te ruki kawiti

New Zealand's 19th-century wars

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  War changed the face of New Zealand in the 19th century. Many thousands of Māori died in the intertribal Musket Wars between the 1810s and the 1830s. There were more deaths during the New Zealand Wars of the 1840s to 1870s between some Māori and the Crown, which for many tribes had dire consequences.

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• Page 2 - Pre-1860 conflictsDuring the Musket Wars of the 1810s-1830s thousands of Māori fled from their traditional lands, opening large areas to potential Pākehā (European) settlement. In 1840,

The Northern War

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  The Northern War, fought in the Bay of Islands in 1845-46, was the first serious challenge to the Crown in the years after the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi. Its opening shots marked the beginning of the wider North Island conflicts that are often referred to as the New Zealand Wars.

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• Page 4 – Puketutu and Te Ahuahu

  Māori learnt an important lesson at Puketutu: the British were a formidable foe in open battle. This would influence Māori tactics in future clashes

• Page 5 – Ōhaeawai

  Keen to cash in on Heke’s setback at Te Ahuahu, Henry Despard assembled the largest British force yet seen in the colony and moved to attack Kawiti’s new pā at Ōhaeawai.

• Page 7 – Ruapekapeka

  Ruapekapeka may have been a tactical victory for the British, but many consider the outcome a draw. Heke and Kawiti had escaped with their forces largely intact, and the terms

• Page 8 – Peace breaks out

  Historian James Belich contends that Grey won the propaganda war and Kawiti and Heke won the real war. Others argue that Belich's revisionism goes too far and maintain that