East Cape War
Encyclopedia
The East Cape War, sometimes also called the East Coast War, refers to a series of conflicts that were fought in the North Island
of New Zealand
from about 13 April 1865 to June 1868. There were at least three separate unrelated campaigns fought in the area during a period of relative peace between the main clashes of the New Zealand land wars
, between the end of the Invasion of the Waikato
, and beginning of Te Kooti's War
. Although separate, they have all come to be known together as the East Cape War.
All of these conflicts stem from a common cause, the arrival of the Pai Marire
Movement or Hau Hauism from the Taranaki region around 1865. Originally Pai Marire was a peaceful religion, a combination of Christianity
and traditional Māori beliefs, but it quickly evolved into a violent and vehemently anti-European (Pākehā
) movement. 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 Māori
society because of its disregard for traditional tribal structures. During this period the New Zealand Government was inadvertently helping Pai Marire recruitment by the wholesale confiscation of Māori land, a policy that understandably generated enormous resentment among the Māori.
on 2 March 1865, which came to be known as the Volkner Incident
. This outraged the European settlers who demanded justice, but New Zealand Government had committed almost all of their forces to fighting the Second Taranaki War
. It took five months before they were able to free up men to deal with the murders. Several units of Colonial Militia and a large contingent of Taranaki Māori were shipped around the coast to Opotiki
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 Ngāti Porou
, one of the major tribes of the area. They successfully preached violence when the tribal leaders were urging caution. The Ngāti 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 landowner in the Napier
region. He already had available a sizeable store of weapons, enough to equip a force of 100 militia and arm the Ngāti 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 Pākehā
the Māori had always shown themselves to be consummately skilful warriors, so skilful that although heavily outnumbered they had already fought the British Army to a standstill on several occasions. Surprisingly their military abilities seemed to have left them, and the Hau Hau had an almost perfect record for losing every skirmish, fight and battle they got into.
Early in October, 380 Pākehā and Ngāti Porou loyalists surrounded a force of about 600 Hau Hau. Even though the Hau Hau had a strongly fortified pā
and the weather conditions were atrocious (one 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 Pā was usually found to be virtually unassailable.
At about the same time a Hau Hau war party attacked a group of Ngāti Porou women who had only a few shotguns 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 Māori of the Ngāti Porou were angered because non-combatants had been attacked. Particularly incensed was a rising leader or war chief among them, Ropata Wahawaha
. He led a group that tracked down and captured the Hau Hau responsible, and personally executed the ones who came from his own hapu
, or sub-tribe.
on the outskirts of a Pākehā 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 Ngāti 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 Ngāti Porou.
They surrounded the pā 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 pā 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 pā 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.
This conflict happened in the northern Hawke's Bay area. It appears to have been very similar to the Ngāti 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 Ngāti Kahungunu
remaining neutral.
The loyalist faction won because they were able to call on support of the Colonial Militia and from the Ngāti Porou warriors.
The peace agreement of 1864 had been accepted by most of the Māori of the Tauranga
district and the area was relatively quiet. However there was to be some confiscation of land and this was resisted by one small hapu or sub-tribe, the Piri Rakau led 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 Pākehā 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 Urewera Ranges.
So this was the East Cape War: not a war but certainly not peace either. Two factors kept the area unsettled. The Government pressed ahead with the confiscation of Māori land and this in its turn provided the Hau Hau with a constant flow of recruits. Then in June 1868 the situation changed drastically with the arrival in Hawkes Bay of Te Kooti
.
North Island
The North Island is one of the two main islands of New Zealand, separated from the much less populous South Island by Cook Strait. The island is in area, making it the world's 14th-largest island...
of New Zealand
New Zealand
New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...
from about 13 April 1865 to June 1868. There were at least three separate unrelated campaigns fought in the area during a period of relative peace between the main clashes of the New Zealand land wars
New Zealand land wars
The New Zealand Wars, sometimes called the Land Wars and also once called the Māori Wars, were a series of armed conflicts that took place in New Zealand between 1845 and 1872...
, between the end of the Invasion of the Waikato
Invasion of the Waikato
The Invasion of Waikato or Kingitanga Suppression Movement was a campaign during the middle stages of the New Zealand Wars, fought in the North Island of New Zealand from July 1863 to April 1864 between the military forces of the Colonial Government and a federation of Māori tribes known as the...
, and beginning of Te Kooti's War
Te Kooti's War
Te Kooti's War was one of the New Zealand Wars, the series of conflicts fought between 1845 and 1872 between the Māori and the colonizing European settlers, often referred to as Pākehā. This particular conflict covered most of the East Cape region and the centre of the North Island of New Zealand...
. Although separate, they have all come to be known together as the East Cape War.
All of these conflicts stem from a common cause, the arrival of the Pai Marire
Pai Marire
The Pai Mārire movement was a syncretic Māori religion that flourished in New Zealand from about 1863 to 1874. Founded in Taranaki by the prophet Te Ua Haumene, it incorporated Biblical and Māori spiritual elements and promised its followers deliverance from Pākehā domination, providing a...
Movement or Hau Hauism from the Taranaki region around 1865. Originally Pai Marire was a peaceful religion, a combination of Christianity
Christianity
Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other New Testament writings...
and traditional Māori beliefs, but it quickly evolved into a violent and vehemently anti-European (Pākehā
Pakeha
Pākehā is a Māori language word for New Zealanders who are "of European descent". They are mostly descended from British and to a lesser extent Irish settlers of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, although some Pākehā have Dutch, Scandinavian, German, Yugoslav or other ancestry...
) movement. The arrival of the Hau Hau in the East Cape
East Cape
East Cape is the easternmost point of the main islands of New Zealand. It is located to the north of Gisborne in the northeast of the North Island....
effectively destabilized the whole region causing great alarm among the settlers and also seriously disrupting Māori
Maori culture
Māori culture is the culture of the Māori of New Zealand, an Eastern Polynesian people, and forms a distinctive part of New Zealand culture. Within the Māori community, and to a lesser extent throughout New Zealand as a whole, the word Māoritanga is often used as an approximate synonym for Māori...
society because of its disregard for traditional tribal structures. During this period the New Zealand Government was inadvertently helping Pai Marire recruitment by the wholesale confiscation of Māori land, a policy that understandably generated enormous resentment among the Māori.
Early actions
The first and most notorious incident was the murder of missionary Carl Volkner outside his church at OpotikiOpotiki
Opotiki is a town in the eastern Bay of Plenty in the North Island of New Zealand. It houses the headquarters of the Opotiki District Council and comes under the Bay of Plenty Regional Council.-Population:* of the town: 4176 - Male 1,989, Female 2,187...
on 2 March 1865, which came to be known as the Volkner Incident
Volkner Incident
The Völkner Incident describes the murder of the missionary Carl Sylvius Völkner in New Zealand in 1865 and the consequent reaction of the Government of New Zealand in the midst of the New Zealand land wars.-Background:...
. This outraged the European settlers who demanded justice, but New Zealand Government had committed almost all of their forces to fighting the Second Taranaki War
Second Taranaki War
-Background and causes of the war:The conflict in Taranaki had its roots in the First Taranaki War, which had ended in March 1861 with an uneasy truce. Neither side fulfilled the terms of the truce, leaving many of the issues unresolved...
. It took five months before they were able to free up men to deal with the murders. Several units of Colonial Militia and a large contingent of Taranaki Māori were shipped around the coast to Opotiki
Opotiki
Opotiki is a town in the eastern Bay of Plenty in the North Island of New Zealand. It houses the headquarters of the Opotiki District Council and comes under the Bay of Plenty Regional Council.-Population:* of the town: 4176 - Male 1,989, Female 2,187...
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
Civil war
A civil war is a war between organized groups within the same nation state or republic, or, less commonly, between two countries created from a formerly-united nation state....
among the Ngāti Porou
Ngati Porou
Ngāti Porou is a Māori iwi traditionally located in the East Cape and Gisborne regions of the North Island of New Zealand. Ngāti Porou has the second-largest affiliation of any iwi in New Zealand, with 71,910 registered members in 2006...
, one of the major tribes of the area. They successfully preached violence when the tribal leaders were urging caution. The Ngāti 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 landowner in the Napier
Napier, New Zealand
Napier is a New Zealand city with a seaport, located in Hawke's Bay on the eastern coast of the North Island. The population of Napier is about About 18 kilometres south of Napier is the inland city of Hastings. These two neighboring cities are often called "The Twin Cities" or "The Bay Cities"...
region. He already had available a sizeable store of weapons, enough to equip a force of 100 militia and arm the Ngāti 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 Pākehā
Pakeha
Pākehā is a Māori language word for New Zealanders who are "of European descent". They are mostly descended from British and to a lesser extent Irish settlers of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, although some Pākehā have Dutch, Scandinavian, German, Yugoslav or other ancestry...
the Māori had always shown themselves to be consummately skilful warriors, so skilful that although heavily outnumbered they had already fought the British Army to a standstill on several occasions. Surprisingly their military abilities seemed to have left them, and the Hau Hau had an almost perfect record for losing every skirmish, fight and battle they got into.
Early in October, 380 Pākehā and Ngāti Porou loyalists surrounded a force of about 600 Hau Hau. Even though the Hau Hau had a strongly fortified pā
Pa (Maori)
The word pā can refer to any Māori village or settlement, but in traditional use it referred to hillforts fortified with palisades and defensive terraces and also to fortified villages. They first came into being about 1450. They are located mainly in the North Island north of lake Taupo...
and the weather conditions were atrocious (one of the attackers died of hypothermia
Hypothermia
Hypothermia is a condition in which core temperature drops below the required temperature for normal metabolism and body functions which is defined as . Body temperature is usually maintained near a constant level of through biologic homeostasis or thermoregulation...
) 500 of the Hau Hau were forced to surrender. This was complete reversal of the trend; a fortified and defended Pā was usually found to be virtually unassailable.
At about the same time a Hau Hau war party attacked a group of Ngāti Porou women who had only a few shotguns 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 Māori of the Ngāti Porou were angered because non-combatants had been attacked. Particularly incensed was a rising leader or war chief among them, Ropata Wahawaha
Ropata Wahawaha
Ropata Wahawaha was a Ngāti Porou war chief who rose to prominence during New Zealand's East Cape War and to senior command during Te Kooti's War.-Childhood and names:...
. He led a group that tracked down and captured the Hau Hau responsible, and personally executed the ones who came from his own hapu
Hapu
A hapū is sometimes described as "the basic political unit within Maori society".A named division of a Māori iwi , membership is determined by genealogical descent; a hapū is made up of a number of whānau groups. Generally hapū range in size from 150-200 although there is no upper limit...
, or sub-tribe.
Waerenga a Hika
Early in November of the same year a large group of Hau Hau built a pāPa (Maori)
The word pā can refer to any Māori village or settlement, but in traditional use it referred to hillforts fortified with palisades and defensive terraces and also to fortified villages. They first came into being about 1450. They are located mainly in the North Island north of lake Taupo...
on the outskirts of a Pākehā settlement in Poverty Bay
Poverty Bay
Poverty Bay is the largest of several small bays on the east coast of New Zealand's North Island to the north of Hawkes Bay. It stretches for 10 kilometres from Young Nick's Head in the southwest to Tuaheni Point in the northeast. The city of Gisborne is located on the northern shore of the bay...
, some 10 km from Gisborne
Gisborne, New Zealand
-Economy:The harbour was host to many ships in the past and had developed as a river port to provide a more secure location for shipping compared with the open roadstead of Poverty Bay which can be exposed to southerly swells. A meat works was sited beside the harbour and meat and wool was shipped...
. There is some doubt about the nature of this group. Some authors suggest that they were refugees fleeing from Ropata and the Ngāti 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 Ngāti Porou.
They surrounded the pā 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 pā 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 pā 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.
Ngāti Kahungunu civil war
December 1865 to January 1866This conflict happened in the northern Hawke's Bay area. It appears to have been very similar to the Ngāti 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
Kupapa
Kūpapa is a Māori-language term used to describe Māori fighting for the Government in the New Zealand Land Wars of the nineteenth century. Also described as Queenites or Loyal Māori, their motives for fighting against other Māori were often based on traditional tribal rivalry, old scores or a...
. 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 Ngāti Kahungunu
Ngati Kahungunu
Ngāti Kahungunu is a Māori iwi located along the eastern coast of the North Island of New Zealand. The iwi is traditionally centred in the Hawke’s Bay and Tararua and Wairārapa regions....
remaining neutral.
The loyalist faction won because they were able to call on support of the Colonial Militia and from the Ngāti 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 Pākehā and Māori, 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 even to negotiate. They were given an hour to reconsider and then the militia opened fire. The result was a massacre in which most of the Hau Hau were killed.Tauranga again
January to March 1867The peace agreement of 1864 had been accepted by most of the Māori of the Tauranga
Tauranga
Tauranga is the most populous city in the Bay of Plenty region, in the North Island of New Zealand.It was settled by Europeans in the early 19th century and was constituted as a city in 1963...
district and the area was relatively quiet. However there was to be some confiscation of land and this was resisted by one small hapu or sub-tribe, the Piri Rakau led by a Hau Hau prophet
Prophet
In religion, a prophet, from the Greek word προφήτης profitis meaning "foreteller", is an individual who is claimed to have been contacted by the supernatural or the divine, and serves as an intermediary with humanity, delivering this newfound knowledge from the supernatural entity to other people...
, 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
Te Arawa
Te Arawa is a confederation of Māori iwi and hapu based in the Rotorua and Bay of Plenty areas of New Zealand, with a population of around 40,000.The history of the Te Arawa people is inextricably linked to the Arawa canoe...
tribe. However the arrival of Colonial reinforcements forced them to retreat towards the King Country
King Country
The King Country is a region of the western North Island of New Zealand. It extends approximately from the Kawhia Harbour and the town of Otorohanga in the north to the upper reaches of the Whanganui River in the south, and from the Hauhungaroa and Rangitoto Ranges in the east to near the Tasman...
. Hakaraia later joined Te Kooti
Te Kooti
Te Kooti Arikirangi Te Turuki was a Māori leader, the founder of the Ringatu religion and guerrilla.While fighting alongside government forces against the Hauhau in 1865, he was accused of spying. Exiled to the Chatham Islands without trial along with captured Hauhau, he experienced visions and...
.
Similarly, south of Opotiki, the Tuhoe
Tuhoe
Ngāi Tūhoe , a Māori iwi of New Zealand, takes its name from an ancestral figure, Tūhoe-pōtiki. The word tūhoe literally means "steep" or "high noon" in the Māori language...
were not prepared to accept the arrival of Pākehā settlers
Pakeha settlers
Pākehā settlers were European emigrants who journeyed to New Zealand, and more specifically to Auckland, the Wellington/Hawkes Bay region, Canterbury and Otago during the 19th century...
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 Urewera Ranges.
So this was the East Cape War: not a war but certainly not peace either. Two factors kept the area unsettled. The Government pressed ahead with the confiscation of Māori land and this in its turn provided the Hau Hau with a constant flow of recruits. Then in June 1868 the situation changed drastically with the arrival in Hawkes Bay of Te Kooti
Te Kooti
Te Kooti Arikirangi Te Turuki was a Māori leader, the founder of the Ringatu religion and guerrilla.While fighting alongside government forces against the Hauhau in 1865, he was accused of spying. Exiled to the Chatham Islands without trial along with captured Hauhau, he experienced visions and...
.
Further reading
- Belich, JamesJames Belich (historian)James Christopher Belich, ONZM is a New Zealand revisionist historian, known for his work on the New Zealand Wars.Of Croatian descent, he was born in Wellington in 1956, the son of Sir James Belich, who later became Mayor of Wellington. He attended Onslow College.He gained an M.A...
(1988). The New Zealand wars. Penguin. - Belich, James (1996) Making peoples. Penguin Press.
- Binney, Judith (1995). Redemption songs: A life of Te Kooti Arikirangi Te Turuki. Auckland: Auckland University Press.
- Cowan, J., & Hasselberg, P. D. (1983) The New Zealand wars. New Zealand Government Printer. (Originally published 1922)
- Maxwell, Peter (2000). Frontier, the battle for the North Island of New Zealand. Celebrity Books.
- Simpson, Tony (1979). Te Riri Pakeha. Hodder and Stoughton.
- Sinclair, KeithKeith SinclairSir Keith Sinclair, CBE was a poet and noted historian of New Zealand.Born and raised in Auckland, Sinclair was a student at Auckland University College, which was then part of the University of New Zealand. He was awarded a Ph.D...
(ed.) (1996). The Oxford illustrated history of New Zealand (2nd ed.) Wellington: Oxford University Press. - Stowers, Richard (1996). Forest rangers. Richard Stowers.
- Vaggioli, Dom Felici (2000). History of New Zealand and its inhabitants, Trans. J. Crockett. Dunedin: University of Otago Press. Original Italian publication, 1896.
- "The people of many peaks: The Māori biographies". (1990). From The dictionary of New Zealand biographies, Vol. 1, 1769-1869. Bridget Williams Books and Department of Internal Affairs, New Zealand.