New Zealand Wars

The New Zealand Wars were a series of conflicts fought between 1845 and 1872, mainly in the North Island, between the colonial government, backed by British troops and Māori allies, and Māori groups resisting the loss of their land and authority. Once called the Māori Wars or Land Wars, they ended in victory for the Crown and the confiscation of very large areas of Māori land. Their legacy remains central to debates over the Treaty of Waitangi.

The 1840 treaty's English text spoke of Māori ceding sovereignty, while its Māori text promised chiefs continued authority over their lands. As settlers arrived in growing numbers, the government pressed for land sales. A first clash came at Wairau in the South Island in June 1843, when New Zealand Company settlers tried to arrest the Ngāti Toa chiefs Te Rauparaha and Te Rangihaeata over a disputed survey; 22 Europeans and several Māori died.

In 1845 the Ngāpuhi chief Hōne Heke cut down the British flagstaff at Kororāreka, a symbol of his grievances over changes since the treaty. With his ally Te Ruki Kawiti he fought British troops, while many Ngāpuhi under Tāmati Wāka Nene sided with the government. The British suffered a costly defeat at Ōhaeawai before taking Kawiti's fortified pā at Ruapekapeka. The fighting ended in January 1846 without confiscation of land.

The wars widened after the governor, Thomas Gore Browne, accepted the sale of a block at Waitara in Taranaki over the objection of the Te Āti Awa leader Wiremu Kīngi. Fighting began on 17 March 1860, and the Kīngitanga, or Māori King movement, which had emerged in the 1850s to resist further land sales, came to be seen by the government as a challenge to Crown sovereignty. In July 1863 Governor George Grey ordered Māori between Auckland and the Waikato to swear allegiance or leave, and British forces under General Duncan Cameron invaded the Waikato. At the peak in 1864 some 14,000 imperial and colonial soldiers, including volunteers from the Australian colonies, faced perhaps 4,000 Māori fighters. Māori defenders used ingeniously engineered pā with trenches and bunkers that withstood bombardment, as at Rangiriri and Gate Pā, where in April 1864 British troops suffered a notable defeat. But the Kīngitanga could not match the government's resources, and its forces withdrew into the interior, later known as the King Country.

Under the New Zealand Settlements Act of 1863 the government confiscated land from groups it labelled rebels, though "loyal" Māori often lost land too. Estimates of the total range from about 12,000 to 16,000 square kilometres, mainly in Taranaki, Waikato, Tauranga and the Bay of Plenty. Confiscation and the spread of the Pai Mārire faith fuelled renewed fighting in Taranaki and on the East Coast from 1863 to 1866, marked by scorched-earth tactics against villages. In 1868 the Ngāruahine leader Riwha Tītokowaru won a series of victories in south Taranaki. Te Kooti Arikirangi Te Turuki, who had escaped from detention without trial on the Chatham Islands, waged a guerrilla war from 1868 until 1872; his followers killed around 51 people at Matawhero, and government-allied Māori executed more than 130 of his followers after the siege of Ngātapa. He finally found refuge in the King Country.

Casualty estimates vary. Over the Taranaki and Waikato campaigns, about 1,800 Māori and 800 Europeans are thought to have died, and total Māori deaths across all the wars may have exceeded 2,100. A 2013 report of the Waitangi Tribunal found that on the East Coast the proportion of Māori killed was higher than anywhere else.

After the wars, the prophet Te Whiti o Rongomai led peaceful resistance at Parihaka until government forces arrested him in 1881. Since the late twentieth century, Waitangi Tribunal reports have criticised Crown actions during the wars, and treaty settlements have included formal apologies to iwi. A national day of commemoration has been held on 28 October since 2017.

Our 1878 map shows New Zealand as a colony within the British Empire soon after the wars ended.