Te Kooti's War
Te Kooti's War was among the last of the New Zealand Wars, the series of 19th-century conflicts in New Zealand between the Māori and the colonising European settlers. It was fought in the East Coast region and across the heavily forested central North Island and Bay of Plenty from 1868 to 1872, between government military forces and followers of spiritual leader Te Kooti Arikirangi Te Turuki.
The conflict was sparked by Te Kooti's return to the East Coast after two years of internment on the Chatham Islands, from where he had escaped with almost 200 Māori prisoners of war and their families. Te Kooti desired to be left in peace but two weeks after their return to the mainland, members of his party found themselves being pursued by a force of militia, government troops and Māori volunteers. Te Kooti's force routed them in an ambush, seizing arms, ammunition, food and horses. The engagement was the first in what became a four-year guerrilla war, involving more than 30 expeditions by colonial and Māori troops against Te Kooti's dwindling number of warriors. Although initially fighting defensively against pursuing government forces, Te Kooti went on the offensive from November 1868, starting with a raid on Poverty Bay, in which selected European settlers, their families, and Māori opponents were murdered. The attack prompted another pursuit by government forces, one that included the siege at Ngatapa from which Te Kooti escaped but which resulted in the capture and execution of over 100 of his followers.
Te Kooti gained refuge with Tūhoe tribes, which consequently suffered a series of damaging raids in which crops and villages were destroyed, as other Māori iwi were lured by the promise of a £5000 reward for Te Kooti's capture. Te Kooti was finally granted sanctuary by the Māori king in 1872 and moved to the King Country, where he continued to develop rituals, texts and prayers of his Ringatū faith. He was formally pardoned by the government in February 1883 and died in 1893.
In modern times, much of the actions that occurred during Te Kooti's War, particularly in the early stages of the conflict, have been condemned as an abuse of law and human rights.
Retreat to the wilderness[edit]
Contrary to the expectation of their pursuers, who believed that Te Kooti and his remaining Ringatū followers would attempt to return to Puketapu, they retreated to the northeast to the outskirts of the Urewera mountains. Basing themselves at Maraetahi, near Oponae, about 40 kilometres (25 mi) south of Ōpōtiki in the Waioeka gorge, from January through to March, he had a dialogue with Tūhoe leaders who, stung by recent confiscations of their tribal land near Ohiwa, debated amongst themselves whether to support Te Kooti. On 2 March, he came to an agreement to defend the Urewera with Tūhoe support. In the meantime, his ranks soon expanded with warriors, mainly from Tūhoe but also other iwi in the surrounding areas, and he had amassed a fighting force of around 130 men.[49]
Te Kooti went on the offensive a few days later, seeking to acquire weapons, ammunition and other supplies by raiding the area around Ohiwa Harbour and Whakatāne. He marched to the pā at Whakarae, under the control of Rakuraku, a Tūhoe rangatira, to the immediate south of Ohiwa Harbour and quickly gained its possession. He stayed for a few days, recruiting warriors and also ordering a surveyor, Robert Pitcairn, working nearby at Ohiwa, be killed. He then moved west and besieged a Ngāti Pūkeko pā, Rauporoa, on the west bank of the Whakatāne River. A Frenchman, Jean Guerren, who ran the local mill, was killed during the fighting at the pā;[49] it was taken on 11 March and Te Kooti ordered Guerren's wife, a Māori, be executed by her sister.[50] Whakatāne itself was looted by one of Te Kooti's detachments.[51]
Before Rauporoa fell, messengers had been dispatched to Ōpōtiki seeking assistance. There, Major William Mair of the Armed Constabulary gathered a party of around 160 men but by the time they arrived at Rauporoa in the afternoon of 11 March, it had been abandoned. Te Kooti's men could be seen in the distance, but Mair declined to pursue as his forces appeared outnumbered; he estimated that the Ringatū numbered around 250 to 300 warriors. At the same, a party led by Gilbert Mair, William's brother, who had raised a force of 130 Te Arawa on his way to the area from Tauranga where he had heard of the events of Rauporoa, came across mounted Ringatū pursuing Ngāti Pūkeko who had fled Rauporoa. The Ringatū rejoined the rest of Te Kooti's men and then turned and made to attack William Mair's Ōpōtiki party, which then withdrew to Whakatāne. On 13 March he was joined there by Gilbert Mair and another Mair brother, Henry and waited for reinforcements.[50]
On 15 March, the Mairs led a party of 450, mostly kupapa of Te Arawa, in pursuit of Te Kooti, who in the meantime had attacked a pā at Paharakeke on the Rangitaiki River. About 40 Ngāti Awa were coerced, forcibly or otherwise, to joining his Ringatū. The Mairs followed along the Rangitaiki and at dusk the next day caught up with Te Kooti at Tauaroa pā. A cordon was thrown around the pā but some of the kupapa refused to move in the dark so the encirclement was incomplete. Te Kooti and his followers slipped out during the night and retreated into the Urewera. When the Mairs entered the next morning on realising the pā was empty, they found the body of a young Te Arawa warrior who had been tortured and killed.[52]
The following month, on 10 April, Te Kooti launched another surprise strike, this time on Mohaka, south of Wairoa. Mohaka was a village of Ngāti Pāhauwera, a hāpu of Ngāti Kahungunu, and was well supplied with ammunition, the securing of which was Te Kooti's objective. His 150-strong force swept through Mohaka, killing many men, women and children and some nearby colonists before moving to their primary targets, Te Huki pā and the bigger Hiruharama pā on the coast. Te Huki was besieged overnight before being taken the next morning when Te Kooti proposed peace under a white flag. Once access to the pā was gained, its 26 occupants were killed. The raid netted Te Kooti enough ammunition to assault Hiruharama, but an attempted siege of the bigger pā collapsed when outside reinforcements led by Ihaka Whaanga of Ngāti Kahungunu arrived to help the defenders. Once again Te Kooti retreated to the Tūhoe heartland, the attack having killed 65 locals, mostly Māori.[53]
Te Kooti's latest series of raids saw his numbers increase and he gained significant amount of supplies, although little ammunition. It also prompted the evacuation to Auckland of most European women and children in the Bay of Plenty.[52][54] Urged by Henry Clarke, in charge of Native Affairs at Tauranga, the government instructed Whitmore to mount an invasion of the Urewera to deny Te Kooti a base for operations into the Bay of Plenty and the East Cape.[55] By now, Te Kooti's attacks on the Māori population in the East Cape area had pushed the various affected iwi towards alignment with the government in taking action against him.[52]
Pardon and later years[edit]
In February 1883, the Government formally pardoned Te Kooti as part of a deal with Tāwhiao to put the Main Trunk Line through the King Country.[91] Te Kooti showed his gratitude the following month by rescuing a surveyor, Wilson Hursthouse, who had been taken prisoner, stripped and chained up by disciples of Te Whiti o Rongomai, a prophet from Parihaka.[92]
However Te Kooti remained unrepentant and belligerent. He went about armed with a revolver and threatened to take his gang back to Poverty Bay. He travelled extensively holding meetings to spread the Ringatū message. He was often accompanied by large groups of supporters to places such as Whakatāne and Ōpōtiki. An observer noted 1,000 people gathered to hear him and the resident magistrate commented that for once Te Kooti was sober. Te Kooti was still far from popular with all Maori and was accused by chiefs of practicing makutu (black magic) to kill senior chiefs who he had previously opposed him.
Chiefs were concerned that groups such as Ngāti Awa and Ngāti Pūkeko would hand over the land to Te Kooti without any authority. The chiefs wrote to parliament to complain that Te Kooti was claiming mana over their land and instructing that the land should not be bought before the Native Land Court. The chiefs were also concerned that the supplies of the communities were being drained by massive hui leading to the people being ill-prepared to face winter. Chiefs complained that Te Kooti was forcing his adherents to raise money for him by selling family crops and animals. School teachers and native officers sent report to the government that this was resulting in children being malnourished.[93] Te Kooti, conscious of his age, decided to return to Poverty Bay. This alarmed the government and the people of Poverty Bay. In February a telegram signed by a number of Ngāti Porou chiefs went to parliament saying they would rise up if Te Kooti did not turn back.[94]
The government was keen to keep the peace. The Minister of Defence was concerned that Te Kooti had been directly threatened by his old adversaries Ropata and the Ngāti Porou. The Prime Minister arranged a meeting in Auckland between himself, Te Kooti and the Native Minister where he was offered government land if he stayed away from Gisborne. Although cordial, Te Kooti told the officials that he was determined to return. As a token of his peaceful intentions he surrendered a small revolver that he normally carried.[95] The government shipped troops and artillery to Gisborne to form a military force of 377 under Major Porter in early 1889. Rumours of threats continued until the force went to Waioeka Pa and found Te Kooti drunk with 4 of his wives and some 400 supporters, who were arrested.[96] He was bound over to keep the peace but as he could not afford the fine or bond he was taken to Mt Eden jail in Auckland where he was persuaded by the Ladies Temperance Movement to take the pledge against drinking alcohol and imprisoned for a short time before being released. Te Kooti wrote a letter of apology to the government explaining that his recent conduct had been caused by drink.[97]
Eventually in 1891 the government gave him an area of land at Wainui, at Ōhiwa Harbour in the Bay of Plenty, where a marae for the Ringatū church was later established. In February 1893 Te Kooti was injured in an accident involving the cart in which he was travelling to Ōhiwa Harbour. Although he resumed his journey he succumbed to his injuries on 17 April 1893. Originally buried at Maromahue, Waiotahe, his followers later removed and hid his remains.[4]
Aftermath[edit]
A 2013 Waitangi Tribunal report said the action of Crown forces on the East Coast from 1865 to 1869, during the East Coast Wars and the start of Te Kooti's War, resulted in the deaths of proportionately more Māori than in any other district during the New Zealand Wars. It condemned the "illegal imprisonment" on the Chatham Islands of a quarter of the East Coast region's adult male population and said the loss in war of an estimated 43 per cent of the male population, many through acts of "lawless brutality", was a stain on New Zealand's history and character.[98]
In May 2013, at the tangi of MP Parekura Horomia, the Tūhoe iwi, who had initially supported Te Kooti and the rebel Hau Hau movement in their 19th century war against the government, gave a gift to Ngāti Porou to end nearly 150 years of bitterness between the tribes. Ngāti Porou had provided many of the soldiers who tracked down the guerilla leader in the late 1860s and had numerous conflicts with Tūhoe Hau Hau. During one conflict 120 Tūhoe Hau Hau were captured and killed. Tūhoe leader Tu Waaka said he did not want successive generations to be encumbered by the events of the past.[99]