Ruapekapeka

The first major clash of arms between Maori and Pakeha occurred in the 1840s.

The War in the North had its origins in the discontent of Hone Heke, Kawiti and other Maori leaders with the reduction of economic activity associated with the move of the capital to Auckland. Flagstaff Hill, Russell, is where Hone Heke famously cut down the pole from which the British flag was flying. Ruapekapeka, the site of the last major engagement in the war, in 1846, is an evocative site in hill country south of the Bay.

The site is about 1000 metres above sea level and provides far-reaching views of Northland. The battle was between Te Ruki Kawiti and his force of 500 against Lt Col Despard and his force of 1500, along with loyalist chiefs Waka Nene, Patuone, Rapa and others and their combined forces of 450. The pa has been described as anextraordinary example of fortified earthworks which show the speed with which Maori warriors adapted their warfare methods.

Lines of fortifications are still visible and an old cannon stands on the site of the pa. Ruapekapeka pa was a new kind of fortification, one designed to counter bombardment. It had underground bunkers, communication tunnels and rifle pits.

Its design is attributed to a non-European 'Pakeha-Maori', Tapara an Indian, Kawiti was the principal chief of the group occupying the pa. Great advice for visiting the Pa site is on the DoC site, including an informative video.

Last battle of the Northern War
By Gavin McLean

Racial tensions in 19th century New Zealand increased after Governor William Hobson’s transfer of the capital to Auckland in 1841 created an economic recession in the Bay of Islands. Nga Puhi resentment manifested itself most dramatically in July 1844 when Ngati Rahiri warrior Hone Heke Pokai felled the highly symbolic Kororareka flagstaff. Three more times, in January and March 1845, Heke sent the Union Jack tumbling down, precipitating the First, or Northern, New Zealand War.
Soon more than flagstaffs were falling. After Heke and his ally Kawiti sacked Kororareka early in March 1845 the British reinforced their units and deployed allies such as Tamati Waka Nene. The Royal Navy controlled the seas, but it took longer to get to beat Heke and Kawiti on the ground. Each side had to learn rapidly and each made mistakes in the battles of Puketutu (May 1845) and Ohaeawai (July), the former a marginal British victory, the latter a bloody defeat. The final battle was at Ruapekapeka, the Bat’s Nest. Like Ohaeawai, Ruapekapeka was a new type of pa, designed to counter bombardment. Recent history has made much of these artillery- proof pa, in which underground bunkers, communications tunnels and rifle pits replaced palisades and fighting towers as the key defensive measures, crediting northern Maori with inventing trench warfare.
Perhaps. Maori had certainly adapted pa to suit the musket. But buried like a musket ball in a footnote in Hugh Carleton’s 1877 book, The Life of Henry Williams, Archdeacon of Waimate, is a reference to the recent death of ‘Tapara, a native of the East Indies’, a non-European ‘Pakeha Maori’. ‘It was he who drew the lines of the fortified pas, the scientific tracing of which caused so much surprise,’ Carleton commented. If Tapara had acquired ‘the rudiments of Hon. East India Co. fortification techniques,’ Fergus Clunie speculates, it might have given him ‘an irresistible opportunity [decades later but no less the sweeter for it] to give the sahibs a goodly kick in the balls for old times’ sake’.
The ball-breaking took place at Ruapekapeka, about 10-km inland from naval gunfire, atop a broad ridge in densely forested land. Designed simply to lure government forces, it had no strategic value and simply formed the nexus of a killing field. Behind a heavy wooden palisade of seven-metre puriri trunks embedded almost three metres in the ground was a warren of spaced rifle pits and bomb shelters, deep pits roofed over with timber and earth.
On 31 December 1845, while the new Governor George Grey watched, Colonel Henry Despard’s guns began battering the site, huge 32- pounders rocking the earth, a lighter 18-pounder and several 12-pounder howitzers and Congreve rockets adding to Kawiti’s misery. They fired away for almost two weeks. On 10 January a particularly heavy bombardment breached part of the defences, and most of the defenders melted away, leaving it to the British and allied Maori forces to storm in. They found few defenders. Old yarn spinners had the defenders out in the bush, observing the Sabbath, but more likely this was a ruse to lure the British to where they were more vulnerable.
Shortly afterwards Kawiti sued for peace. Grey, the pragramatist, revoked martial law and pardoned everyone, ending the Northern War. Taking a part-deserted pa was not the Boy’s Own triumph contemporaries tried to make it, but despite revisionist attempts to portray the Northern War as a Maori victory, it was no such thing. As late as the 1890s Governor Ranfurly would worry briefly about pro-Boer sentiments being raised among Northern Maori by German and Dutch missionaries, but Bay Maori never again took up arms against the Crown.
The Department of Conservation (DOC) manages Ruapekapeka, which is remarkably well preserved, enabling visitors to inspect both the pa and the British forward position about 300 metres to the north. Local sensitivities have made interpreting the site a minor battle in itself.

© 2002 Original text – Gavin McLean. Further reading: James Belich, The New Zealand Wars and the Victorian Interpretation of Racial Conflict, Auckland University Press, Auckland, 1986.

For a 2017 perspective with Maori input, see the Radio New Zealand documentary by Mihingarangi Forbes Stories of Ruapekapeka

Image Credit: Koenraad Kuiper