. To make matters worse, Governor William Hobson moved the capital of the colonial government to Auckland in 1841, a decision that some Māori tribes viewed as damaging to the Indigenous economy. All this hardship led certain Māori factions to start rebelling against the government. Early rebelliousness centered around a flagstaff in the town of Russell. The flagstaff in question was originally used to display New Zealand’s national flag, or the United Tribes flag. When the United Tribes flag was subsequently removed in favor of a British flag in 1844, a Māori faction led by a chief named Hōne Heke responded by repeatedly cutting down the flagstaff. This act of defiance set the stage for the New Zealand Wars.

Overview

The situation in Russell quickly escalated. After the colonial government sent military reinforcements to the town in early 1845, the Māori once again returned to cut down the flagstaff. During the ensuing skirmish, a powder keg exploded and caused a damaging fire. The Northern War, the first stage of the New Zealand Wars, started soon thereafter. Fighting dragged on for months before the Māori retreated. Although the battle essentially ended in a stalemate, the British viewed the outcome as a tactical victory. Peace was fully secured in 1848.

While an uneasy peace reigned during the 1850s, the seeds of further conflict were soon planted. Increasing European settlement led to the need for more land, but many Māori were reluctant to sell because they were concerned for their own future. As threats to their existence grew, some Māori looked to protect their interests through the King Movement, which sought to install a Māori king who could unite the tribes against further land sales. Waikato leader Pōtatau Te Wherowhero was chosen as the first king in 1858. Some settlers and government officials saw this as a challenge to British authority.

Violence broke out again with the start of the Taranaki and Waikato wars in the early 1860s. The conflict began when one Māori chief offered to sell some land near the mouth of the Waitara River and another chief objected. The British sent troops to the region to remove the opposing chief and a skirmish soon began. The First Taranaki War continued in 1861 before ending in a truce when the Māori surrendered. However, fighting subsequently resumed two years later. At the same time, another war started in the Waikato River region that was the heartland of the King Movement. By 1864, the British conquered all of Waikato and confiscated large tracts of land.

The final phase of the New Zealand Wars was tied to religious warfare among different Māori tribes. A religious movement referred to as Hauhau attempted to unify the Māori in opposition to further land confiscations. After a European missionary was killed by Hauhau supporters in 1865, a retaliation by colonial forces escalated into the East Cape War. Once again, the colonial government emerged victorious. Later in the decade, Māori chiefs Riwha Titokowaru and Te Kooti launched a series of organized attacks against settlers living on confiscated lands. Titokowaru, the more successful of the two, nearly succeeded in defeating the British before his army deserted him. Te Kooti, who previously escaped after being imprisoned by the colonialists, led a vicious attack on Poverty Bay in which many settlers were killed and had their homes destroyed by fire. He subsequently continued attacking settlers and Māori tribes that did not support him. The rebellion, and the New Zealand Wars as a whole, finally came to end after the Māori king granted Te Kooti asylum in 1872.

By the end of the New Zealand Wars, the Māori lost a significant portion of their land on the North Island and in some other places, a total of 2.5 million acres (1 million hectares) in all. They also suffered more than two thousand casualties. Moreover, the Māori found themselves pushed to the fringes of a New Zealand society dominated by European settlers.

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