Invasion of the Waikato

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. 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) and also at driving Waikato Māori from their territory in readiness for occupation and settlement by European colonists. 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.

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. 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—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. 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. 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. (The Governor-General normally gives Royal Assent to legislation by signing on the monarch's behalf.)

The First Taranaki War had ended in March 1861 as an uneasy truce between the government and Māori forces, with both sides recognising they had reached a stalemate. The lack of a clear victory by imperial forces led Governor Thomas Gore Browne to turn his attention to the Waikato, the centre of the Kīngitanga movement, where king Tāwhiao was attracting the allegiance of increasing numbers of Māori across the North Island. Browne concluded that members of the Kīngitanga movement would have to be compelled to submit to British rule. After attempting to achieve a peace settlement through "kingmaker" Wiremu Tamihana, in mid-1861 he sent an ultimatum to the movement's leaders, demanding submission to Queen Victoria and the return of plunder taken from Taranaki; when it was rejected he began drawing up plans to invade the Waikato and depose the king—a plan opposed by both the Colonial Office and the New Zealand General Assembly. According to Browne, in response to his belligerence, Kingite leaders formed plans to launch a raid on Auckland on 1 September and burn the town and slaughter most of its residents. This has since been dismissed by such historians as James Belich as being fear-mongering from Browne in order to try and gain military support.

Browne's invasion plan was suspended when he was replaced by Sir George Grey in September that year, and the Kingites in turn abandoned their plan for their uprising. Grey instead instituted a peace policy that included a system of Māori local administration in which they could participate, hoping it would encourage Māori to abandon the Kingite movement and "reduce the number of our enemies". At the same time, however, Grey began planning for war, using troops from the newly formed Commissariat Transport Corps to start construction work on a road from Drury that would run about 18 km south through forest to the Kingite border at the Mangatāwhiri Stream—a tributary of the Waikato River—near Pokeno. The so-called Great South Road would provide quick access to troops in the event of an invasion. Using what historian James Belich describes as a campaign of misinformation, Grey retained the Taranaki army and began appealing to the colonial office for more troops to avert "some great disaster", claiming tensions remained high, with a high likelihood of Māori aggression. In November 1862 he ordered a gunboat steamer from Sydney and purchased another in Lyttelton to supplement the supply system. By early 1863 the imperial government had provided Grey with 3000 men for the expected war.

Events in early 1863 brought tensions to a head. In March Kingites obstructed the construction of a police station at Te Kohekohe, near Meremere. Rewi Maniapoto, accompanied by Wiremu Kīngi Te Rangitāke, led 80 armed Ngāti Maniapoto warriors in a raid on the 80 hectare property at Te Awamutu occupied by magistrate and Commissioner John Gorst to seize the printing press on which he published a newspaper and take it to Kihikihi. The raiders sent a message to Gorst—who was absent at the time—to quit the property or risk death; Grey recalled Gorst to Auckland soon after. On 4 April Grey arranged for a 300-strong Imperial force to evict Māori from the contested Tataramaika block in Taranaki and reoccupy it. Māori viewed the reoccupation as an act of war and on 4 May a party of about 40 Ngati Ruanui warriors carried out a revenge attack, ambushing a small military party on a coastal road at nearby Ōakura, killing all but one of the 10 soldiers. The ambush, ordered by Rewi, may have been planned as an assassination attempt on Grey, who regularly rode the track between New Plymouth and the Tataraimaka military post.

Imperial troops were moved back to Taranaki as hostilities resumed and on 4 June the new British commander, Lieutenant-General Duncan Cameron, led 870 troops to attack a party of about 50 Māori on the Tataraimaka block, killing 24. Concerned by the renewed aggression, some Kingites began resurrecting their plan to raid Auckland and its frontier settlements. The colonial ministry remained unconvinced Auckland or Wellington were in any danger and had refused to call out the Auckland militia following the Ōakura ambush, and missionaries and even Gorst dismissed the likelihood of an attack. But in correspondence to London Grey cited that incident as further proof of the imminent danger to New Zealand settlers.