Puketakauere Historic Reserve

In February 1860 a decision was made to send troops to a disputed block of land in Waitara. A decision which initiated the first Taranaki War. Te Atiawa and their allies established fortified positions here close to the disputed land. Major Thomas Nelson attacked them with 350 men on June 27 1860. The British forces were forced to retreat losing 20 killed and 34 wounded. About 6 Maori were lost. From the sign at the roadside walk 2-300 meters to the historic reserve.

**Te Atiawa tweaks Britannia
By Gavin McLean
**

*The First Taranaki War began in March 1860, sparked by rivalry within Te Atiawa and Governor Thomas Gore Browne’s unwise purchase of ‘the Waitara Block’ from chief Teira over the wishes of the more senior Wiremu Kingi Te Rangitake. It escalated rapidly after Maori disrupted surveying and the British provocatively built ‘Camp Waitara’ atop an ancient pa in the centre of the disputed block. That month, government forces captured Te Kohia pa, abandoned after a two-day siege, and won the ‘Battle of Waireka’, a much-exaggerated skirmish at Omata. On 27 June, however, the battle was real and bloody. British forces learned that Maori — Te Atiawa supported by Ngati Maniopoto — were fortifying two old pa (Puketakauere and Onukukaitara) brazenly within sight of Camp Waitara. The new pa took account of British artillery and tactics. Onukukaitara had the traditional (now vulnerable) wooden palisades but their real defences were the encircling rifle pits and underground shelters, hidden obstacles to British post-bombardment assaults. On the wet winter morning of 27 June Major Nelson, ordered to ‘teach the troublesome Natives a lesson they will not easily forget’, started bombarding the pa, concentrating on the more conspicuous decoy, Onukukaitara. Then they attacked. Welldirected musket and shotgun fire from the rifle pits and trenches was cutting down the men of the 40th Grenadiers and the Light Company even before Te Atiawa reinforcements closed in. The British lost 32 and as many were wounded; fewer than half a dozen Maori died. The defenders abandoned the pa in August 1860. Troops moved in, destroyed the defences and confused things by building a small ‘Puketakauere Stockade’ on Onukukaitara, camping on Puketakauere while they built their stockade (burned down and abandoned in the Second Taranaki War). Puketakauere, as the wider site is known, has been an historic reserve since the 1980s.*©.

Further reading: James Belich, The New Zealand Wars and the Victorian Interpretation of Racial Conflict, Auckland University Press, Auckland, 1986; Nigel Prickett, Historic Taranaki, GP Books, Wellington, 1990.