The New Zealand Wars and the Victorian Interpretation of Racial Conflict by James Belich

Author:James Belich [Belich, James]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781869404932
Publisher: Independent Publishers Group
Published: 2010-12-31T16:00:00+00:00

Most of the fighting on the East Coast occurred between June 1865 and October 1866. It is sometimes known as the East Coast War, but was in fact a complicated series of intersecting conflicts.17 Hostilities were triggered by the arrival of Pai Marire emissaries in various parts of the East Coast in early 1865, and by the killing of Volkner. The first major outbreak was the Ngati Porou civil war of June-October 1865. After initial defeats—notably Tiki-tiki on 20 June—the anti-Pai Marire faction, led by such chiefs as Ropata Wahawaha, overcame their opponents with the help of colonial troops and arms. Meanwhile, the colonial government launched a series of expeditions against the ‘murderers’ of Volkner, and anyone associated with them. Some were mounted by the ‘East Coast Expedition’—colonial units and Wanganui kupapa from Taranaki—which landed at Opotiki in September.18 Others were mounted by the pro-government Arawa. These expeditions tended to follow the pattern of Chute’s and McDonnell’s West Coast campaigns, with the Whakatohea tribe, Pai Marire sympathizers, suffering particularly severe economic damage.

In November 1865, once Pat Marire adherents in the northern East Coast had been scattered or induced to submit, government forces attacked ‘Hauhau rebels’ of the Rongowhakaata and Aitanga-a-Mahaki tribes of Poverty Bay. The Maoris assembled at Waerenga-a-Hika, a large pa seven miles from Turanganui (now Gisborne). Fighting between them and colonial units, actively assisted by kupapa Ngati Porou, was initially quite severe, but the Maori resistance seems to have become half-hearted. On 22 November 1865, they surrendered their strong and well-manned pa, and became prisoners. We are invited to believe that they did so because the colonists’ only cannon, a six-pounder without proper ammunition, fired two salmon-tins filled with shrapnel into the pa.19 This is clearly inadequate, and the surrender of Waerenga-a-Hika remains to be explained through further research.

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