Pukerangiora Historic Reserve

Scene of significant archaeological remains associated with notable Taranaki events in the 19th century. Located on the south bank of the Waitara River, north Taranaki, and may be reached by car. A notable feature surviving from the many battles here is the sap trench dug by the British under General Pratt.

A palimpsest etched in blood
By Gavin McLean

Although we think of World War I as our most costly in terms of human life, the Germans and the Turks spilled less New Zealand blood than the ‘New Zealanders’, as the British called the Maori, did fighting each other in the Musket Wars of the early 1800s. James Belich accuses us of indulging in ‘historical amnesia’ over the New Zealand Wars but we lobotomised ourselves to erase this earlier conflict which covered more territory, caused more cultural disruption and claimed ten to twenty times more lives than the later wars. Yet ignore it we do. The fiercest fighting took place between 1818 and 1836. Body counts are hazy. The Oxford Companion to New Zealand Military History says that ‘between 20,000 and 30,000 may have died either in battle or of disease (with one estimate putting the mortality as high as 80,000)’, about 20 per cent of Maori, even at the lower end of the range. The name Pukerangiora now covers several sites and a lot of military history. It was twice besieged during the Musket Wars. In 1821 a taua led by Tukorehu was besieged here for seven months by Te Atiawa, who surrounded it with earthworks and palisading, adding insult to injury by dubbing the siege ‘Raihe Poaka’ (the penned-up pigs). Blood flowed here again a decade later. Te Atiawa, weakened by recent emigration to join Te Rauparaha in the Cook Strait area, holed up at Pukerangiora after a large Waikato taua descended on North Taranaki. The pa fell after a three-month siege and as many as 1200 may have died. Ironically, Pukerangiora is probably better known for its role in the First (1860–61) and Second (1863–66) Taranaki Wars. The first was the major fight. After Puketakauere, government forces generally avoided pa, which they knew were there to lure them into attacking, but in the closing stages of the campaign they decided to destroy Te Atiawa strongholds south of the Waitara. In ‘Pratt’s Sap’, forces under Major-General T S Pratt tunnelled laboriously up the slopes towards a new pa, Te Arei (‘the barrier’), erected in front of freshly strengthened Pukerangiora. Te Atiawa chief Hapurona commanded both. Redoubt by redoubt, Pratt built eight forts and, 60 metres a day, dug two stretches of sap (tunnel). Maori counter-attacked, most famously against number three redoubt on the night of 23 January, suffering heavy casualties in the crossfire between the redoubts. Working under cover of large sap rollers and supported by artillery fire, the British advanced. By March 1861 number eight redoubt was just 75 metres from Te Arei pa, which was taking a heavy pounding. Hapurona wisely sought a truce. In a ‘settlement’ disliked by just about everyone, the Waikato and the southern Taranaki tribes withdrew. An uneasy peace descended on Taranaki. The Second Taranaki War was a sideshow to the Waikato campaign but Te Arei was briefly again the site of conflict. On 11 October 1864, under cover of thick fog, Colonel HJ Warre took it. Shots were fired but the defenders quickly withdrew. Up went a redoubt in 1864 (abandoned about three years later) and then a relocated blockhouse (on the other side of the road) in 1869, abandoned after about a year. Since then sheep have grazed the site. Cultivation destroyed about a third of Pukerangiora but since 1910 the rest has been a Crown reserve, now managed by the Department of Conservation (DOC).

Further reading: RD Crosby, The Musket Wars, Reed Books, Auckland, 1999; Chris Pugsley, ‘Walking the New Zealand Wars: Pratt’s Sap at Te Arei’, New Zealand Defence Quarterly 12, 1996 pp. 30–34. ? 2002 Original text – Gavin McLean. Further reading: RD Crosby, The Musket Wars, Reed Books, Auckland, 1999; Chris Pugsley, ‘Walking the New Zealand Wars: Pratt’s Sap at Te Arei’, New Zealand Defence Quarterly 12, 1996 pp. 30–34.