Titokowaru's War

Titokowaru's War is a military conflict that takes place in the South Taranaki region of New Zealand's North Island from June 1868 to March 1869 between the Ngāti Ruanui Māori tribe and the New Zealand Government.

The conflict, near the conclusion of the New Zealand land wars, is a revival of hostilities of the Second Taranaki War as Riwha Titokowaru, chief of the Ngāti Ruanui's Ngaruahine hapu (sub-tribe), responds to the continued surveying and settlement of confiscated land with well-planned and effective attacks on settlers and government troops in an effort to block the occupation of Māori land.The war, coinciding with a violent raid on a European settlement on the East Coast by fugitive guerrilla fighter Te Kooti, shatters what European colonists had regarded as a new era of peace and prosperity, creating fears of a "general uprising of hostile Māoris", but once Titokowaru is defeated and the East Coast threat minimized, the alienation of Māori land, as well as the political subjugation of Māori, continues at an even more rapid pace.

Titokowaru, who had fought in the Second Taranaki War, is the most skillful West Coast Māori warrior.

He also assumes the roles of a priest and prophet of the extremist Hauhau movement of the Pai Mārire religion, reviving ancient rites of cannibalism and propitiation of Māori gods with the human heart torn from the first slain in a battle.

Although Titokowaru's forces are numerically small and initially outnumbered in battle 12 to one by government troops, the ferocity of their attacks provokes fear among settlers and prompts the resignation and desertion of many militia volunteers, ultimately leading to the withdrawal of most government military forces from South Taranaki and giving Titokowaru control of almost all territory between New Plymouth and Wanganui.Titokowaru provides the strategy and leadership that had been missing among tribes that had fought in the Second Taranaki War.

His forces never lose a battle during their intensive campaign, but abandon their resistance after being pursued into their headquarters in the swamps of Ngaere by Colonel George Stoddart Whitmore, commander of the colonial forces, on March 25, 1869.

Titokowaru's apparent invincibility had created a security crisis in 1868, with the government fearing attacks on Wanganui and Manawatu.

Yet according to historian James Belich, his achievements were gradually watered down to the point where his name was erased from the most widely-read New Zealand histories.

Belich concluded: "As a result, the military crisis of which he was the principal architect – perhaps the greatest threat to European dominance in the history of New Zealand – has all but disappeared from the received version."

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