Invasion of the Waikato
Te riri ki Waikato
- When
- 1863–1864
- Where
- Mangatāwhiri
- Reach
- Several regions
Around 12,000 imperial and colonial troops crossed the Mangatāwhiri to break the Kīngitanga — the largest military campaign ever fought in New Zealand.
Governor Grey justified the invasion as pre-empting an attack on Auckland, a claim historians have found little evidence for. The real objective was the Waikato’s rich farmland and the political authority of the King movement. A road, a steamer fleet and a supply chain were built for it in advance. The campaign moved through Meremere, Rangiriri and Rangiaowhia to Ōrākau, and ended with the King’s people withdrawing into the King Country, where the Crown did not follow for twenty years.
Regions affected
Sources
Written for this project from these references rather than copied from them. Follow a link to check the account against the original.
Related
The Musket Wars
Musket-armed war parties reshaped the map of Māori New Zealand. Perhaps 20,000 died and whole districts changed hands before the fighting burned out around 1840.
New Zealand Settlements Act — raupatu
Te raupatu whenua
The Crown took roughly 1.2 million hectares from iwi deemed to be in rebellion — including from communities that had never fought.
New Zealand enters the First World War
About 100,000 served overseas from a population of just over a million. Around 18,000 died and 41,000 were wounded — proportionally among the heaviest losses of any country.
New Zealand declares war on Germany
‘Where she goes, we go’ — 140,000 served overseas and nearly 12,000 died, from a population of 1.6 million.