Tauranga Bay of Plenty New Zealand

British and colonial forces discover at Gate Pā, during the 1864 Tauranga Campaign. that frontal attacks on a defended pā are extremely costly.

Gate Pā is the name of a Māori Pā or fortress built in 1864 only five kilometers (three point one miles) from the main British base of Camp Te Papa at Tauranga, during the Tauranga Campaign of the New Zealand Land Wars.

The name pā comes from its appearance; the palisade looks like a picket fence while a higher part in the middle resembles a gate.

Māori withstand a day-long bombardment in their bomb shelters.

The palisade destroyed, the British troops rush the pā whereupon Māori fire on them from hidden trenches, killing thirty-eight and injuring many more in the most costly battle for the Pākehā of the New Zealand Wars.

Maori losses are said to be twenty-five dead.

Many of the British casualties are thought to have been friendly fire incidents as the long shots by artillery landed on British troops on the other side.

This may have been due to the muddy conditions which effected the stability of the artillery guns.

The troops retire and Māori abandon the pā.

After the battle, the British soldiers follow the survivors to Te Ranga, where their continuous fire preventsthe rebels building a strong pā.

When reinforcement arrive from Waikato, the Ngaiterangi are again attacked and easily defeated - the Maori defenders suffering one hundred and seven dead and two soldiers winning VCs.

To contemporaries, Gate Pā is seen as the shattering defeat it in fact has been.

The perception is that seventeen hundred elite British troops had been defeated by two hundred and thirty half naked savages.

The arrogance of the settlers and the hubris of the British Empire have taken a serious blow.

Governor George Grey comes down to Tauranga and began peace negotiations.

Cameron returns to Auckland, leaving Colonel Greer in command, with orders to patrol aggressively and, if he finds Maori digging in or attempting to create a pa, to attack immediately and disrupt the work.

Colonel Greer continues the campaign by conducting patrols in strength with five hundred and ninety-four men of the 43rd Regiment and 68th Regiment.

On June 21, he comes upon a force of about five hundred Māori building a new Pā at Te Ranga, some seven kilometers from his base.

They had done little more than dig a rifle pits and trenches, with no outer works.

However Greer has sufficient respect for his enemy that he immediately calls for reinforcements.

This is the opportunity Cameron had always been looking for, to be able to meet the Māori in the open.

The Māori fight desperately but are overwhelmed by the British soldiery, with one hundred and six Maori dead, buried in their own earthworks.

The Battle of Te Ranga is the last serious engagement of the Tauranga campaign.

Insofar as the Tauranga Campaign has been a sideshow of the Waikato War, it also marks the tacit end of that conflict.

The success at Te Ranga is hailed as a great British victory, one that has wiped out the shame of the defeat at Gate Pa.

It certainly does a great deal to restore British morale, particularly for the 43rd Regiment, whose members had been involved in both engagements and had lost many men at Gate Pa.

Ngai-te-Rangi warriors had surrendered to the British on July 24.

By August 29, the entire tribe with the exception of one Hapu (Piri Rakau) has followed suit.

Fifty thousand acres (two hundred square kilometers) of land is confiscated and eighty-one guns surrendered, although the warriors still maintain a number of firearms in their possession.

The Government agrees to supply the Māori with food and seed until they get their crops re-established.