Gate Pā — Pukehinahina

In January 1864 the Waikato campaign spread to Tauranga. About 700 British troops under Brigadier-General G.J. Carey arrived by sea with orders to stop local Ngāi Te Rangi sending reinforcements and supplies to the Kīngitanga (Māori King movement) fighters in Waikato. The Ngāi Te Rangi leader Rāwiri Puhirake had refused a request for help in that war, fearing bloodshed in Tauranga, but he saw the troops as a direct threat to Māori ownership of Tauranga land. From Te Waoku, an old pā (fortified village) he had rebuilt, he invited the British commander, Lieutenant-Colonel H.H. Greer, to 'bring his soldiers to fight at Te Waoku', and offered to build a road for the troops' 'convenience'. Greer did not reply. At Poteriwhi, the pā of Pene Taka Tuaia, Ngāi Te Rangi leaders then drew up 'laws for regulating the fight', written down by Hēnare Taratoa, a former mission teacher. The code said that the wounded and those who surrendered would be treated fairly and that 'unarmed Pakehas, women and children' would be 'spared'. A copy went to Greer on 28 March with another challenge.

Puhirake then moved to Pukehinahina, a small hill about 3 km from the British camp at Te Papa. A gate in the boundary fence between Māori and mission land there gave the pā its English name. Pene Taka designed the defences: many small anti-artillery bunkers (rua) rather than a few large ones, and concealed trenches roofed with timber and earth. NZHistory's Gate Pā page and Te Ara put the garrison at about 250; NZHistory's 'Assault on Gate Pā' page and the Dictionary of New Zealand Biography give 230. Lieutenant-General Duncan Cameron, fresh from the victory at Ōrākau, reached Tauranga with reinforcements and on 28 April marched about 1700 men out of Te Papa, posting the 68th Regiment behind the pā to cut off any retreat. On 29 April his Armstrong guns and howitzers shelled the pā for eight hours, the heaviest bombardment of the New Zealand Wars, yet at most 15 Māori were killed by it. At 4 p.m., with no sign of life inside, Cameron sent an assault party of 300 men of the 43rd Regiment and the Naval Brigade through a breach.

Once inside, the attackers came under fire from concealed trenches, some soldiers being shot from below. Lieutenant-Colonel Booth led men of the 43rd into the smaller redoubt, where he and many of his men fell in close-quarters fighting. The reserve was sent in too, and hundreds of men crowded through a narrow gap. With most of their officers down, the storming parties fled, apparently believing the garrison was being reinforced. NZHistory and Te Ara give 35 British killed and 75 wounded; the 1966 Encyclopaedia of New Zealand gives 111 killed and wounded, and 25 Māori killed. During the night the defenders gathered their wounded and slipped past the 68th. Wounded soldiers left in the pā were given water. NZHistory's Gate Pā page, Te Ara and Hēni Te Kiri Karamū's own biography credit Hēni, the only woman still in the pā, who gave water to Booth and several other wounded men. Taratoa's biography records that he was carrying water to the wounded colonel and notes that the act is also attributed to Hēni, and NZHistory's page on Taratoa says the evidence is divided. Taratoa's biographer thinks numerous acts of kindness were probably performed after the battle.

The defeat was a major embarrassment for the British army. Some branded the assault party as cowards, and Cameron was criticised as too rash by some and too cautious by others. On 21 June Greer's troops caught Puhirake and about 500 men building a new pā at Te Ranga before its defences were complete. NZHistory records 108 Māori found dead in and around the trenches. Puhirake and Taratoa were among them, and a copy of the code of conduct was found on Taratoa's body. By the end of July most of Ngāi Te Rangi had accepted peace. Puhirake's biographer writes that they kept most of their lands, and that Governor George Grey presented the terms as recognition of their chivalry towards wounded troops (see New Zealand Settlements Act — raupatu). In 1914 a red granite monument was unveiled on Puhirake's grave in the mission cemetery at Ōtamataha, and a plaque honouring Taratoa was added later. A brass plaque in the church at Gate Pā and a stained-glass window at Lichfield Palace in England also commemorate the defenders' conduct.