Waikato
Heartland of the Kīngitanga, invaded by Crown forces in 1863 and stripped of more than a million acres by confiscation. The long road back to the 1995 settlement runs through Ngāruawāhia.
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13 events in Waikato between 1821 and 1995
Te Rauparaha’s migration to Kapiti
Ngāti Toa left Kāwhia and migrated south, seizing Kapiti Island as a base that controlled Cook Strait and the trade passing through it.
Kapiti IslandPōtatau Te Wherowhero becomes the first Māori King
Te Kīngitanga
Iwi across the central North Island raised a king to hold land, halt sales and deal with the Crown as an equal. The Kīngitanga continues today.
NgāruawāhiaInvasion of the Waikato
Te riri ki Waikato
British and colonial troops crossed the Mangatāwhiri to break the Kīngitanga — the key conflict of the New Zealand Wars, with 12,000 imperial and 4,000 colonial troops eventually available.
MangatāwhiriBattle of Rangiriri
Kīngitanga defenders held the central redoubt against repeated assaults; next morning a white flag raised to ask for terms was treated as surrender.
RangiririBattle of Ōrākau
About 300 defenders held an unfinished pā against more than 1,400 troops for three days, then broke out through the British lines in daylight.
ŌrākauThe ambush at Ōpepe
A detachment of Bay of Plenty Cavalry was surprised in camp at Ōpepe, near Taupō, by Te Kooti’s advance guard. Nine of the fourteen troopers were killed and their arms and horses taken.
ŌpepeThe battle of Te Pōrere
NZHistory calls it the last major battle of the New Zealand Wars, fought at a British-style redoubt below Tongariro. Te Kooti lost thirty-seven men and escaped wounded.
Te PōrereMount Tarawera erupts
The mountain split along 17 kilometres, buried the villages of Te Wairoa, Te Ariki and Moura, and destroyed the Pink and White Terraces.
Mount TaraweraThe North Island Main Trunk line is completed
Prime Minister Joseph Ward drove the last spike at Manganuioteao, formally opening the railway between Auckland and Wellington.
ManganuioteaoThe Waihi strike
Six months of confrontation at the goldmine ended when police and strikebreakers stormed the miners’ hall and Frederick Evans was fatally injured.
WaihiThe Rātana movement rises
Te Hāhi Rātana
Tahupōtiki Wiremu Rātana built a church and then a political movement that campaigned for the Treaty of Waitangi to be honoured.
Rātana PāEva Rickard and the Raglan golf course
Land taken from Tainui Āwhiro for a wartime airfield had become a golf course. Eva Rickard led an occupation of the fairway and was arrested on it.
RaglanThe Waikato-Tainui raupatu settlement
The Crown apologised for the invasion of the Waikato and the confiscations that followed, and returned $170 million in land and cash.
Tūrangawaewae Marae, NgāruawāhiaMeanwhile, nationally
23 events that reached Waikato along with most of the country. They still shade the map and sit on the timeline above, but they are not Waikato’s own history.
The Musket Wars
Musket-armed war parties reshaped the map of Māori New Zealand. Perhaps 20,000 died and whole districts changed hands before the fighting burned out around 1840.
New Zealand Settlements Act — raupatu
Te raupatu whenua
The Crown confiscated land from iwi it deemed to be in rebellion (Te Ara estimates 1–1.3 million hectares), including land of neutral tribes and of some that had fought on its side.
The Native Land Court is established
The court converted customary communal title into individual titles that could be sold, and became the main means by which most remaining Māori land passed out of Māori ownership.
Māori Representation Act
Four Māori seats were created as a temporary measure, giving Māori men the vote twelve years before all Pākehā men got it.
Vogel’s public works and immigration scheme
Julius Vogel borrowed heavily in London — £10 million by 1876 — to build railways, roads and telegraph lines, and to bring in about 100,000 assisted migrants.
First refrigerated cargo sails for London
The Dunedin left Port Chalmers with 4,000–5,000 frozen carcasses (sources differ) and reached London 98 days later with the cargo sound. Te Ara notes the voyage is seen as a watershed in New Zealand’s economic development.
Port ChalmersTohunga Suppression Act
An Act making it an offence to practise as a tohunga, aimed at healers who claimed supernatural powers and at prophets such as Rua Kēnana.
New Zealand enters the First World War
About 100,000 served overseas from a population of just over a million. Around 18,000 died and there were some 41,000 instances of wounding or illness; no other British dominion lost a higher share of its military-age men.
The influenza pandemic
About 9,000 people died in two months — roughly half as many as died in four years of war. Māori died at more than eight times the Pākehā rate.
New Zealand declares war on Germany
‘Where she goes, we go’ — 140,000 served overseas and nearly 12,000 died, from a population of 1.6 million.
The 28th (Māori) Battalion
Te Hokowhitu-a-Tū
A volunteer battalion organised by tribal area fought in Greece, Crete, North Africa and Italy. Its casualty rate was almost 50% above the average for New Zealand infantry battalions.
Māori War Effort Organisation
Over 300 tribal committees took on Māori recruiting, war work and local food production; Māori felt that for the first time they bore real responsibility for their own affairs.
The great Māori urban migration
Māori went from 26 percent urban in 1945 to nearly 80 percent by 1986 — a migration Te Ara says has been described as the most rapid movement of any population.
The 1953–54 royal tour
Elizabeth II became the first reigning monarch to visit New Zealand. Perhaps three in four New Zealanders saw her in person.
No Maoris, No Tour
A petition of around 160,000 signatures opposed sending an All Black team to South Africa with Māori players excluded. The tour went ahead anyway.
WellingtonNgā Tamatoa formed
A group of young urban Māori activists, many university-educated, began confronting the state over te reo, the Treaty and racism — loudly and publicly.
AucklandBritain joins the EEC
Britain had been New Zealand’s great market for lamb, butter and cheese since the first frozen-meat shipment in 1882. Now that market began to close.
The Māori land march
Te Rōpū Matakite o Aotearoa
Whina Cooper, aged 79, led a month-long hīkoi from Te Hāpua in the far north to Parliament under the slogan ‘not one more acre’.
Te HāpuaThe Springbok tour
Fifty-six days that split the country. Protesters occupied the pitch at Hamilton and stopped the game; by the final test, police in riot gear fought crowds outside Eden Park.
Rugby Park, HamiltonRogernomics — the economy is deregulated
A Labour government floated the dollar, removed farm subsidies and tariffs, and sold state assets in a radical programme of market liberalisation.
Waitangi Tribunal jurisdiction backdated to 1840
The Tribunal could now investigate Crown breaches all the way back to 1840, and the number of claims rose hugely.
Te reo Māori becomes an official language
Te Ture mō Te Reo Māori
Te reo Māori gained official status and the right to be spoken in court, fifteen years after the language petition and following a Waitangi Tribunal finding that it was a taonga.
New Zealand votes for MMP
By 54 to 46 percent, voters replaced first-past-the-post with mixed-member proportional representation, after decades of falling trust in politicians.