Hutt Valley campaign

Hutt Valley campaign
Part of New Zealand Wars
Locations of the major engagements of the Hutt Valley campaign
Date 3 March - August 1846 Location Hutt Valley, New Zealand Result British victory
Belligerents
United Kingdom: Colony of New Zealand	Ngāti Toa Ngāti Rangatahi Ngāti Hāuaterangi
Commanders and leaders
William Hulme Edward Last Rawiri Puaha	Te Rangihaeata Topine Te Mamaku
Units involved
Royal Navy HMS Castor HMS Calliope HMS Driver Royal Marines British Army 58th Regiment 65th Regiment 96th Regiment 99th Regiment Ordnance Royal Engineers[1] Royal Artillery Militia Hutt Company, Wellington Battalion Police Māori allies Rawiri Puaha[2]

The Hutt Valley campaign was an armed conflict in the lower North Island of New Zealand between indigenous Māori and British settlers and military forces in 1846. The campaign was among the earliest of the 19th century New Zealand Wars that were fought over issues of land and sovereignty. It was preceded by the Wairau affray (June 1843) and followed by the Wanganui campaign (April–July 1847) and was triggered by much the same pressures—the careless land purchasing practices of the New Zealand Company, armed government support for settler land claims, and complex intertribal tensions between local Māori. The three conflicts also shared many of the same combatants.

The campaign's most notable clashes were the Māori dawn raid on an imperial stockade at Boulcott's Farm in the Hutt Valley on 16 May 1846 in which eight British soldiers and at least two Māori died, and the Battle of Battle Hill from 6–13 August as British troops, local militia and kūpapa Māori pursued a Ngāti Toa force led by chief Te Rangihaeata through steep and dense bushland. Ngāti Toa chief Te Rauparaha was taken into custody during the campaign; he was detained without charge in Auckland for two years.^[3]

A 2003 report by the Waitangi Tribunal concluded the New Zealand Company's 1839 land purchases were invalid and that the Crown committed a number of breaches of the 1840 Treaty of Waitangi in subsequent dealings with Māori in the area.