Aftermath - Musket Wars

End of the wars

Ngapuhi war expedition, 1820s

The wars peaked in the 1830s by which time most tribes were heavily armed. Quick, decisive battles no longer seemed possible and rivals looked for ways to make peace while at the same time saving face. The Christian missionaries ‘long ignored by warring chiefs, provided a circuit-breaker’. Hongi Hika on his deathbed had apparently told his people to allow the missionaries to stay.

The truth of the matter was that Maori were war-weary. Their economy could no longer sustain these campaigns and some of the reasons for fighting had passed. The fighting did not end because of the intercession of missionaries.

Shifting boundaries

1820s iwi movements map

Some of these campaigns drove tribes out of their traditional areas and into exile with relatives. Some regions were depopulated, confusing issues of ownership. Migrating iwi faced resistance from tangata whenua (local peoples), and in this way the conflict spread further afield and introduced whole new reasons for fighting.

In recent claims to the Waitangi Tribunal some iwi have argued that land was unfairly acquired by one iwi from another by the use of muskets. There have been calls for tribal boundaries to be set as they were prior to European contact.

Acquiring land by conquest was well established in Maori tikanga. Ballara saw these wars as a continuum of political and social interaction from the eighteenth century. Hongi's desire to gain utu for a previous action would tend to support this conclusion.

Place in New Zealand history

In The Penguin Book of New Zealanders at War Gavin McLean points out that despite the massive carnage and dislocation associated with these wars they remain ‘shadowy events for many New Zealanders’. This may reflect attitudes as to when New Zealand history 'starts'. These conflicts were almost exclusively the concern of Maori with European participation largely confined to the supply of weapons. As such they were of no great consequence to early writers seeking to write the grand narrative of European colonisation.

The impact on internal Maori politics aside the Musket Wars and in particular the unease of British authorities regarding trader participation in them contributed to the colonisation of New Zealand in 1840.