Musket Wars in New Zealand

Between about 1807 and 1837 Maori tribes fought each other in a long series of wars known as the Musket Wars. They began when northern iwi, or tribes, got European guns from traders and whalers in the Bay of Islands. Hongi Hika of Ngapuhi became the most famous leader. A tribe with muskets could overrun neighbors who had only traditional weapons, so every tribe wanted them, and sold flax and potatoes in huge quantities to buy them.¹

Maori society already prized status, land and the duty to avenge insults, and guns changed the balance. Raids covered hundreds of kilometers, from the far north to the Waikato, Taranaki and Wellington. Estimates of the dead are often put at around twenty thousand, with some higher figures, and many more were enslaved or driven off their land. The wars faded in the 1830s as guns spread evenly and missionaries urged peace. The upheaval fed British arguments that Maori needed protection, part of the background to the Treaty of Waitangi in 1840.¹