{"story":["The Kīngitanga (Māori King movement) installed the Waikato leader Pōtatau Te Wherowhero as the first Māori king in 1858, in the hope that a king would have enough mana for land placed under his protection to be kept from sale. His son, later known as Tāwhiao, succeeded him in 1860. The government saw the movement as a challenge to the Queen's sovereignty, and some of the King's followers had fought in Taranaki (see First Taranaki War). Governor Thomas Gore Browne began planning an invasion but was replaced in 1861 by George Grey. Grey offered rūnanga (councils) as a limited form of Māori self-government and sent officials into Waikato, while preparing for war. From January 1862 Lieutenant-General Duncan Cameron's soldiers built the Great South Road towards the Waikato River, with redoubts along it, including Queen's Redoubt at Pōkeno; by July 1863 it was linked to Auckland by telegraph. At Taupiri in January 1863 Grey announced that he would 'dig around' the Kīngitanga until it fell.","The immediate trigger came from Taranaki. Grey ordered troops to reoccupy the Tātaraimaka block, and on 4 May 1863 nine soldiers were killed in an ambush at Ōakura. Grey blamed the Kīngitanga, which he alleged was also planning a 'bloodthirsty' assault on Auckland. NZHistory says such claims were used to convince London that an attack was imminent, and that by the time it was clear there would be none, another 3000 troops had been sent. Grey's biographer Keith Sinclair writes that Auckland settlers did fear a Waikato attack. On 9 July Grey ordered Māori living between Auckland and the aukati (boundary) to take an oath of allegiance or leave, and an ultimatum dated 11 July warned that those in arms would forfeit their lands. On 12 July, before the ultimatum had reached Waikato, Cameron's troops crossed the Mangatāwhiri Stream. The historian Chris Pugsley calls the ultimatum 'as cynical and dishonest as everything else he had done leading up to this war'.","NZHistory says Grey eventually had 12,000 imperial troops, 4000 colonial soldiers and a few hundred kūpapa (Māori allies of the government) available. The Kīngitanga had fewer than 5000 part-time fighters who also had to supply their own food, and tried to block the advance with lines of pā (fortifications). The first, at Meremere, was abandoned after Cameron's gunboats and barges carried 600 men past it on 31 October. The second fell at Rangiriri in November (see Battle of Rangiriri), and Cameron occupied the King's village at Ngāruawāhia on 8 December. On the night of 20 February 1864 two Māori guides led more than 1200 troops past the Pāterangi line to Rangiaowhia, a farming settlement whose fighting men were away. There a cavalryman was shot outside one whare (house) and a call to surrender was answered with a volley; soldiers fired into it, and when its thatch caught fire an unarmed old man who came out holding up a white blanket was shot. Pugsley and James Belich both see the bypassing of Pāterangi as the decisive military act of the war. It ended at Ōrākau in April (see Battle of Ōrākau).","After Ōrākau the Kīngitanga withdrew south of the Pūniu River behind a new aukati, into what became known as the King Country, and the British turned to Tauranga instead. Te Ara says the King Country stayed autonomous until it was opened up from 1883. Under the New Zealand Settlements Act 1863 the Crown confiscated about 1.2 million acres of Tainui land, later returning about a quarter of it by Crown grant, generally not to those who had fought for the Kīngitanga, whose leaders petitioned for its return from 1865. In the Waikato Raupatu Claims Settlement Act 1995 the Crown acknowledged that its forces had 'unjustly invaded' Waikato, and recorded its apology for sending them across the Mangatāwhiri and unfairly labelling Waikato as rebels. The events at Rangiaowhia remain raw for local people, and there have been suggestions that the Ōtāhuhu statue of Colonel Marmaduke Nixon, who led the cavalry there, be removed."],"sources":[{"title":"War in Waikato","url":"https://nzhistory.govt.nz/war/war-in-waikato","publisher":"NZHistory, Manatū Taonga"},{"title":"Pressure on Māori land","url":"https://nzhistory.govt.nz/war/taranaki-wars/pressure-on-maori-land","publisher":"NZHistory, Manatū Taonga"},{"title":"New Zealand Wars – Waikato War: beginnings","url":"https://teara.govt.nz/en/new-zealand-wars/page-5","publisher":"Te Ara — the Encyclopedia of New Zealand"},{"title":"Waikato Raupatu Claims Settlement Act 1995","url":"https://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1995/0058/latest/whole.html","publisher":"New Zealand Legislation"},{"title":"Invasion plans","url":"https://nzhistory.govt.nz/war/war-in-waikato/invasion-plans","publisher":"NZHistory, Manatū Taonga"},{"title":"Grey, George","url":"https://teara.govt.nz/en/biographies/1g21/grey-george","publisher":"Te Ara — the Encyclopedia of New Zealand"},{"title":"The opening phase","url":"https://nzhistory.govt.nz/war/war-in-waikato/opening-phase","publisher":"NZHistory, Manatū Taonga"},{"title":"New Zealand Wars – Waikato War: major battles","url":"https://teara.govt.nz/en/new-zealand-wars/page-6","publisher":"Te Ara — the Encyclopedia of New Zealand"},{"title":"The invasion continues","url":"https://nzhistory.govt.nz/war/war-in-waikato/invasion-continues","publisher":"NZHistory, Manatū Taonga"},{"title":"New Zealand Wars – New Zealand Wars overview","url":"https://teara.govt.nz/en/new-zealand-wars/page-1","publisher":"Te Ara — the Encyclopedia of New Zealand"},{"title":"New Zealand Wars – Long-term impact","url":"https://teara.govt.nz/en/new-zealand-wars/page-11","publisher":"Te Ara — the Encyclopedia of New Zealand"}]}