Musket Wars - Outcomes of The Musket Wars

Outcomes of The Musket Wars

The wars gave Māori experience in fighting with and defending against firearms. One important innovation was the "gunfighter's pā", which was designed to be defended with ranged weapons and to offer defenders protection against the firearms of the enemy This type of pā was later widely used in the New Zealand Land Wars, with extensive modifications to deal with the heavy artillery, superior numbers and discipline in attack of British troops. The experience in combat with modern weaponry given by the Musket Wars may help explain why Māori fared far better in the later New Zealand Land Wars than did most tribal peoples.

In time, all the tribes traded to obtain muskets and the conflict ultimately reached an uneasy stalemate after decimating the population of some tribes and drastically shifting the boundaries between areas controlled by various others. The wars themselves generally resolved themselves for various reasons. As Māori sought a way out of the cycle of violence the door was opened to Christianity. Some Māori were also willing to let the government bear the burden of seeking utu. In the latter stages, as in the Howick-Otahuhu area in 1835-36, missionaries such as Henry Williams and William Fairburn were able to carry out negotiations between warring factions and purchase disputed land to put an end to conflict. At least 20,000 people died in these conflicts. In addition another 30,000 were enslaved or forced to migrate, according to Crosby, using the data of noted New Zealand demographer Ian Poole. Some earlier historians claimed the deaths were much higher-about 50-60,000 but the evidence for this is not convincing. Ballara points out it was common even in traditional times for a defeated hapū to flee their best land temporarily for up to two years but they usually returned when utu was satisfied and peace returned.

Crosby says over half of all iwi suffered major population loss through battle casualties, cannibalism, or enslavement (for instance, the Moriori in the Chatham Islands). A few iwi, for example in Nelson, were exterminated.

Perhaps the most important outcome of the musket wars was the bitter legacy of inter-hapū and -iwi mistrust stemming from the extreme violence with which they were fought. The constant use of treachery as a battlefield tactic, coupled with the enslavement of so many, left a long legacy of mistrust. The second to last battle of the Musket Wars was a few months before the Treaty of Waitangi was signed. A taua (war party) from the Te Awamutu area attacked and slaughtered Arawa people (Rotorua area) and brought back 60 basket-loads of human flesh to eat. The missionaries and Christian Maori were sickened and moved out of the pā to establish a separate missionary village. The last battle was at Tauranga in 1842, when a Hauraki Iwi raiding toa attacked a pā. Chief Taraia claimed this was utu (revenge) for encroachment on his land and other issues. The Colonial Secretary Willoughby Shortland carried out an investigation and found two bodies had been eaten. Te Mutu, the defeated chief, told Shortland that if he caught Taraia he would eat him. Missionaries had been able to gain the trust of many iwi, while Māori remained wary of other iwi outside their rohe (area). This was the immediate background to the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi in 1840.