Invasion of the Waikato

Invasion of the Waikato
Part of the New Zealand Wars
Ngāti Maniapoto survivors of the war, at the jubilee gathering on the battlefield of Orakau, 1 April 1914. All but Hekiera shared in the defence of Orakau pa, and fought through to the Puniu River in the retreat.
Date 12 July 1863 – April 1864 Location Waikato, New Zealand Result British victory
Belligerents
United Kingdom: Colony of New Zealand	Kīngitanga North Island allies
Commanders and leaders
Duncan Cameron	Rewi Maniapoto Wiremu Tamihana Tāwhiao
Units involved
Royal Navy HMS Curacoa HMS Harrier HMS Eclipse British Army 12th Regiment 14th Regiment 18th Regiment 40th Regiment 65th Regiment 70th Regiment Royal Engineers Royal Artillery Commissariat Medical Department Colonial fleet Gunboat Pioneer Gunboat Avon Gunboat Sandfly Steam-tug Koheroa Volunteer and militia Waikato Militia Forest Rangers Māori allies	Waikato Ngāti Maniapoto Ngāti Pou Ngāi Tūhoe Ngāti Raukawa
Strength
14,000 British and colonial troops, several hundred British-allied Māori troops	~4000 troops, including 170 from Ngāi Tūhoe allies
Casualties and losses
700	1000, plus 80 taken prisoner[1]

The invasion of the Waikato became the largest and most important campaign of the 19th-century New Zealand Wars. Hostilities took place in the North Island of New Zealand between the military forces of the colonial government and a federation of Māori tribes known as the Kingitanga Movement.^[2] The Waikato is a territorial region with a northern boundary somewhat south of the present-day city of Auckland. The campaign lasted for nine months, from July 1863 to April 1864. The invasion was aimed at crushing Kingite power (which European settlers saw as a threat to colonial authority)^[3] and also at driving Waikato Māori from their territory in readiness for occupation and settlement by European colonists.^[4][5][6] The campaign was fought by a peak of about 14,000 Imperial and colonial troops and about 4,000 Māori warriors drawn from more than half the major North Island tribal groups.^[7]

Plans for the invasion were drawn up at the close of the First Taranaki War in 1861 but the Colonial Office and New Zealand General Assembly opposed action, and the incoming Governor Sir George Grey (second term 1861–1868) suspended execution in December of that year. Grey reactivated the invasion plans in June 1863 amid mounting tension between Kingites and the colonial government and fears of a violent raid on Auckland by Kingite Māori. Grey used, as the trigger for the invasion, the Kingite rejection of his ultimatum on 9 July 1863 that all Māori living between Auckland and the Waikato take an oath of allegiance to Queen Victoria or be expelled south of the Waikato River.^[2] Government troops crossed into Waikato territory three days later and launched their first attack on 17 July at Koheroa, but were unable to advance for another 14 weeks.

The subsequent war included the Battle of Rangiriri (November 1863)—which cost both sides more men than any other engagement of the New Zealand Wars^[8]—and the three-day-long Battle of Ōrākau (March–April 1864), which became arguably the best-known engagement of the New Zealand Wars and which inspired two films called Rewi's Last Stand.^[9] The campaign ended with the retreat of the Kingitanga Māori into the rugged interior of the North Island and the colonial government confiscating about 12,000 km² of Māori land.

The defeat and confiscations left the King Movement tribes with a legacy of poverty and bitterness that was partly assuaged in 1995 when the government conceded that the 1863 invasion and confiscation was wrongful and apologised for its actions.^[10] The Waikato–Tainui tribe accepted compensation in the form of cash and some government-controlled lands totalling about $171 million and later that year Queen Elizabeth II personally signed the Waikato Raupatu Claims Settlement Act 1995.^[11][12] (The Governor-General normally gives Royal Assent to legislation by signing on the monarch's behalf.)