The Intertribal Musket War’s Impact on Tauranga
 |
| A Ngāpuhi
musket haka or haka peruperu |
During the 1820s and 1830s, the Matua-Otūmoetai foreshore boomed and
echoed ominously to the roar of haka, as besieging enemy tribesmen from several
iwi leapt and stamped in frustrated fury below Otūmoetai, a previously unconquerable
pā tūwatawata (palisaded fortress). During the summer months of 1820, the
foreshore became the scene of one of the most famous peace-making incidents of
the intertribal Musket Wars.
In that year, Tauranga was invaded by a Ngāpuhi musket taua of 600-700
warriors aboard 50 waka taua.1 The expedition was initiated by the
rangatira Te Morenga, who was seeking further utu for the killing, cooking and
devouring of his niece Tawaputa at Tauranga in 1806. Deploying his contingent
of shock troops ahead of his force (35 toa armed with the only flintlock
muskets in their possession), Te Morenga oversaw the destruction by gunfire of the
Ngāi Te Rangi defenders of [Mount] Maunganui Pā, who twice charged their ranks with
traditional short and long weapons of stone, bone and wood. ‘For three days the
grisly aftermath of the battle [fought at Waikorire-Pilot Bay] continued as the
bodies of those slain were committed to the hāngī and eaten’.2
Te Morenga and his triumphant taua next turned their attention to Otūmoetai
Pā. Initially bypassing the fortress, the Ngāpuhi fleet encamped on
Matakana Island for several days, before sweeping en masse one morning into the
Matua inlet near the Wairoa River outlet. The toa disembarked and camped on the
long-abandoned pā site of Matuaiwi, a knoll overhanging the Wairoa River, about
a mile and a half from the great Otūmoetai pā. Like successive enemy taua before
them, they too attempted to storm Ngāi Te Rangi’s central fortress without
success.3
 |
Te Morenga’s moko
Mataora (face tattoo).
Eight years after the kidnapping of his niece and sister by convict pirates in 1806, Te Morenga
sketched this image of his own moko Mataora for John Nicholas, who was friend
and assistant to the leading missionary Samuel Marsden |
Te Waru, Ngāi Te Rangi’s paramount chief, set out alone one day to reconnoitre
the Ngāpuhi camp. Advancing carefully through the ngaio trees along the
foreshore, he saw Te Morenga, who was resting in the shade, also alone and
unguarded. Springing upon the Ngāpuhi, Te Waru disarmed him, bound his hands
and drove his prisoner into Otūmoetai Pā. There he untied Te Morenga, restored
his weapons and instructed him to treat him in the same manner. When Te Morenga
drove the disarmed and bound Te Waru into the Matuaiwi encampment, he, with some
difficulty, persuaded his warriors not to kill his prisoner. Invited to make
peace with Ngāpuhi, an extended kōrero ensued during which Te Waru accepted the
offer. Soon after, Te Morenga and Ngāpuhi fleet departed for the Bay of Islands.
The peace was to last until 1831, when the tohunga Te Haramiti’s Ngāti Kuri and
Ngāpuhi predatory raiders were defeated by Ngāi Te Rangi and allied iwi on
Motiti Island.4
In 1828, Otamataha Pā on the Te Papa Peninsula was stormed in a night
attack by a Ngāti Maru musket taua under the rangatira Te Rohu, during which most
of the Ngāti Tapu inhabitants were slaughtered. Te Rohu’s waka fleet then
crossed to the Otūmoetai foreshore and pā, where they met with counterfire from
the now musket armed defenders. The besiegers withdrew when one of Te Rohu’s
wives persuaded him that the utu he had attained from Ngāi Te Rangi during the
storming of Otamataha Pā was sufficient.5
 |
| A pōwhiri or
welcoming ceremony on the harbourside bench beyond the palisades of Otūmoetai Pā.
The palisades proved impervious to musket and cannon fire when Tītore Tākiri of
Ngāpuhi launched an amphibious artillery campaign against the Tauranga people
in 1832 |
On 17 July 1842, Ensign Abel Best visited Otūmoetai
Pa at a time when it was still subject to attacks by Te Arawa contingents from
Rotorua. Impressed by its defences, he recorded:
Part of the Pa is on the sea beach and part on the top of a
cliff or steep bank 40 feet high. By its position naturally strong it is
rendered more secure by a strong palisade and on the land side & flanks it
is further protected by a deep and wide Ditch having a Stockade on its exterior
side. Moreover, the level of the exterior plain is somewhat lower than that of
the Pa. Were it well defended its intricacy alone would render it formidable
but at present there are not men in it to defend one fifth of its great extent.
Nowhere have I seen so great a number of fine Canoes the care with which they
preserve their fishing nets was also worthy of remark every net being placed on
a little elevated platform and then securely thatched over.6
During the Musket Wars, the Ngāi Te Rangi hapu occupying
the Otūmoetai Pā site were able to defend their fortress and drive off
besieging Ngāpuhi, Ngāti Maru and Te Arawa taua. The wars set in motion more than 40 heke
or tribal migrations, but Ngāi Te Rangi were never driven from their lands. Otūmoetai
Pā’s steep escarpments, defensive ditches and palisades were unassailable, the
defenders too well led, provisioned and resolute.
Endnotes
1 Crosby, Ron, The
Musket Wars: A History of Inter-Iwi Conflict, Reed, Auckland, 1999: 71-72.
2 Ibid: 72
3 Gifford,
W.H. and H, Bradley Williams, A Centennial History of Tauranga, Capper
Press Christchurch, 1976: 18.
4 Ibid: 18-19.
5 Wilson, J.A. The
Story of Te Waharoa, Whitcombe and Tombs, Wellington, 1907: 17.
6 Best Able, The
Journal of Ensign Best, 1837-1843, Nancy M. Taylor (ed.), R.E. Owen,
Wellington, 1966: 371-372.
Illustrations
Artist unknown, ‘New Zealand
war-dance’, in Grant, James, British
Battles on Land and Sea, Vol. III,
Casell, Petter and Gilpin, London, Paris and New York, 1880: 259.
Te Morenga, self
portrait in Nicholas, John, Narrative of
a Voyage to New Zealand, Performed in the Years 1814 and 1815, James Black,
London, 1817: 216. Alexander Turnbull Library Ref. A-080-061
Joseph Merrett, A
meeting of visitors Mounganui. Tauraga in the distance. [1843?], E-216-f-119, Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington
