On this day in 1864 the Tauranga Campaign begins during the Maori Wars. The Tauranga Campaign was a six-month-long armed conflict in New Zealands Bay of Plenty in early 1864, and part of the New Zealand wars, a series of armed conflicts that took place in New Zealand between 1845 and 1872. While the early wars were largely localised, from 1860 to 1864 the wars were aimed at dislodging the Māori King Movement, which refused to accept colonial authority, and acquiring farming and residential land for English settlers. The 1860s conflicts involved 18,000 British troops and about 4000 Māori warriors and over the course of the Taranaki and Waikato campaigns took the lives of a total of 800 Europeans and 1800 Māori. Painting: von Tempskys death in fighting against Titokowaru at Te Ngutu o te Manu, 1868 by Kennett Watkins. Major Gustavus Ferdinand von Tempsky was a Prussian adventurer, artist, newspaper correspondent and soldier who fought in New Zealand, Australia, California, Mexico and the Mosquito Coast of Central America. The campaign was a sequel to of the invasion of Waikato, which aimed to crush the Māori King (Kingitanga) Movement that was viewed by the colonial government as a challenge to the supremacy of the British monarchy. British forces suffered a humiliating defeat in the Battle of Gate Pā on 29 April 1864, with 31 killed and 80 wounded despite vastly outnumbering their Māori foe, but saved face seven weeks later by routing their enemy at the Battle of Te Ranga, in which more than 80 Māori were killed or fatally wounded, including their commander, Rawiri Puhirake. Large areas of land were confiscated from the Māori by the government under the New Zealand Settlements Act in 1863, purportedly as punishment for rebellion. In reality, land was confiscated from both loyal and rebel tribes alike. More than four million acres (16,000 km²) of land was confiscated. Although about half of this was subsequently paid for or returned to Māori control, it was often not returned to its original owners. However the amount of confiscated land is tiny compared to the amount of land sold to the government or leased after 1870. Amongst the biggest land sellers were the Waikato tribes in the early 1900s when 185,000 acres of farmland was sold each year . The land titles were only held only by chiefs who alienated the land from their people. Income from land sales was often very poorly invested and lost such as the 50,000 pounds compensation paid to the Kingite royal family who lost the lot in a land speculation company in 1910. The legacy of the New Zealand Wars continues, but these days the battles are mostly fought in courtrooms and around the negotiation table. Numerous reports by the Waitangi Tribunal have criticised Crown actions during the wars, and also found that the Māori, too, had breached the treaty.
Posted on: Sun, 26 Jan 2014 08:22:33 +0000
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