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The Maori Wars: Part II
by Ian KnightMiniature Wargames magazine 28, September 1985
There was little more than a two-year lull between the Taranaki campaign and the outbreak of war in the Waikato. In Taranaki, it had been a question of suppressing hostile Maoris in an area with considerable European settlement, but the Waikato belonged to a number of strong tribes who had resisted pakeha infiltration, and who were largely united behind the King. Numbers of Waikato warriors had slipped across to Taranaki to ‘shoot pakehas’, and they returned with experience and insight into the British way of making war. The Waikato promised to be a tougher nut to crack.
For this reason large numbers of troops were amassed in New Zealand, and a military road built to the Waikato border — an event which did little to placate Maori suspicions. In addition to detachments of the Royal Artillery and Engineers, and the occasional spirited assistance of Naval landing parties, the Colonial Governor could call on the services of ten full regiments. Perhaps the most famous of ‘these were the Forest Rangers, two companies of adventurers and settlers, one of which was led by a charismatic Prussian, Gustavus von Tempsky. Tough and self reliant, the Rangers soon earned themselves an enviable reputation as expert bush fighters.
Tension mounted to a fever pitch, and finally snapped when a patrol of the 57th was ambushed on the road on May 4th, 1863. Under the command of Sir Duncan Cameron, troops crossed into the Waikato.
The intended line of advance was to be south along the Waikato River. The Kingites had built a number of pas along it, and resisted every step of Cameron’s advance. At Rangiriri they had built a particularly impressive work, which Cameron set out to take in November. The cumbersome but effective saps were not for Cameron. The pa was on a high ridge, overlooking the river on one side. Cameron’s troops surrounded it with little difficulty, and the usual rag-bag of artillery began a heavy bombardment. Then the assaulting parties went in. They took the outer rifle pits without difficulty, but became bogged down in the trench complex which surrounded a redoubt of unsuspected strength. Cameron, anxious to keep some momentum going, continued to fritter his troops away in piecemeal attacks, despite the fact that the pa was surrounded, and must have fallen to any sustained siege. At nightfall he pulled his men back; Maori War battles were small by European standards, and Cameron’s force numbered less than 800, of whom 39 were killed and 93 wounded, a high proportion of officers among them. Rangiriri remained in Maori hands. At dawn, however, the attackers were surprised to see a white flag flying over the pa — the defenders of Rangiriri, so hotly engaged, had run out of ammunition, and were forced to surrender.
The fall of Rangiriri had a depressing effect on the Waikato tribes, and Cameron was able to advance and take several positions, including the King’s capital, Ngaruawahia, itself. Not until he reached Orakau was he checked. Here about three hundred men, women and children occupied a pa under the command of a fierce old chief called Rewi. Despite the act that some two thousand troops were ranged against them, supported by the usual variety of artillery pieces, including several 12-pounder Armstrongs, the first two assaults made little headway. So the British commander fell back on the tried and tested sap technique. When the sap was so close that grenades could be lobbed into the Maori rifle pits, a truce was called, and an interpreter called on the Maoris to surrender. The reply has become one of the legendary gestures of defiance of the wars; ‘Friend, I shall fight you for ever, for ever, for ever!’. And so they did, but not at Orakau. Their position, cut off from food and water, heavily shelled and out-numbered, was untenable, so one morning, to the astonishment of their besiegers, the Maoris rose up out of their trenches and burst through the British line. Many were shot down; but over sixty, including Rewi himself, escaped to prolongue the resistance.
But the fall of Orakau marked the end of the Serious campaigning in the Waikato. The troops began to withdraw, and the process of confiscating Maori land began.
Not that there was to be peace. Like many native peoples whose traditional system was collapsing in the face of Colonialism, the Maoris turned in their confusion to a leader who offered a spiritual, as well as military, salvation. A chief name Te Ua proclaimed that the angel Gabriel had appeared to him in a vision and directed him to found a cult called Paimarire, the ‘good and peaceful’. Paimarire mixed aspects of Christianity and old Maori beliefs with an undying rejection of all things pakeha. Te Ua created impressive ceremonies in which his adherents danced around a flag-pole — bright flags, with simple devices such as crosses and stars always having been popular among the Maoris - chanting their battle cry “Hau!” In battle they had only to hold up their right hand and chant “Paimarire! Hau! Hau!” for the bullets of the pakeha to pass overhead. From this the sect was known as the hauhaus.
The first manifestations of hauhau violence erupted even as the fighting in the Waikato continued. It had been thought necessary to patrol the Taranaki, in case the Waikato War prompted fresh risings, and one day in April, 1864 a party of the 57th and some volunteers was ambushed in the bush, and several soldiers tomahawked. The head of one Captain Lloyd was cut off, smoke-dried, and passed around among the tribes as proof of the success of paimarire.
A young Maori in the 1860s. This type of dress was worn by both friendlies and hostiles, though the rifle and bayonet are government issue. Note the tomahawk.
At the same time, an unconnected struggle was taking place on the far side of the Island. Some Maoris in the Tauranga district, anxious to support their Waikato neighbours, had built a pa and sent a message to the local commander inviting him to attack it. The commander, reluctant to do so, disappointed the Maoris, who promptly built another one somewhat nearer, and sent a further message asking courteously that he might come, now that he did not have to march so far. The site chosen for the pa was on a narrow peninsula, crossed by a ditch which separated Maori land from Missionary land. The pa was built overlooking a gate in the ditch — it became the famous Gate pa.
Troops from the 18th & 57th guarding prisoners captured at Wereroa pa in 1866
In all, it was defended by perhaps 250 Maoris. To tackle it the British commander mustered 1,650 soldiers, sailors and volunteers. On April 29th a heavy barrage preceded the attack. The storming column drove the Maoris from the trenches, and they began to slip away out the back of the pa. But here they came under a heavy fire from a British party positioned to check just such an eventuality. Prefering a close combat fight in the trenches to being shot in the open like rabbits, the Maoris turned about and charged back into the pa. To the assault parties, confused by the maze of trenches and having lost many of their officers, it seemed as if they were being attacked by a fresh wave of reinforcements. They broke and fled, leaving the Maoris in full possession of the field, but, as was often the case – the Maoris abandoned their position in the night, in the morning the British somewhat shamefacedly occupied the Gate pa.
Back in Taranaki, meanwhile, the hauhaus were getting up steam. In June they massed 200 warriors for an attack on a blockhouse at Sentry Hill, defended by seventy-five men of the 57th. Chanting their incantatrons the hauhaus charged from the bush, only to be gunned down by close-range volley fire. Te Ua’s magic had not worked, but he blandly assured his followers that those who had died had been caught out because their faith was not strong enough. Paimarire began to take a serious grip on the Taranaki.
Free from the Waikato, Cameron moved his troops to Taranaki. But his heart was not in the campaign; he had some respect or the Maori, and disliked many of the political aspects of the war, resenting the way in which his troops were sacrificed to satisfy the settlers’ lust for land. Cameron’s main objective was to capture Te Ua’s pa at Wereoa, but, reluctant to face too much bush fighting, he contented himself with so much marching that the Maoris nicknamed him ‘The Lame Seagull’. After a spirited attack by the hauhaus mauled his outlying pickets, Cameron declared Wereoa impregnable and gave up.
This was too much for the Colonial Govemor, Sir George Grey, who took to the field himself to take Wereoa. Cameron’s troops were reluctant to take part without him, but consented to a passive role, forming up in front of the pa. With a few hundred volunteers and friendlies Grey executed a smart flank movement, took up a position overlooking the pa and bombarded and peppered it until the Maoris, realising the hopelessness of their position, fled. Wereoa was captured without the loss of a single" British life.
“Two Forest Rangers skirmish in the bush”.
“A Maori delivers the coup de grace to a fallen infantryman”.
The Taranaki campaign was the last time British troops were used large numbers in the Maori Wars. From 1866 they began to be withdrawn, and the brunt of the fighting fell on local volunteer and militia units, considered strong enough to cope with the relatively few numbers of hauhaus still in the field. This phase of the Maori wars was particularly directionless. Rather than whole districts, individualchiefs would declare their adherence to paimarire, and the Colonial troops would be forced to set off into the bush to suppress them, each expedition a campaign in its own right. Often, the fighting was between hostile and friendly Maori, between groups with longstanding tribal hostility, between those who accepted the word of Te Ua and those who didn’t. The battle of Moutoa in May, 1864 is a good example. The Taranaki hauhaus attempted to carry their rebellion into Wanganui, which bordered them on the south. But their passage was contested by a loyal tribe. Only one pakeha, an interpreter, was present when the two sides met in an old style Maori battle on an island in the river, and the hauhaus were repulsed with heavy casualties.
A group of Forest Rangers. They wore a great shirt and blue forage cap and trousers. Although these men have rifles, they usually carried carbines. Note the pistols thrust into the waist belts.
Two chiefs stand out from this last bitter phase of warfare, Titokowaru and Te Kooti. Titokowaru was a fierce old chief who had lost an eye at Sentry Hill, and he issued a proclamation expelling the pakeha from his lands in Taranaki, reviving cannibalism as a grimly effective terror weapon. He built a pa at Te Ngutu-o-te-manu; ‘The Parrot’s Beak’, and the authorities found it singularly difficult to dislodge him. Two attacks were made, on August 21st and September 7th, 1868. In the first the column found itself over-extended in the bush, and was forced to retreat by heavy hauhau attacks on the flanks, and in the second it stalled before the palisades. Under accurate sniping fire, several untried units broke, and the column fell back. Among the casualties was the flamboyant Von Tempsky, who, made careless by impatience, paced up and down in the bush until a sniper picked him off. But Titokowaru did not make the most of his opportunities. He failed to follow up his victories, and was content to raid and skirmish, allowing the authorities the initiative. In February, 1869 his Taurangaika pa was stormed, and his power effectively broken.
Te Kooti was not to be thwarted so easily. During one of the early sweeps against the hauhaus, Te Kooti had fought as a friendly, but his chief had some doubts as to his loyalty, accusing him of firing blanks to let hostiles escape. It was an unlikely charge and difficult to prove’, but Te Kooti was convicted anyway and shipped off to the notorious prison at Chatham Island, off New Zealand’s east coast. Here his natural leadership qualities came to the fore, and he built up a following amongst the Maori prisoners. In July, 1868 he organised an escape, his followers forcing a boat to sail them to Poverty Bay. Here, with 162 men and 135 women and children, he set off inland, sending messages to the authorities that he wished to live in peace.
This they were not inclined to let him do. The area around Poverty Bay had already suffered some small hauhau outbreaks, including the particularly brutal murder of a missionary, dismembered in his own church in front of the congregation. The tribes in the Urewera mountains were thought to be ripe for revolt. The local magistrate scraped together a small force and set off after Te Kooti.
It was not a happy decision. Te Kooti easily brushed aside the opposition, and was provoked into terrible retaliation. On the night of November 10 he led 100 warriors, most of them mounted, into the town of Poverty Bay. Here they divided and set off in groups to attack particular targets. With a shocking thoroughness they shot and tomahawked 70 settlers and friendlies, men, women and children.
Inevitably, troops were massed in some numbers and set off after Te Kooti, who made a fighting retreat on the Urewera mountains, his enhanced mana drawing new followers with him. At Ngatapa he occupied and repaired a deserted pa of some antiquity, strategically sighted on the edge of a precipice. It was attacked with great gusto by the volunteers, and the fight raged for several days until a woman inside the pa called out one night that Te Kooti had gone. Cautiously entering it in the morning, the troops found the pa deserted; Te Kooti and his followers had escaped by shinning down the cliff on flax ropes. The friendly Maoris begged to be allowed to follow them, which they did, inflicting more casualties in the pursuit than they had done in the attack on the pa. Over a hundred prisoners were taken, and the friendlies killed them all whilst the volunteers looked the other way — utu for Poverty Bay.
Te Kooti himself moved from one hide-out to another, raiding and pillaging, constantly hunted. He fought on for four more years, the enduring symbol of Maori resistance. At last, exhausted, he slipped into a remote part of the Waikato, where the tribes had enough sympathy to harbour him. Here the authorities let him be, and the greatest flame in the bush of them all fizzled slowly out.
A Maori warrior, Tatange Waionui, who fought throughout the Hauhau campaigns, in typical late campaign dress.
It had taken forty years for the Maoris to succomb to the pakeha. In the end there was no doubt they had been defeated; their independence was broken and their land taken. But against the might of the British Empire, theirs had always been an unequal struggle, and they had fought better than most. Unlike many natives elsewhere in the world, they had not been overawed by the white man’s weapons. They had taken readily to rifle and shotgun, and even on occasion used the odd cannon when it fell into their hands. Their natural flair for military engineering had been an excellent check to the pakeha’s superior technology, and in the bush their courage and close-quarter skill frequently rendered them master of the field. Although the volunteers, drawn from the settlers, often hated them, they drew from the British regular a remarkable respect, so much so that in the aftermath of Orakau, the 65th erected a plaque ‘as a memorial to the New Zealanders who fell in the actions of Rangiaowhia . . . and Orakau . . . I say unto you, love your enemies’.
Surely a remarkable and eloquent testimony, unique in the history of the Colonial Wars.
Most of the New Zealand volunteer and militia units, infantry and cavalry, wore an ACW-type uniform, blue peaked cap, jacket and trousers, though the latter were often abandoned in favour of an improvised shawl kilt in the bush.
Further Reading
There are three books on the Maori Wars which crop up in most libraries. Michael Barthorp’s To Face The Daring Maoris (Hodder and Stoughton, 1979) is the best history of the First Maori War, with some vivid eye-witness accounts. Tom Gibson’s The Maori Wars (Leo Cooper, 1974) includes detailed descriptions of most of the military actions, though it’s not always easy to follow what’s going on. Read it with Edgar Holt’s The Strangest War (Putnam, 1962) which gives a good general history. Remember, though, that all of these books are written from the British point of view. For a series of excellent colour plates depicting Maori chiefs, consult The Maori Paintings of Gottfried Lindauer (1965). Finally, don’t forget the New Zealand film Utu, which is loosely based on the career of Te Kooti, and captures the flavour of the final bitter guerilla campaigns very well.
Acknowledgements
A good deal of the raw material for these articles, including photos of the dioramas and many of the original illustrations, was provided by Tim Ryan of the New Zealand Model Soldier Society. My thanks to him.
Troops storming a pa in the Waikato War of the 1860s. (National Army Museum)
