The New Zealand Wars
The land question is answered with troops. Taranaki, then the Waikato, then the Bay of Plenty and the East Coast. Confiscation takes 1.2 million hectares, the Native Land Court takes most of the rest, and gold shifts the country’s wealth to the south.
21 events under way between 1860 and 1872
First Taranaki War
British artillery opened on Te Kohia pā, beginning a year of fighting over the Waitara purchase that ended in an inconclusive truce.
Te Kohia pā, WaitaraGold found at Gabriel’s Gully
Gabriel Read’s find set off New Zealand’s first major gold rush and, by the mid-1860s, made Dunedin the country’s largest town.
Gabriel’s Gully, TuapekaInvasion of the Waikato
Te riri ki Waikato
British and colonial troops crossed the Mangatāwhiri to break the Kīngitanga — the key conflict of the New Zealand Wars, with 12,000 imperial and 4,000 colonial troops eventually available.
MangatāwhiriBattle of Rangiriri
Kīngitanga defenders held the central redoubt against repeated assaults; next morning a white flag raised to ask for terms was treated as surrender.
RangiririNew Zealand Settlements Act — raupatu
Te raupatu whenua
The Crown confiscated land from iwi it deemed to be in rebellion (Te Ara estimates 1–1.3 million hectares), including land of neutral tribes and of some that had fought on its side.
Pai Mārire spreads
Te Ua Haumēne’s faith, an independent Māori Christianity born in war-torn Taranaki, spread across the North Island and was met with force by the Crown.
TaranakiWest Coast gold rush
About 30,000 people poured onto the West Coast between 1864 and 1867, and Hokitika became the busy main town and port of the rush.
HokitikaBattle of Ōrākau
About 300 defenders held an unfinished pā against more than 1,400 troops for three days, then broke out through the British lines in daylight.
ŌrākauGate Pā — Pukehinahina
The heaviest bombardment of the New Zealand Wars failed to break the pā, and the assault that followed was routed by defenders firing from concealed trenches.
Pukehinahina, TaurangaThe capital moves to Wellington
Commissioners from the Australian colonies were asked to pick a capital on Cook Strait, and chose Wellington. Auckland protested, and its members pushed for separation.
WellingtonThe Native Land Court is established
The court converted customary communal title into individual titles that could be sold, and became the main means by which most remaining Māori land passed out of Māori ownership.
The siege of Waerenga-a-Hika
Government forces and Ngāti Porou besieged a Pai Mārire pā inland from Tūranga for about six days. More than a hundred prisoners were later deported to Rēkohu without trial, joined by others and their families.
Waerenga-a-HikaMāori Representation Act
Four Māori seats were created as a temporary measure, giving Māori men the vote twelve years before all Pākehā men got it.
The Lyttelton rail tunnel opens
A 2.6 km bore through the rim of an extinct volcano finally joined Christchurch to its port; Te Ara and NZHistory describe it as the first tunnel in the world driven through a volcano.
LytteltonTītokowaru’s campaign
Riwha Tītokowaru won a run of victories with a much smaller force and drove the colonial army back towards Whanganui, then in February 1869 his army fell apart at Taurangaika before the colonial assault.
South TaranakiTe Kooti escapes from Rēkohu
Deported without trial, Te Kooti seized a schooner and brought nearly 300 prisoners home from Rēkohu. Colonial and Māori forces pursued him for almost four years and never caught him.
Gisborne and Te UreweraThe attack at Matawhero
Te Kooti and about a hundred men attacked the settlement at Matawhero overnight. Sources put the dead at between about 50 and 70, Māori and Pākehā, among them women and children.
MatawheroUniversity of Otago founded
Founded once gold had enriched the province, New Zealand’s first university opened in 1871; women could attend classes from the start but could not take degrees until the late 1870s.
DunedinThe ambush at Ōpepe
A detachment of Bay of Plenty Cavalry was surprised in camp at Ōpepe, near Taupō, by Te Kooti’s advance guard. Nine of the fourteen troopers were killed and their arms and horses taken.
ŌpepeThe battle of Te Pōrere
NZHistory calls it the last major battle of the New Zealand Wars, fought at a British-style redoubt below Tongariro. Te Kooti lost thirty-seven men and escaped wounded.
Te PōrereVogel’s public works and immigration scheme
Julius Vogel borrowed heavily in London — £10 million by 1876 — to build railways, roads and telegraph lines, and to bring in about 100,000 assisted migrants.