East Cape War

The East Cape War, Sometimes also called the East Coast War 1865 to 1868

This article describe a complicated series of conflicts which occurred in the area generally known as the East Cape of the North Island of New Zealand beginning in about May, 1865.

The title of the article is somewhat misleading as implies that the conflicts were related and part of a coherent war. This is not true, there were at least three separate campaigns fought in this area during the period under consideration. However it is a convenient label or classification for the events described, happening as they did during a time of relative peace between the main clashes of the Maori Wars. That is between the end of the Invasion of the Waikato and beginning of Te Kooti’s War.

There was a common factor to all the conflicts in this area and period. They arose from the arrival of the Pai Marire Movement or Hau Hauism into the area. This movement began in the Taranaki region about 1862. Originally it was a peaceful religion, a combination of Christianity and traditional Maori beliefs. However it soon underwent a drastic change become violent and vehemently anti-Pakeha., being apparently determined to kill as many Pakeha as possible and drive the rest into the sea. During this period the New Zealand Government was inadvertently helping their recruitment by the wholesale confiscation of Maori land..

The arrival of the Hau Hau in the East Cape effectively destabilized the whole region causing great alarm among the settlers and also seriously disrupting Maori society because of its disregard for traditional tribal structures.

The fist and most notorious incident was the murder of missionary Carl Volkner outside his church at Opotiki on 2 March 1865. see Volkner Incident This caused outrage among the European settlers It also came at a very difficult time for the New Zealand Government as virtually all their forces were committed to the fighting in Taranaki. Second Taranaki War It was five months before they were able to free up the men to deal with the murders. Several units of Colonial Militia and a large contingent of Taranaki Maori were shipped around the coast to Opotoki and turned loose in the area with instructions to burn, pillage and destroy as much as possible. Faced with starvation and no effective weapons the locals had no choice but to surrender.

Meanwhile the Hau Hau had provoked a civil war among the Ngati Porou, one of the major tribes of the area. They successfully preached violence when the tribal leaders were urging caution. The Ngati Porou chiefs who were opposed to the Hau Hau fanaticism wrote to the Government requesting assistance, particularly arms and reinforcements. Their appeal reached Donald McLean, a major land owner in the Napier region.. He already had available a sizeable store of weapons, enough to equip a force of 100 militia and arm the Ngati Porou. They sailed up the coast and the two forces joined up on 6 July, 1865.

Over the next few months there were a series of skirmishes all over the East Cape during which the government forces were almost always successful. Hitherto in the various conflicts with the Pakeha the Maori had always shown themselves to be consummately skillful warriors, so skillful that although heavily outnumbered they had already several times fought the British Army to a standstill. Somehow in converting to Hau Hauism they lost or turned their backs on this military skill or wisdom. The Hau Hau had an almost perfect record for losing every skirmish, fight and battle they got into..

Early in October a force of about 600 Hau Hau were surrounded by only 380 Pakeha and Ngati Porou loyalists. Even though the Hau Hau had a strongly fortified Pa and the weather conditions were atrocious, on of the attackers died of hypothermia, 500 of the Hau Hau were forced to surrender. This was complete reversal of the trend, a fortified and defended Pa was virtually unassailable.

At about the same time a Hau Hau war party attacked a group of Ngati Porou women who had only a few shot guns and well flung rocks to defend themselves. They did so with such good effect that when the Hau Hau retreated they left behind thirteen dead.

In the event this attack cost the Hau Hau even heavier casualties. The loyalist Maori of the Ngati Porou were angered because non-combatants had been attacked. Particularly incensed was a rising leader or war chief among them, Ropata Wahawaha.. He lead a group that tracked down and captured the Hau Hau responsible. He then personally executed several of them, the ones who came from his own hapu or sub-tribe.

Waerenga a Hika

early in November of the same year a large group of Hau Hau built a Pa on the outskirts of a Pakeha settlement in Poverty Bay, some 10 km from Gisborne. There is some doubt about the nature of this group. Some authors suggest that they were refugees fleeing from Ropata and the Ngati Porou.. However there were at least 200 armed men with the party, threat enough to the settlement which seemed to be confirmed by their building a Pa. Once again it fell to Donald McLean to assemble of force to deal with the threat and to organize the shipping to move his warriors into the area. This was completed by about 12 November, including Ropata and some 300 Ngati Porou.

They surrounded the Pa on three sides and began a siege. The first day was spent in ineffectual rifle fire from both sides. The next day Major Fraser ordered his men to begin digging a trench towards the Pa but this was ambushed and a dozen of his men killed or wounded.. There were two more days of rifle fire.

On Day five a large party of men, about 200, emerged from the Pa carrying white flags as if to surrender. However they were fully armed and by all contemporary accounts appeared to have no intention of surrendering. In the fighting that followed about sixty Hau Hau were killed while only one of the militia was slightly wounded.

On Day seven the militia acquired a small cannon from Gisborne but no ammunition. Instead they fired empty salmon tins packed with bullets, about a hundred per tin. The effect must have been impressive because after the third shot the Hau Hau did surrender, properly this time. Some 400 of them were made prisoners although many others escaped into the surrounding bush.

Ngati Kahungunu Civil War

December 1865 to January 1866

This conflict happened in the northern Hawkes Bay area. It appears to have been very similar to the Ngati Porou civil war, conflict between those of the tribe who converted to Hau Hauism and those who remained loyal to the New Zealand Government, the kupapa. In this case the conflict was on a much smaller scale, possibly because each faction involved only a small proportion of the tribe, the bulk of the Ngati Kahungunu remaining neutral.

The loyalist faction won because they were able to call on support of the Colonial Militia and from the Ngati Porou warriors.

Napier

In October 1866 one group of Hau Hau attempted to invade Napier in a desultory fashion, they moved into the area in a threatening manner but did little more than camp on the outskirts of the settlement. However they could not be ignored. Once again a mixed force of Pakeha and Maori, commanded by Colonel Whitmore, was formed. They marched out and surrounded the Hau Hau at Omaranui. The Hau Hau were given a chance to surrender which they refused, in fact they refused to even negotiate. They were given an hour to reconsider and then the militia opened fire. The result was a massacre, most of the Hau Hau were killed

Tauranga again

January to March 1867

The peace agreement of 1864 had been accepted by most of the Maori of the Tauranga district and the area was relatively quiet. However thee was to be some confiscation of land and this was resisted by one small hapu or sub-tribe, the Piri Rakau lead by a Hau Hau Prophet, Hakaraia. Unlike most of the Hau Hau adherents he seems to have had some military wisdom. They were able to avoid either capture or destruction and for a brief time they had a considerable impact on the stability of the district particularly on the Arawa Tribe. However the arrival of Colonial reinforcements forced them to retreat towards the King Country. Hakaraia later joined Te Kooti

Similarly south of Opotiki the Tuhoe were not prepared to accept the arrival of Pakeha settlers on their northern border and made some raids on the farms being established in the area. Attempts by the militia to deal with the Tuhoe were largely unsuccessful because they could always retreat into the mists of the Uraweras.

So this was the East Cape War, it wasn’t a war but it certainly wasn’t peace either. Two factors kept the area unsettled. The Government pressed ahead with the confiscation of Maori land and this in its turn provided the Hau Hau with a constant flow of recruits. Then in June of 1868 the situation changed drastically with the arrival in Hawkes Bay of Te Kooti