Duncan Alexander Cameron - New Zealand Deployment

New Zealand Deployment

Cameron and the British troops were sent to New Zealand at the request of New Zealand's Governor, Sir George Edward Grey. The new colony was considered short of land on which to expand, as most of the best land in the North Island was owned by the Māori people. Māori in the Waikato had recently formed a political alliance called the King Movement (or Kingites) with other tribes to resist the further sale of Māori land to the Pākehā government by Māori. The King Movement numbered about 30-40% of all Māori in New Zealand but excluded all South Island Māori and northern Māori who were not invited to join. The main base for the movement was the Waikato, a wet swampy region with isolated pockets of land that could be cultivated, immediately south of Auckland which was then the capital of New Zealand. Furthermore, the Kingitanga Māori insisted on their independence from the Colonial Government, in contravention of the Treaty of Waitangi which forty four Waikato chiefs had signed in 1840, including six from the Maniapoto tribe according to the facsimiles recorded by historian Claudia Orange in her book Treaty Of Waitangi.

Governor Grey was determined to end the threat of an independence movement, which challenged the authority of the crown. He saw what the threat from the southern states was doing to the USA. To safeguard Māori and European New Zealanders from this very real threat he needed large numbers of British Troops. He presented a case to the Colonial Office in London which emphasized the threats and dangers of the Rebel Independent Māori Movement, claiming that the European settlement was in danger of being wiped out. As evidence he pointed to the theft of large amounts of gunpowder from Kawau Island in 1856 and the attack on Auckland City from the sea that was only stopped by a British warship and troops from Fort Britomart. To meet the danger the British Government sent out fourteen thousand troops commanded by Major General Duncan Cameron.