Conflicts The various conflicts of the New Zealand wars span a considerable period, and the causes and outcomes differ widely. The earliest conflicts in the 1840s happened at a time when Māori were still the predominant power, but by the 1860s settler numbers and resources were much greater. From about 1862 British troops began arriving in much greater number, summoned by Governor
George Grey for his Waikato invasion, and in March 1864 total troop numbers peaked at about 14,000 (9,000 Imperial troops, more than 4,000 colonial and a few hundred
kūpapa).
Wairau Affray The first armed conflict between Māori and the European settlers took place on 17 June 1843 in the
Wairau Valley, in the north of the
South Island. The clash was sparked when settlers led by a representative of the New Zealand Company—which held a false title deed to a block of land—attempted to clear Māori off the land ready for surveying. The party also attempted to arrest
Ngāti Toa chiefs
Te Rauparaha and
Te Rangihaeata. Fighting broke out and 22 Europeans were killed, as well as four to six Māori. Nine of the Europeans were slain after being captured. In early 1844, the new
governor,
Robert FitzRoy, investigated the incident and declared the settlers were at fault. The Wairau Affray—described as the Wairau Massacre in early texts—was the only armed conflict of the New Zealand Wars to take place in the South Island.
Northern War cuts down the flagstaff on Flagstaff Hill at
Kororāreka. in the 1860s. The
Flagstaff War took place in the far north of New Zealand, around the
Bay of Islands, between March 1845 and January 1846, and was the first major conflict between the British and Māori people. In 1845 George Grey arrived in New Zealand to take up his appointment as governor. At this time
Hōne Heke challenged the authority of the British, beginning by cutting down the flagstaff on
Flagstaff Hill at
Kororāreka. The flagstaff had previously flown the colours of
United Tribes of New Zealand but now carried the
Union Jack and therefore symbolised the grievances of Heke and his ally
Te Ruki Kawiti, as to changes that had followed the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi. There were many
causes of the Flagstaff War and Heke had a number of
grievances in relation to the Treaty of Waitangi. While
land acquisition by the
Church Missionary Society (CMS) had been controversial, the rebellion led by Heke was directed against the colonial forces with the CMS missionaries trying to persuade Heke to end the fighting. Despite the fact that
Tāmati Wāka Nene and most of Ngāpuhi sided with the government, the small and ineptly led British force had been beaten at the
Battle of Ōhaeawai. Grey, with the financial support and far more troops armed with 32-pounder cannons that had been denied to FitzRoy, attacked and occupied
Kawiti's fortress at
Ruapekapeka, forcing Kawiti to retreat. Heke's confidence waned after he was wounded in battle with Tāmati Wāka Nene and his warriors, and by the realisation that the British had far more resources than he could muster, including some
Pākehā Māori, who supported the colonial forces. After the Battle of Ruapekapeka, Heke and Kawiti were ready for peace. They approached Tāmati Wāka Nene to act as the intermediary to negotiate with Governor Grey, who accepted the advice of Nene that Heke and Kawiti should not be punished for their rebellion. The fighting in the north ended and there was no punitive confiscation of Ngāpuhi land.
Hutt Valley and Wanganui campaigns The Hutt Valley campaign of 1846 came as a sequel to the
Wairau Affray. The causes were similar—dubious land purchases by the New Zealand Company and the desire of the settlers to move on to land before disputes over titles were resolved—and the two conflicts shared many of the same protagonists. The campaign's most notable clashes were the Māori dawn raid on an imperial stockade at Boulcott's Farm on 16 May 1846 in which eight British soldiers and an estimated two Māori died, and the
Battle of Battle Hill from 6–13 August as British troops, local militia and
kūpapa pursued a Ngāti Toa force led by chief Te Rangihaeata through steep and dense bushland. Ngāti Toa chief Te Rauparaha was also taken into custody during the campaign; he was detained without charge in Auckland for two years. The bloodshed heightened settlers' fears in nearby Wanganui, which was given a strong military force to guard against attack. In April 1847 an accidental shooting of a minor Wanganui Māori chief led to a bloody revenge attack on a settler family; when the perpetrators were captured and hanged, a major raid was launched on the town as a reprisal, with homes plundered and burned and livestock stolen. The Māori besieged the town before mounting a frontal attack in July 1847. A peace settlement was reached in early 1848.
First Taranaki War The catalyst for the First Taranaki War was the disputed sale to
the Crown of a 240 hectare block of land at Waitara, despite a veto by the paramount chief of
Te Āti Awa tribe,
Wiremu Kīngi Te Rangitāke, and a "solemn contract" by local Māori not to sell. Governor Browne accepted the purchase with full knowledge of the circumstances and tried to occupy the land, anticipating it would lead to armed conflict, and a demonstration of the substantive sovereignty the British believed they had gained in the Treaty of Waitangi. Hostilities began on 17 March 1860. The war was fought by more than 3,500 imperial troops brought in from Australia, as well as volunteer soldiers and militia, against Māori forces that fluctuated between a few hundred and about 1,500. After a series of battles and actions the war ended in a ceasefire, with neither side explicitly accepting the peace terms of the other. Total losses among the imperial, volunteer and militia troops are estimated to have been 238, while Māori casualties totalled about 200. Though there were claims by the British that they had won the war, there were widely held views at the time they had suffered an unfavourable and humiliating result. Historians have also been divided on the result. Historian
James Belich has claimed that Māori succeeded in thwarting the British bid to impose sovereignty over them, and had therefore been victorious. Belich also states that the Māori victory was a hollow one, leading to the invasion of the
Waikato.
Invasion of the Waikato '' at
Meremere during the Invasion of the Waikato. Browne began making arrangements for a Waikato campaign to destroy the Kīngitanga stronghold at the close of the First Taranaki War. Preparations were suspended in December 1861 when he was replaced by Sir
George Grey, but Grey revived plans for an invasion in June 1863. He persuaded the Colonial Office in London to send more than 10,000 Imperial troops to New Zealand and General Sir
Duncan Cameron was appointed to lead the campaign. Cameron used soldiers to build the 18 km-long
Great South Road to the border of Kīngitanga territory and on 9 July 1863 Grey ordered all Māori living between
Auckland and the Waikato take an oath of allegiance to
Queen Victoria or be expelled south of the Waikato River; when his ultimatum was rejected the vanguard of the army crossed the frontier into Kīngitanga territory and established a forward camp. A long series of bush raids on his supply lines forced Cameron to build an extensive network of forts and redoubts through the area. In a continual buildup of force, Cameron eventually had 14,000 British and colonial soldiers at his disposal, including 2,500 volunteers from Australia who were integrated into the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th Waikato militia regiments; as well as steamers and armoured vessels for use on the Waikato River. They fought a combined Māori contingent of about 4,000. Cameron and his Kīngitanga foe engaged in several major battles including the
Battle of Rangiriri and a three-day siege at Orakau, capturing the Kīngitanga capital of
Ngāruawāhia in December 1863, before completing their Waikato conquest in April 1864. The Waikato campaign cost the lives of 700 British and colonial soldiers and about 1,000 Māori. The Kīngitanga Māori retreated into the rugged interior of the North Island and in 1865 the New Zealand Government confiscated about 12,000 km2 of Māori land (4% of New Zealand's land area) for white settlement—an action that quickly provoked the Second Taranaki War.
Tauranga campaign The six-month long Tauranga campaign of 1864 was initially launched by Cameron to disrupt Māori supply lines and secure the
Bay of Plenty for European settlement. It was marked by strategic maneuvering and intense battles between British Imperial forces and local Māori tribes, primarily
Ngāi Te Rangi. The campaign faced internal political divisions early on with Premier
Frederick Whitaker supporting an aggressive approach, while Governor Grey advocated a defensive stance to prevent wider rebellion. The conflict culminated in the
Battle of Gate Pā in April, where Māori defenders, under the leadership of
Rawiri Puhirake, successfully repelled a British assault, inflicting significant casualties and earning a reputation as a humiliating defeat for the British. Following the setback, efforts to negotiate peace intensified, with Governor Grey seeking to limit land confiscations and reduce Māori resistance, leading to a temporary cessation of hostilities. However, in June, Māori forces, reinforced and commanded by Hoera te Mataatai, chose to engage the British again at
Te Ranga. In
a decisive battle, the British forces, led by Brigadier
George Carey, overcame Māori entrenchments, resulting in substantial casualties on both sides. The Tauranga campaign concluded with the surrender of Ngāi Te Rangi warriors, marking a turning point in the New Zealand Wars and shaping subsequent negotiations between Māori and the colonial government.
Second Taranaki War Between 1863 and 1866 there was a resumption of hostilities between Māori and the New Zealand Government in Taranaki, which is sometimes referred to as the Second Taranaki War. The conflict, which overlapped the wars in Waikato and
Tauranga, was fuelled by a combination of factors: lingering Māori resentment over the sale of land at Waitara in 1860 and government delays in resolving the issue; a large-scale land confiscation policy launched by the government in late 1863; and the rise of the so-called Hauhau movement, an extremist part of the
Pai Marire syncretic religion, which was strongly opposed to the alienation of Māori land and eager to strengthen Māori identity. The Hauhau movement became a unifying factor for Taranaki Māori in the absence of individual Māori commanders. The style of warfare after 1863 differed markedly from that of the 1860–1861 conflict, in which Māori had taken set positions and challenged the army to an open contest. From 1863, the army, working with greater numbers of troops and heavy artillery, systematically took possession of Māori land by driving off the inhabitants, adopting a "
scorched earth" strategy of laying waste to Māori villages and cultivations, with attacks on villages, whether warlike or otherwise. Historian Brian Dalton noted: "The aim was no longer to conquer territory, but to inflict the utmost 'punishment' on the enemy; inevitably there was a great deal of brutality, much burning of undefended villages and indiscriminate looting, in which loyal Maoris often suffered." As the troops advanced, the Government built an expanding line of redoubts, behind which settlers built homes and developed farms. The effect was a creeping confiscation of almost of land, with little distinction between the land of loyal or rebel Māori owners. The outcome of the armed conflict in Taranaki between 1860 and 1869 was a series of enforced confiscations of Taranaki tribal land from Māori blanketed as being in rebellion against the Government.
East Cape War East coast hostilities erupted in April 1865 and, as in the Second Taranaki War, sprang from Māori resentment of punitive government land confiscations coupled with the embrace of radical Pai Marire expression. Major conflicts within the campaign included the cavalry and artillery attack on Te Tarata pā near Ōpōtiki in October 1865 in which about 35 Māori were killed, and the seven-day siege of Waerenga-a-Hika in November 1865. The government confiscated northern parts of Urewera land in January 1866 in a bid to break down supposed Māori support for Volkner's killers and confiscated additional land in Hawke's Bay a year later after a rout of a Māori party it deemed a threat to the settlement of Napier.
Tītokowaru's War ambushed by Tītokowaru's forces at Te Ngutu o Te Manu War flared again in Taranaki in June 1868 as
Riwha Tītokowaru, chief of
Ngāruahine, responded to the continued surveying and settlement of confiscated land with well-planned and effective attacks on settlers and government troops in an effort to block the occupation of Māori land. Coinciding with a violent raid on a European settlement on the East Coast by
Te Kooti, the attacks shattered what European colonists regarded as a new era of peace and prosperity, creating fears of a "general uprising of hostile Māoris". Tītokowaru, who had fought in the Second Taranaki War, was the most skilful West Coast Māori warrior. He also assumed the roles of a priest and prophet of the extremist Hauhau movement of the Pai Mārire religion, reviving ancient rites of
cannibalism and
propitiation of Māori gods with the human heart torn from the first slain in a battle. Although Tītokowaru's forces were numerically small and initially outnumbered in battle twelve to one by government troops, and Tītokowaru's army immediately began to disperse.
Kimble Bent, who lived as a slave with Tītokowaru's
hapū after deserting from the 57th Regiment, told Cowan 50 years later the chief had lost his
mana tapu, or sacred power, after committing adultery with the wife of another chief.
Te Kooti's War Te Kooti's War was fought in the East Coast region and across the heavily forested central
North Island and
Bay of Plenty between government military forces and followers of spiritual leader Te Kooti Arikirangi Te Turuki. The conflict was sparked by Te Kooti's return to New Zealand after two years of internment on the
Chatham Islands, from where he had escaped with almost 200 Māori prisoners of war and their families. Te Kooti, who had been held without trial on the island for two years, asked that he and his followers be left in peace, but within two weeks they were being pursued by a force of militia, government troops and Māori volunteers. The pursuit turned into a four-year guerrilla war, involving more than 30 expeditions In early 1870 Te Kooti gained refuge from
Tūhoe tribes, which consequently suffered a series of damaging raids in which crops and villages were destroyed, after other Māori
iwi were lured by the promise of a £5,000 reward for Te Kooti's capture. Te Kooti was finally granted sanctuary by the Māori king in 1872 and moved to the
King Country, where he continued to develop rituals, texts and prayers of his
Ringatū faith. He was formally pardoned by the government in February 1883 and died in 1893. A 2013
Waitangi Tribunal report said the action of Crown forces on the East Coast from 1865 to 1869—the
East Coast Wars and the start of Te Kooti's War—resulted in the deaths of proportionately more Māori than in any other district during the New Zealand wars. It condemned the "illegal imprisonment" on the Chatham Islands of a quarter of the East Coast region's adult male population and said the loss in war of an estimated 43 percent of the male population, many through acts of "lawless brutality", was a stain on New Zealand's history and character. ==Participants==