Pages tagged with: riwha titokowaru

In the 1980s James Belich argued that Tītokowaru’s war had become a ‘dark secret’ of New Zealand history, ‘forgotten by the Pākehā as a child forgets a nightmare’. For Belich, Tītokowaru was ‘arguably the best general New Zealand has ever produced’.

Tītokowaru’s commitment to missionary Christianity was showing signs of strain by the 1850s as a Māori nationalist movement emerged.

Tītokowaru proclaimed 1867 as ‘the year of the daughters … the year of the lamb’. His efforts for ‘reconciliation and peace’ were quite remarkable, given the events of the previous two years.

In March 1868 Tītokowaru authorised a muru (punitive plunder) against Pākehā involved in the confiscation of land at Ketemarae (Normanby).

From 1864, a new round of fighting in the New Zealand Wars was sparked by Maori religious movements.

In the pre-dawn darkness on Sunday 12 July 1868, 60 of Tītokowaru’s warriors led by Haowhenua bypassed the large colonial force at Waihī Redoubt and struck at nearby Turuturumōkai, which was garrisoned by 22 men

News of Te Kooti’s assault on Matawhero in Poverty Bay a few days after the defeat at Moturoa raised serious questions about the Armed Constabulary’s ability to protect settlers in outlying districts.

Taurangaika measured 140 m across at its widest point and was without doubt Tītokowaru’s ‘most formidable fortress’.

Bishop William Williams, c. 1875.

Photograph of the colonial officer Thomas McDonnell

Tutange Waionui was one of Riwha Tītokowaru's best fighting men

Newspaper report confirming Tītokowaru's attendance at a Wesleyan missions meeting at Onehunga in 1858.

A map of the battlefield of Moturoa (1868) drawn by James Cowan in 1921.

Report from the Wanganui Herald, 18 June 1867 of a meeting between Tītokowaru and local settlers at Waihī in south Taranaki.

Encampment of Chute's forces near Putahi pa, on the Whenuakura River, by Gustavus von Tempsky.

Detail from map created by Howard Hill to show Colonel George Whitmore's campaigns in Taranaki in 1868-9

In late 1869 Tītokowaru had his third conversion to peace, after which his relationship with Te Whiti and Tohu Kākahi of Parihaka strengthened.

The Waihi cairn records the names of 27 colonial servicemen who died during Titokowaru’s War of 1868-9 and were thought to be buried in the cemetery at the time the memorial was erected.

Memorial built to mark the location of the Turuturumokai redoubt near Hawera