large force of Waikato and Tauranga people against the Te Arawa pa at Maketu. The pa fell to the attackers, who also destroyed Tapsell’s trading station.²⁰ It was now Te Arawa’s turn to take the offensive. Differences within Te Arawa were set aside to assemble a large war party, which took the Ngai Te Rangi pa at Te Tumu, just west of Maketu. Few of the defenders survived the assault.²¹

The fighting between Tauranga Maori and Te Arawa continued for several years. In early 1837, Te Arawa were able to erect a well-fortified pa at Maketu before Tauranga Maori even became aware of their intention. Te Waharoa made plans to capture Maketu, but he died in August 1838. Ngati Haua and their Tauranga allies made two unsuccessful attacks on Maketu in 1839, while a Te Arawa assault on Maungatapu in February 1840 was also repulsed.²² This was not the end of the fighting in the Tauranga region, however. In chapter 3, we discuss the renewal of conflict in 1842 between Tauranga Maori and both Te Arawa and the Marutuahu confederation. Nevertheless, by 1840 Maori society was becoming less inclined to resort to warfare to settle disputes. The leadership of Ngati Haua had passed from the warrior Te Waharoa to his son, the Christian convert Wiremu Tamihana. Tamihana had participated in fighting before becoming a Christian. However, from the late 1830s until his death in 1866, he strove for peace among Maori, and between Maori and Pakeha, with the notable exception of a brief period when he took up arms against imperial forces following the invasion of the Waikato in 1863. In 1845 and 1846, he successfully negotiated peace between Te Arawa and their Tauranga and Ngati Haua foes.²³

Several key points relevant to later chapters of this report emerge from our narrative of the ‘musket wars’:

► There was a strong alliance between Tauranga Maori and Ngati Haua which involved reciprocal obligations to support each other when attacked.

► There was a history of enmity between Tauranga Maori and most (though not all) of Te Arawa, as well as between Ngai Te Rangi and the Marutuahu confederation (particularly Ngati Maru).

► By 1840, as a result of the warfare with Te Arawa in the 1830s, Tauranga Maori had been driven out of the Maketu and Te Tumu areas.

► By 1840, the Tauranga Maori population was significantly reduced and weakened as a result of some two decades of warfare.²⁴ Nevertheless, with the exception of no longer occupying the Maketu area, the land rights of the Ngai Te Rangi and Ngati Ranginui hapu remained secure.

20. Document 112, pp 59–60; doc 113, pp 18–20

21. Document 113, pp 21–22

22. Ibid, pp 22–26

23. Evelyn Stokes, Wiremu Tamihana: Rangatira (Wellington: Huia Publishers, 2002), pp 123–133

24. A naval officer estimated the population inhabiting the coast of the harbour to be 1000 in 1853. This was in contrast to the much higher population figures stated by European observers in the 1820s and 1830s that are noted above: see doc a2, p 9.