Work Trip With Some local History Included

 I had to attend our annual "Strategic Planning" session for work this week and drove down from Pukekohe to Taupo in the central N Island on Weds morning - the meeting commenced around 1230 on Weds and we finished up around 1130 on Friday. 

 

The trip south via Rotorua because a major part of State Highway 1 between Tirau and Taupo is closed for maintenance work.

The venue - quite acceptable on the shore of Lake Taupo

The most interesting part of any work conference!

Meal the first night

Meal the second night

A couple of views of Lake Taupo prior to the return trip

I took a different route home, as I planned to visit the small town of Kihikihi just south of Te Awamutu

The Waipapa Scenic Reserve midway on my journey

It includes a hydro electric dam

On the outskirts of Kihikihi, I reached my first planned stopping point.

War in Waikato

The Battle of Ōrākau

'Rewi's last stand'

Following the battle at Hairini on 22 February 1864, Rewi Maniapoto moved a few kilometres south to the vicinity of the Pūniu River. In March Tūhoe and Ngāti Raukawa fighters arrived from the east to bolster the Ngāti Maniapoto force. Having missed the earlier action, they were determined to fight.

Tūhoe and Ngāti Raukawa pleaded with Rewi to give them Ōrākau, east of Kihikihi near the Pūniu, ‘as a place to use our guns and ammunition. They are too heavy to carry all this way for nothing.’ Rewi did not want to fight, especially at this location. ‘Only by not fighting may I retain my lands … do not fight at Orakau’. He warned that ‘if you Tuhoe persist in your desire for battle, I alone will be the survivor’. Rewi’s pleas fell on deaf ears. Many of his supporters joined Tūhoe and Ngāti Raukawa in urging him to make a stand. After playing for time by suggesting consultation with Wiremu Tāmihana at Maungatautari, Rewi relented. He would fight at Ōrākau.

‘Rewi’s last stand’ at Ōrākau between 31 March and 2 April 1864 was immortalised in Rudall Hayward’s 1925 silent film (remade as a ‘talkie’ in 1940) of that name. The movie was clearly influenced by cinematic representations of the American West.

A stand in a peach grove

Rewi’s men began building a redoubt-shaped pa at Ōrākau in late March 1864. The British stationed at Kihikihi soon observed this development. Brigadier-General G.J. Carey sent an armed force under Majors von Tempsky and Blyth to investigate. Within two days more than 1400 troops had arrived at Ōrākau, where the fortification was still incomplete. With the arrival of some Waikato reinforcements the number of defenders was about 300 – up to a third of them women.

Though it is associated with Rewi in popular memory, the principal architect of Ōrākau’s defences was Ngāti Raukawa chief Te Paerata. While it was easily fortified, the site in a peach grove lacked both an adequate water supply and an obvious escape route. Rewi’s fear that it could easily be surrounded was also to be confirmed.

As the British advance began, Rewi told his men to hold their fire until the troops reached the fence around the peach grove. The soldiers marched four abreast until they were ordered to charge. By the time Rewi gave the order to fire they were less than 50 m from the pā. A volley from the parapet stemmed the advance. The troops fell back, reformed, and renewed their attack. When they were hit by another volley, their officers decided to surround rather than assault the position.

Steady fire prevented Māori reinforcements from reaching Ōrākau. Unable to get to the pā, they sat ‘on the hill and wept their farewell, for they thought that … none (would) escape’. Lieutenant-General Cameron arrived on 2 April with reinforcements that increased the British strength to more than 1400. By now almost out of food, water and ammunition, the occupants of the pā were becoming desperate.

‘Friend, I shall fight against you, forever, forever!’

The defenders were offered a last chance to surrender. This demand was met with a famous reply, one version of which is:

E hoa, ka whawhai tonu mātou, Āke! Āke! Āke!

Friend, we will fight on forever, forever and forever!

Some attribute these words to Rewi. Others believe they were uttered by Hauraki Tonganui, a Taupō chief. Whoever spoke, the intent of the defenders was clear. This helped foster the idea that Ōrākau was a historic ‘last stand’ for Māori.

To a suggestion that the women be allowed to leave the pa, Te Paerata’s daughter Ahumai replied: 

‘Ki te mate ngā tāne, me mate anō ngā wāhine me ngā tamariki’ – ‘If the men die, the women and children must die also.’ 

Though two more assaults were beaten back, it was obvious that the defenders could not hold out for much longer.

Ōrakāu memorial (I took this picture of it)

At 3.30 p.m. nearly all the Māori left the pā in a disciplined body. This move in broad daylight caught the British by surprise and the Māori broke through the surrounding cordon. The fugitives then split into small groups that were pursued by cavalry and Forest Rangers across 3 km of open country to the Pūniu River. It was during this retreat that most of the Māori casualties occurred. Hitiri te Paerata described the ‘storm of bullets’ that killed his father, brothers and uncle and wounded his sister, Ahumai.

Chris Pugsley estimates that at least 160 of the pā’s occupants were killed, with women bayoneted as they lay wounded. Interpreter William Mair expressed his ‘disgust at the generally obscene and profane behaviour of the troops’. Attempts to justify these actions by claiming the women had dressed like men convinced few. British casualties over the three days of fighting were 17 dead and 50 wounded.

A new aukati

James Belich argues that the British victory at Ōrākau was also their ‘cruellest disappointment of the entire war’. The King Movement still existed as an independent entity, albeit in Ngāti Maniapoto land south of the Puniu River, the new aukati.

Pugsley, on the other hand, sees Ōrākau as the ‘decisive victory that Cameron had sought’. The war north of the Pūniu was now over, but a fourth line of defence was prepared beyond the aukati. Tāmihana and Rewi Maniapoto warned British envoys that ‘if the Pākehā attempted to carry on the war in any district beyond the boundary they would fight again’.

The British did not attack. Instead, they turned their attention eastwards to Tauranga and Bay of Plenty, a region through which reinforcements and supplies had flowed to the Kīngitanga.

These are views I took of the countryside as seen from the roadside obelisk memorial

I then moved on a few kilometers to the other side of Kihikihi, to Rangiowhia, which is the site of a controversial event during the 1860's invasion of the Waikato:

Rangiaowhia (or Rangiawhia, or Rangiaohia) was, for over 20 years, a thriving village on a ridge between two streams in the Waikato region, about 4 km (2.5 mi) east of Te Awamutu. From 1841 it was the site of a very productive Māori mission station until the Invasion of the Waikato in 1864. The station served Ngāti Hinetu and Ngāti Apakura. Only a church remains from those days, the second oldest Waikato building.

History

In 1851 Rangiaowhia was described as, "About a thousand acres— soon greatly to be added to . . . under cultivation. . . A very numerous population of natives engaged in industry and agriculture. . . in a few years will be the granary of Auckland. . . The whole scene reminds one of English farms. Yellow cornfields bound the horizon; orchards cluster round the houses. The mill, the flail, the plough, the spade, are seldom idle. . . the village bell calls to church or school. cultivating and rendering fruitful the wild wastes of their district, — accumulating guarantees for the continuance of peace, — in all ways setting an example to their countrymen . . . I sincerely trust that many Rangiaowhias,— such remarkable instances of the progress of the Maori race,— may soon be found throughout New Zealand."

In 1852 the village was described as two miles long and with a population of about 700.

An 1857 letter suggests that the area was divided between 14 hapū, who had converted their 'waste' lands to agriculture.

Immediately prior to invasion in 1864, magistrate, John Eldon Gorst, wrote, "The land around Rangiaowhia and Te Awamutu, extending to and including part of Kihikihi, belongs to natives of the great Waikato tribe. . . Besides the great villages of Rangiaowhia, Kihikihi, and Kuakotari, numerous little hamlets are dotted about the country, consisting of three or four native houses surrounded by their patches of cultivated land. Even those parts of the country which appear to be only a barren waste of heavy fern land would be found, on enquiry, to have been once under cultivation, and to be now used as a pasturage for horses, cattle, or pigs . . . Rangiaowhia, for instance, is surrounded by a fence many miles in circuit; roads are made in various directions; bridges have been thrown over impassible swamps; and a good many mill-dams have been constructed. A considerable part of the land was covered, a generation ago, with ancient forest, which the industry of the Waikatos has cleared."

Crops 

Shortly after Rev Morgan took over Otawhao (Te Awamutu) mission station in 1841, wheat was grown there and, next year, also at Rangiaowhia. Soon Rangiaowhia wheat fields covered some 450 acres (180 ha). Other crops were barley, oats, potatoes, peach, apple, pear, plum, quince, gooseberry and almond. Cows were also milked and pigs sold in Auckland. A blacksmith maintained the ploughs and other implements.

In March 1846 a £200 contract (excluding carriage of timber and building the dam and leat) with Stewart McMullen to erect a mill was started. The mill started grinding in 1847. Its 2 ft 10 in (0.86 m) scoria millstone came from Mt Eden. By 1848 Rangiaowhia flour was sold in Auckland for about £70 and, in later years, reached about £330. The 1846 mill was at Pekapekarau (or Perepekerau on another 1865 map), in the valley to the west, between Hairini and Rangiaowhia. A replacement mill was built between 1851 and 1855 for £400 on Te Rua-o-Tawhiwhi stream, to the east of Rangiaowhia. Both streams feed the Mangapiko Stream, one of the Waipā's tributaries. There were also mills at most of the surrounding settlements.

Governor Grey visited the mill in 1849 and was presented with 2 bags of flour for Queen Victoria. He also spent half a day at Rangiaowhia in 1857, In the gold rushes of 1849–52, Rangiaowhia flour was often shipped to San Francisco and Melbourne.

Invasion

Pōtatau was installed as King at Rangiaowhia in 1858, after which it became a target for government control. To guard against this the roads to Rangiaowhia were defended by a new chain of defensive pā at Paterangi, and at Rangiatea (near Te Rahu, north of Te Awamutu). However, General Cameron, in his Invasion of the Waikato, avoided them by taking 1,230 troops overnight from Te Rore via Waiari, leaving a large masking force in front of Paterangi and arriving in Te Awamutu at dawn.

Bishop George Selwyn, the head of the Anglican Church in New Zealand, who had been "controversially accompanying the Crown forces as official army chaplain", was told nine days before the February attack that women, children and elderly would be taking refuge at unfortified and undefended Rangiaowhia and had been asked to "consult with Cameron and ensure that the people there would not be harmed". Kingitanga leaders understood they would be unharmed. There were about 200 Ngāti Apakura and Ngāti Hinetu people at Rangiaowhia, supplying food to the garrisons at the pā.

At dawn on 21 February 1864, armed cavalry, followed by foot troops attacked Rangiaowhia. Most terrified villagers fled, a few shot at the troops, some sheltered in the churches, at least seven were burnt to death in their houses and at least one attempted to surrender but was murdered by troops ignoring their orders. Women were raped and killed in front of children. About a dozen houses were burned down. Official British records state 12 Māori were killed, including two chiefs, and over 30 taken prisoner. Their own losses totaled five, including several officers. Some unofficial estimates suggest there were more than 100 Māori deaths. As the village was largely occupied by women, children and older men, the deaths have been regarded as murder, rather than an act of war.

Later that day, the men of Rangiaowhia abandoned Paterangi, Pikopiko, and Rangiatea pā to defend their families, digging a rifle-trench with a narrow opening to block the road from Te Awamutu on the crest of the ridge at Hairini Next morning, the 22nd, the cavalry advanced on Hairini, backed by artillery and foot soldiers. Three British and about 20 Māori died, though those numbers are also disputed. The troops then looted the village, though it has been suggested that the Hairini defence was a diversionary tactic, to allow more time to move more goods and animals south to safety. However, enough was left for looting to continue for at least a month after the invasion.

The role of Bishop Selwyn in the Rangiaowhia attack is unclear. He came with the invading forces but also helped with Māori burials. The wife and two daughters of Kereopa Te Rau were killed in the attack, and his sister was killed in defence of the Hairini line a few days later. Colonel Marmaduke Nixon, who had led the Rangiaowhia cavalry charge, was mortally wounded. His remains are buried at the Nixon memorial in Ōtāhuhu, Auckland. There were no memorials to the victims of Rangiaowhia until the 150th anniversary was commemorated in 2014 with the unveiling of a plaque.

In 2021 a documentary about the Rangiaowhia attack called NZ Wars: Stories of Tainui was released by Great Southern Television and Aotearoa Media Collective for RNZ. It is presented by Mihingarangi Forbes, and contains interviews with historian Vincent O’Malley, and iwi historians Rahui Papa, Brad Totorewa, Tom Roa, Mamae Takerei and Kawhia Muraahi.

And here is my contribution - a few pictures of the Anglican church and an information board about the attack on Rangiowhia

The above is all that remains of the Catholic church (the graveyard)

Finally, some actual wargaming content - recent 3d arrivals from "Forge of Generals" in Poland. This includes a nice model of an 85mm AA Gun with a female crew, which can perhaps fight a small solo game against German reconnaissance elements advancing on the Stalingrad airport? For support, they also have a squad of female infantry!

I will have some painted stuff to show next time - promise!