The siege of Waerenga-a-Hika

Few people of the Tūranganui-a-Kiwa tribes of Poverty Bay were drawn into the wars of the early 1860s, but Te Ara notes that their attitude changed when the government began to confiscate Māori land elsewhere. In 1865 emissaries of Pai Mārire, the faith founded by the Taranaki prophet Te Ua Haumēne, made many converts in Poverty Bay, especially among Rongowhakaata and Te Aitanga-a-Māhaki. Further north, fighting broke out within Ngāti Porou between those who had taken up the faith and those who opposed it. With government arms and troops, the anti-Pai Mārire side under leaders such as Mōkena Kōhere and Rāpata Wahawaha won in the Waiapu district, and fighters from other tribes escaped to Waerenga-a-Hika in Poverty Bay. Some settlers in Tūranga (Gisborne) were afraid, as one of the Pai Mārire emissaries had been involved in the killing of the missionary Carl Völkner at Ōpōtiki, but the Waitangi Tribunal found that the arrival of Pai Mārire there did not itself bring violence or rebellion against the Crown, and that the area stayed quiet for six months.

Donald McLean, the elected superintendent of Hawke's Bay province, had been made the general government's agent there in 1863, an appointment that involved him in the East Coast war. He arrived at Tūranga on 9 November 1865 with more Ngāti Porou and colonial troops and immediately issued terms: Tūranga Māori were to surrender all their arms, take an oath of allegiance and give up all Pai Mārire from outside Tūranga. A letter in the name of the Rongowhakaata leader Raharuhi Rukupō, signed by him and 15 other chiefs, accepted the terms but asked McLean to visit them to make final arrangements. McLean refused to meet them, and on 16 November left the field commander to begin the attack. NZHistory describes a besieging force of about 300 Māori, mostly Ngāti Porou, and up to 200 Europeans; the Tribunal says around 800 people, including 300 women and older children, were in the pā (fortified village). Two days into the siege, Lieutenant James Wilson and 30 Military Settlers digging a sap (covered trench) towards the pā were attacked, and six colonists were killed as they charged back to the main force.

About 400 defenders surrendered on 22 November; others escaped out the back of the pā. Sources differ on the length and cost of the siege. NZHistory dates it from 16 November and says it lasted six days; the Tribunal dates it from 17 November; Te Ara's East Coast entry calls it a five-day siege, and the DNZB biography of Mōkena Kōhere a seven-day one. The Tribunal counts 71 defenders killed, while Te Ara's New Zealand Wars entry says over 100 Pai Mārire adherents died. NZHistory gives the attackers' losses as 11 killed and 20 wounded. Among those fighting on the government side was Te Kooti Arikirangi Te Tūruki of Rongowhakaata, whose elder brother was inside the pā. He was arrested during the fighting on suspicion of spying, released for lack of proof, arrested again in March 1866 and later exiled with the prisoners. The Crown sent 113 men it called the 'worst offenders' to the Chatham Islands (Wharekauri or Rēkohu); with later prisoners and some wives and children, about 300 people were held there. None was charged or tried.

The Waitangi Tribunal describes Waerenga-a-Hika as a turning point for the region: in a single week, the Crown gained the power to settle Tūranga on its own terms. With the leading 'offenders' in exile, the Crown sought a cession of Tūranga land and finally secured it in 1868. By the early 1870s the town of Gisborne had been laid out and Tūranga had ceased to be an autonomous Māori district. In its 2004 report on the Tūranganui-a-Kiwa claims, the Tribunal found that there had been no rebellion in Tūranga, that the pā was a defensive position held against imminent Crown aggression, and that the attack was unlawful and in breach of the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi. It estimated that from Waerenga-a-Hika to the fall of Ngātapa in January 1869 about 240 adult men, 43 per cent of Tūranga's adult male population, were killed in conflict with the Crown. The prisoners' escape from the Chathams in 1868 is a separate event (see Te Kooti escapes from Rēkohu). A memorial in Makaraka Cemetery, near Gisborne, records the names of six Hawke's Bay Military Settlers who died on 18 November 1865 during the siege.