New Zealand Wars 1820–72

Between 1845 and 1872, various groups of Maori were involved in a series of wars of resistance against British settlers.

The Maori had a fierce and long-established warrior tradition and subduing them took a lengthy British Army commitment, only surpassed in the Victorian period by that on the North-West Frontier of India. Warfare had been endemic in pre-colonial New Zealand and Maori groups maintained fortified villages or pas.

By the 1860s many Maori had acquired firearms and had perfected their bush-warfare tactics. In the last phase of the wars a religious movement, Pai Maarire (‘Hau Hau’), inspired remarkable guerrilla leaders such as Te Kooti Arikirangi to renewed resistance.

Featuring specially commissioned full-colour artwork and fascinating early photographs, this book tells the parallel stories of the fierce Maori resistance to British colonial expansion, and of the adaptation of British and local New Zealand forces to bush fighting.