HIST128: The New Zealand Wars

Lecture Logistics & Assessment

• Week $3$ of the course – attendance usually starts to dip, but well-done to those present.
• Bibliographic Assessment:
  • Acts as scaffolding for the later essay.
  • It is permissible to change topics after submitting the bibliography; doing so makes life harder but can improve engagement.
• Rough structure of today’s $50$-minute crash-course:
  • Key facts, events and changing names of the wars.
  • Case-study battles: Invasion of the Waikato, Rangiaowhia (Rangio Afia), Pukehinahina/Gate Pā.
  • Brief look at legislation, impacts, memory and historiography.

Basic “Who / What / Where / When / Why”

• Combatants
  • Generally Māori ✕ the Crown (unlike the Musket Wars – Māori ✕ Māori).
  • BUT not black–white: some Māori fought with the Crown – labelled kūpapa, Queenites, loyalists, friendlies.
  • Motives: historic inter-tribal rivalries, local politics, personal advantage.
  • Term kūpapa literally = to collaborate / collude; now often a modern slur (e.g., occasionally aimed at Winston Peters).
• Chronology
  • Main fighting $\approx$ $1840s$ – $1870s$; sporadic flare-ups even into the early $1900s$ (prophet arrests).
• Geography
  • Predominantly Te Ika-a-Māui (North Island). Only one major South Island clash (Wairau $1843$).
• Core Issues
  • Land ownership and sovereignty were inseparable for Māori – losing land = losing rangatiratanga + identity.
  • Essay question invites debate: land vs. sovereignty vs. other drivers (economy, mana, religion, imperial strategy).

Naming the Wars (and Why It Matters)

• Contemporary Pākehā: “Māori Wars” – mirrors British habit of naming wars after the foe.
• $20$th C.: “Land Wars” – highlights confiscations but downplays politics, sovereignty & Māori internal diversity.
• Other proposed labels: Anglo-Māori Wars, New Zealand Civil Wars, Sovereignty Wars, Te Pakanga o Aotearoa, Te Riri Pākehā (white man’s anger).
• Since the $1980s$ (esp. James Belich’s work & TV series): “New Zealand Wars” – neutral umbrella term accommodating complexity.
  • Naming shapes memory; e.g., “massacre” versus “battle” frames guilt & victimhood.

Crown & Allied Forces – Who Was in Uniform?

• Imperial “Redcoats” (actually wore blue while stationed in NZ):
  • Approx. $18\,000$ British soldiers served; final regiment withdrawn $1870$.
• Colonial Defence Force ($1862$):
  • Early forerunner of NZ Army; only $500$ men but main Waikato attackers $1862$–$1864$.
• Armed Constabulary ($1867$):
  • Police–military hybrid; dominated late-war fighting (also invaded peaceful Parihaka).
• $1886$ split – Armed Constabulary divided into permanent military & police branches.

Disputed “Starting Point”

• Northern Wars ($1845$)
  • Hōne Heke cuts down Kororāreka flagstaff four times protesting Crown over-reach & capital shift to Auckland.
• Wairau Affray ($1843$), Te Waipounamu
  • NZ Company surveyors intrude on Ngāti Toa land (Te Rauparaha / Te Rangihaeata).
  • $22$ Pākehā + $4$ Māori killed; Rangihaeata’s wife among dead → utu executions.
  • Governor FitzRoy judged settlers at fault – highly unusual royal admission.

Spread of Conflict (Key Theatres)

• Tai Tokerau (Northland) • Wellington • Whanganui • Taranaki • Waikato • Tauranga • East Coast/Te Kooti.

Invasion of the Waikato (Turning-Point Campaign)

• Context
  • Waikato = stronghold of the Kīngitanga (first Māori King selected $1858$).
  • Crown sought punishment for Waikato support of Taranaki resistance and coveted the region’s fertile soils.
• Governor Sir George Grey
  • Orders Great South Road construction (Jan $1862$) – literal highway to invasion (modern SH1 Auckland→Waikato).
  • $07/09/1863$ proclamation: Waikato Māori in Crown areas must swear loyalty or withdraw south.
  • $09/07/1863$ second proclamation: anyone bearing arms forfeits land rights.
  • $12/07/1863$ British troops cross Mangatāwhiri Stream (de facto border) – open war.
• Key engagements: Koheroa, Meremere, Rangiriri, then the tragic assault on Rangiaowhia (Rangio Afia).

Rangiaowhia / Rangio Afia – Atrocity Against Non-Combatants ($21/02/1864$)

• Anglican bishop brokered agreement: village = sanctuary for elders, women, children.
• General Cameron’s force (guided by kūpapa) undertook night march, arrived pre-dawn Sunday.
• Outcomes
  • Homes torched; fleeing civilians shot; some refuge sought in two churches – walls riddled with bullets.
  • Oral testimony: rape, child killings.
  • Casualty counts: Official record $12$; newspapers ≈ $103$ dead outside one whare; oral histories say hundreds.
• Multi-source memory:
  • Soldiers’ diaries (e.g., CDF trooper describing burning whare and $8$ Māori bodies).
  • Letters & later newspaper submissions (unnamed woman recounting attempted escape; people shot; cries inside burning whare).
  • Waiata such as “Tīkina te haka o Rangiaowhia” encode symbolism of fire, fear & grief.
• Inter-generational imprint
  • Survivor Te Mamai (age $10$) hid siblings in swamp, using reeds as snorkels.
  • Name changed to Mamai = pain; her children’s names commemorate facets of the horror:
  • Te Weta – burning of the whare.
  • Te Pupuhi – wind fanning the flames.
  • Te Rātapu – Sunday.
  • Te Kū – “pull the trigger”.
  • Mārangi – tears shed.
• Aftermath: wholesale confiscation of Rangiaowhia lands for European settlement.

Pukehinahina / Gate Pā (Tauranga) – Māori Tactical Masterclass ($29/04/1864$)

• Ngāi Te Rangi constructed sophisticated trench & bunker network (visible today by Mitre $10$ Mega store).
• Intent: lure the British into attacking.
• British strength $\approx$ $1\,700$ vs. Māori $\approx$ $230$.
• Māori withheld fire during artillery barrage; when troops stormed the pā, cramped trench layout caused chaos.
• Casualties: $\approx$ $100$ British in $10$ minutes; only $\approx$ $15$ Māori killed.
• Ngāi Te Rangi abandoned pā overnight; humiliating blow to Crown prestige.
• Commemoration on-site
  • $2014$: carved pou for each iwi + British commanders; live tōtara carving; information panels.
  • Plaque emphasises chivalry and post-war “unity” – echoes older Pākehā narrative.
• Popular-culture memory: metal band Alien Weaponry (descendants of combatants) – track referencing Gate Pā with lyrics evoking artillery, thunder & earth-shaking.

Law as a Weapon – Key Statutes

• Suppression of Rebellion Act $1863$ – alleged rebels denied right to trial.
• New Zealand Settlements Act $1863$ – allowed confiscation wherever “considerable” Māori rebellion suspected.
• Native Reserves Act $1864$ – Crown controls leasing of remaining Māori reserve lands at low rents to settlers.
• Native Land Act $1865$ – Native Land Court; titles limited to $10$ owners – undermines communal tenure & facilitates purchase.
• Peace Preservation Act $1879$ – $1$ year hard labour for Māori refusing forced relocation.
• Māori Prisoners Act $1879$ – detention without trial for obstructing surveys.
• West Coast Settlement Act $1879$ – $2$ years hard labour for same offence.
• Native Land Administration Act $1879$ – small owner groups may sell; large-scale public-purpose purchasing legalised.

Prophet Movements & Parihaka – Spiritual / Political Resistance

• Syncretic blend of Old-Testament Christianity with Māori tikanga; prophecy integral to Māori worldview.
• Parihaka (founded mid-$1860s$, Taranaki)
  • Leaders: Te Whiti-o-Rongomai & Tohu Kākahi.
  • Haven for war refugees; huge, organised, peaceful community.
  • $1878 Crown survey allowed conditionally (promised reserves, protection of wāhi tapu, cultivations, fisheries).
  • Broken promises → protest: ploughing settlers’ fields; hundreds arrested, shipped to prisons nationwide (e.g., $160$ to Rīpapa Island, Lyttelton, $1880$).
  • Tour boats charged $1s 6d$ to gawk at starving prisoners.
  • $05/11/1881$ invasion – Native Minister John Bryce leads $1\,600$ troops; buildings destroyed, women raped, population dispersed.
  • Te Whiti & Tohu held >$1$ year without trial; later paraded on “civilisation tours”.
  • Oral tradition: children conceived by rape nicknamed “speckled potatoes” (mixed ancestry).

Consequences & Ongoing Effects

• Land Confiscations (Raupatu)
  • Massive swathes seized under Settlements Act – punishment & to satisfy settler demand.
  • Sometimes taken from neutral iwi; Crown also granted enemy land to kūpapa allies – sowing intra-iwi tension.
• Socio-economic impact
  • Loss of economic base → entrenched poverty; Waikato exhibits stark wealth disparity to this day.
  • Displacement severs whakapapa ties to whenua – identity trauma.
• Legal & political legacy
  • Ongoing Waitangi Tribunal claims, negotiation and redress.
  • Legislative habit continues (e.g., Foreshore & Seabed Act $2004$ overriding courts).

Memory, Historiography & Public History

• James Belich (late $1980s$): Wars a “buried memory”, nightmare Pākehā refuse to revisit; popularised “NZ Wars” label via books & TV series.
• Danny Keenan: describes battlefields as “largely a forgotten landscape” – few monuments, most on private farmland.
• James Cowan (early $20$th C.) – romantic view: both sides forced into war, mutual respect and affection blossomed; influenced school journals, feeding myth of harmonious nation-building.
• Contemporary public-history resurgence:
  • Vincent O’Malley’s readable scholarship, primary-source rich.
  • Annual calls to swap Guy Fawkes (foreign) for Parihaka Day (local).
  • Examples of neglected or overwritten sites: Kā-Kaiapoi Pā under Pegasus township; Rangiriri trenches beside Waikato Expressway.

Key Readings & Media for Further Study

• Vincent O’Malley – The New Zealand Wars | Kūpapa | Voices from Rangiriri.
• James Belich – The New Zealand Wars (book) + $1990s$ TV documentary (dated visuals but solid content).
• Danny Keenan – articles on “forgotten landscape”; critical of national amnesia.
• James Cowan – two-volume New Zealand Wars (primary narrative, reveals early $20$th C. attitudes).
• NZ Wars Documentary series (linked on Learn): visual reconstructions, descendant interviews, oral traditions.
• Alien Weaponry music videos – modern cultural memory.

Study Tips & Course Admin Reminders

• Lecturer away until Week $10$ (Maori Renaissance & Urbanisation lecture) but contactable via email for essay guidance.
• Visit battle sites when possible to feel history (Kaiapoi Pā $\approx$ $20$ min north of Christchurch; Gate Pā easily accessible in Tauranga).
• When researching whakapapa, note traditional Māori practice of name-changing after major events (track alias forms!).