The New Zealand Wars were a series of mid-19th-century campaigns involving some iwi Māori and government forces, which included British and colonial troops and their Māori allies. The two major periods of conflict were the mid-1840s and the 1860s.
Naming the wars
Though ‘New Zealand Wars’ is the most common collective name for these campaigns, a number of others have been used. Originally Europeans called them the Māori wars. This echoed the tendency of the British to name wars after their enemies – as in Boer War and Zulu War. In the late 1960s thought was given to renaming the wars. One popular suggestion was land wars, due to the importance of land in the disputes. Another was Anglo–Māori wars to indicate the two major groups involved. Other less common suggestions included New Zealand civil wars and sovereignty wars. Māori names for the wars have included Ngā pakanga o Aotearoa (the New Zealand Wars) and Te riri Pākehā (the white man’s anger).
1840s
The first series of wars took place in the 1840s, when Māori were a majority of the population, although Pākehā dominated the towns. A precursor to the wars was the 1843 Wairau incident, in which Nelson settlers clashed with Ngāti Toa at Tuamarino (now known as Tuamarina) over a land dispute. The 1840s wars began with fighting between Ngāpuhi and government forces at Kororāreka (Russell) in 1845. A series of battles were fought in the Bay of Islands until early 1846. Later that year there was fighting between government forces and Māori in Wellington, and there were skirmishes in Whanganui in 1847.
1860s and 1870s
The most sustained and widespread campaign was the clash between the British Empire and the Kīngitanga (Māori King movement) in Taranaki, Waikato and Bay of Plenty between 1860 and 1864. The last period of the wars, from 1864 to 1872, was largely fought by colonial troops and their Māori allies against followers of Māori prophetic leaders. These wars occurred in Taranaki, East Coast and the central North Island.
Confiscations and impact
After the wars, significant areas of Māori land in the North Island were confiscated by the government. Reactions against the confiscations saw a period of continued tension. In Taranaki, peaceful protests against land confiscations were led by the prophets Te Whiti-o-Rongomai and Tohu Kākahi at Parihaka. After Parihaka was occupied by government forces on 5 November 1881, the settlement was partially destroyed. Protests against land confiscation in Taranaki continued.
After the wars the Kīngitanga established an aukati which prevented Pākehā crossing into the King Country. The King Country was autonomous until negotiations saw it opened up from 1883.
Final confrontations
In the 1890s, Ngāi Tūhoe opposing surveying in Te Urewera were forcibly arrested in actions later described by Māori politician Apirana Ngata as a small war. In the late 1890s some Ngāpuhi led by Hōne Tōia who opposed council dog taxes were arrested by a military force and imprisoned.
The last skirmish between the government and Māori occurred in 1916 with the arrest of Rua Kēnana at Maungapōhatu in Te Urewera. Two Tūhoe men, including Rua’s son Toko and close friend Te Maipi, were killed during a firefight with police.
