Historical: The Musket Wars (Maori vs Maori)

Before the wars with Europeans over grievances regarding confiscated land, there was a much larger and longer running war involving Maori. This war was waged between iwi. It was 100% Maori against Maori. There was no racial involvement in any form. This war was only between those who were of Polynesian descent, those who had the same roots, those who came here with the fleet.

It is worth noting that war; as with within any race, has always been present when tribes increased, clans/hapu broke off, visitors or invaders arrived, threats were perceived, or insults were traded. After all, WW1 began with just one man being shot - ArchDuke Ferdinand. This triggered a series of events that ultimately lead to 37 million people dying in a senseless war. An insult (in any race of any colour) is very often harboured by the human spirit, grows into hatred, and is finally expressed at an opportune time. This is nothing new and is not limited to Maori, European, Japanese, or one racial group at all. It is fully a human condition.

Maori had always quarreled or had 'he riri nui' within him. They are still referred to as a 'warrior race' even now - for good reason. As tribes grew large and strong between the years of 1550-1800, skirmishes occurred everywhere. Initially they were over land, but in the times just before European arrived, they were more the result of a simple (or maybe not so simple) insult. The insult could be murder, adultery, a boast, a posture of contempt (even picking ones teeth could suggest you had eaten a member of the tribe you faced). Polynesians (and Maori in particular) are extremely sensitive to insult, yet extremely generous and giving as well. Alliances were often sought between neighbouring tribes to bolster strength and reduce exposure to fighting. Those skirmishes often only involved just a few hundred warriors - so a handful of dead was all that ever resulted due to any conflict.

However, all that changed when one individual in particular (and there were others before him) understood he could avenge himself of past insults with little retribution. For he had seen the devastating power of the musket. That individual was Hongi Hika (1772-1828). He was a staunch protector of the missionaries in the far north, yet elsewhere the murdering of his own kind seemed acceptable to him. Below we give an account of the results, but we cannot adequately explain the need for such a murderous rampage as far down as Mataura in Murihiku (Southland). All we can say is that given the upper hand, human beings of any race, attempt to dominate, often in violent ways.

You see...the musket did not create the war, it just assisted as a new method of war for an ongoing hatred or need for utu (revenge).

Muskets allowed those fortunate enough to get them, to pay off 'old debts' - (once the mystique and fear of the magical 'fire sticks' had waned). Maori first used muskets in 1810 against Europeans retaliating against the massacre of those on the Boyd at Whangaroa. Eventually trade for muskets was paramount and no more so than in the Bay of Islands...NgaPuhi territory. Europeans began to curb the private trade of muskets out of concern, yet muskets were the focus of trade and even when Marsden left for Sydney after explicitly forbidding the trade - it recommenced in earnest. Europeans were not ignorant to why certain tribes sought the musket because the Maori were preoccupied with war at that time anyway. Maori also sought iron hatchets and axes, hoes, knives and whatever else could be used for war.

Note that maori were not concerned with Europeans at that time as no treaty or grievances had occurred at that point. They had no beef with the European collectively (probably because cattle were few in number! - I know, that was very weak).

In 1818, thirty five muskets were not enough for Te Morenga (NgaPuhi) to rout a tribe from the Thames area. By 1820 hundreds were in possession of muskets. By 1821, one settler named Thomas Kendall, suggested some 500 muskets were in native hands. In 1826 even spots like the East Cape had Maori demanding muskets from D'Urville, the French explorer.

Hongi was also NgaPuhi. He even travelled to England and on his return he had with him 300 new muskets. Settlers could see a force growing and eventually 1000 muskets and 2000 men were "ready to murder, kill, destroy without reserve which is the highest pitch of glory to a savage of New Zealand" one European observer wrote.. Now note that at hat time, Europeans were not seen as anything but useful and existed quite safely as Maori murdered Maori in ongoing war. I needed to spell that out clearly again.

In 1821 Hongi attacked what we know now as Auckland, and then down to the Thames area, feasting on human flesh as they went. At Thames he feigned peace, then attacked in surprise and killed around a thousand people. A missionary noted Hongi also brought back some 2000 prisoners of Ngatipaoa and Ngatimaru tribes. Those visiting the battle scenes, such as Mrs Felton Mathew who visited Te Totara pa in 1840 noted bones everywhere, many where they lay fallen in battle of died of their injuries as they hid. Yet the greatest concentration of bones were in the earth ovens, she pointed out.

In 1822 three thousand warriors left the Bay of Islands with Hongi, this time crossing the Hauraki gulf to Waimata and down to Waikato. Here at Matakitaki he killed some 1000.

In 1823 he sailed to the Bay of Plenty and into Te Arawa territory. The Te Arawa were famous warriors, but they had few muskets. As they collected on Mokoia in the middle of Lake Rotorua, Hongi surrounded them for three days eventually landing on the north side and driving them into the water. Missionaries heard Hongi boasting of 3000 dead. NgaPuhi stayed in Rotorua for a while before returning home. Here they 'rested' for a year.

In 1825 he finally attacked the Ngati-whatua at the Kaipara inlet. He left the Bay of Islands with 500 warriors. Seventy NgaPuhi died even thought the Ngati-whatua only has three muskets. But nearly all the Ngati-whatua were wiped out. Hongi pursued the survivors to Waikato at the end of 1825, cornered them and defeated most of those that remained. Few survived. NgaPuhi almost wiped out the existence of an an entire tribe! The destruction they caused is illustrated in an observation by Samuel Marsden who when visiting Kaipara, found several thriving villages. Hongi had been hoping for a revenge killing for at least 20 years. He attacked in 1825 and the whole area was depopulated, and if there were any survivors, they had completely abandoned the area. Marsden saw hardly any Maori on his second visit. After this attack, Hongi returned home and stayed there. Some 5000 enemies were killed and countless slaves captured to be killed at leisure from that one event.

So much slaughter on such an overwhelming scale was unknown to the Maori and many believed a branch of the Pohutukawa tree at Reinga was weighed down heavily with the number of dead departing from Aotearoa to Hawaiki.

Following Hongi in the wholesale slaughter with the musket were Te Rauparaha, Te Wherowhero, Pomare, Te Waharoa and many others. In 1838 Rev James Buller visited maori at Taupo. Asking where the majority were they replied "They have been killed and eaten, enslaved or driven away".

As alluded to above, for all his murderous intent against his own kind (Maori), Hongi was also a staunch protector of the missionaries (European). He was good looking, strong and quite clever. Hongi had, after all, been before King George in London receiving many gifts, including chain armour, much of which he traded for muskets at Sydney on the way home. During his last campaign he was hit with a bullet in the chest when he was without his armour. He lived for fourteen months before finally dying. It seems ironic that the one who started the 'musket wars' and took many many lives by musket fire, eventually died from a bullet from a musket. Live by the sword...die by the sword, as the old saying goes. This is true of Hongi.

After his death the musketwars continued and spread south, where other tribes has the chance to 'avenge' old insults. Along with disease, war had decimated Maori and of a suggested 210,000 Maori around 1770, by 1840 there were only around 125,000 left. Thirty to forty thousand dead from war between Maori is the likely figure according to those that witnessed the mass of bones everywhere in the years following. European arrival had contributed to all of the deaths, either directly or indirectly - but the wars between Maori tribes against another tribe, for no other reason than revenge over previous insults, was a wholly Maori decision and was an accepted part of the culture back in those times.

Musket Wars - Maori vs Maori - An estimated 45,000 Maori dead by the hands of Maori (could be as high as 60,000).

Maori Land Wars - British vs Maori - An estimated 2100 Maori dead by the hands of the British troops (of whom 560 died).

While the land wars are the focus of most Maori grievances, and was more about the land and recompense for the loss of it than actual lives lost, we leave that to the politicians to work out according to the agreed law (other than saying they cannot use lives lost as a grievance without being heavily criticized over their own acts of genocide). We simply want to compare deaths between two wars, not debate the legality or otherwise of lands taken. The war between Maori should be remembered as being started simply for the purpose of revenge killing those they hated and was initially - one sided (for those that had muskets). They were called the 'musket wars', but understand that the muskets were just the means to fulfill the deep seated grudges many tribes held against another.

The Musket Wars then, were simply the outworking of old grievances with the acquisition of some new and very deadly weapons.

The modern recording of these wars seems to be on the weapons rather than the cause, and the result is therefore incorrectly described. One sided wars are rarely 'wars' unless the result of the war is achieved and the killing stops. But if killing is the purpose, with no land or prize involved, then it is something other than 'war', isn't it? Whilst all who read this have to acknowledge that Polynesian thinking was very different to northern hemisphere thought, the two primary aspects of ethics in war are jus ad bellum (conditions for war), and jus in bello (conduct in war).

Many native 'wars' (when weapons were in balance), were no more than minor skirmishes where a few died on each side. In comparison, the 'musket wars' were simply war for no other purpose than pure revenge. They were solely for the purpose of killing. There was no seeking of land, there was no war for the purpose of defensive to a perceived threat. It was not war at all. It was in fact an act of genocide with a stronger weapon than the perceived 'enemy' of the same racial origin.

We don't refer to the wars between Tutsi and Hutu in the 1990's as the 'Machete Wars', we refer to it as the Rwandan Genocide. We call it what it was. Genocide! Fighting was not equal, it was overwhelming. The Hutu didn't enslave the Tutsi, and whilst they didn't cook or eat them, they willingly killed or maimed them. It was an horrific time and was in the world news for many months. For those that say Rwanda was an extreme case of brutality and not comparable to the 'musket wars', we refer you again to the 7th paragraph above where observers saw more bones in the ovens than on the battlefield.

The Maori wars were against two sides that had muskets. The Musket wars were against one side that had muskets and those that didn't. It was overwhelming. When the other side gained muskets you stopped fighting because you couldn't win any longer. That reveals a certain cowardice in our observation.

Maori don't always seem concerned with the fact the 'musket wars' inflicted some 20x more Maori deaths than the British achieved, and that is their business as far as grievances go. But from a historical perspective, let's call it for what it was and make history plain, simple, honest and transparent. Without assigning blame on any tribe, let's just refer the event for what it was, even if the tribal culture deemed it acceptable.

It wasn't a war - it was Genocide.

If there are any adjustment to figures of deaths and action that you deem incorrect and can be altered to be accurate (source required), please let us know.