The New Zealand wars began in 1845 and went on for nearly 30 years, a succession of conflicts that spanned the length of the North Island from the Bay of Islands to Wellington. What they meant has been debated ever since. To some they were land wars, to others, the Maori wars; and only lately have we begun calling them the New Zealand wars. And this has not been the only argument. Why were they fought in the first place? Who really won them? Were they the means by which Maori and pakeha became fast friends, as historians liked to say in the early twentieth century? In reality these wars were fought over both land and sovereignty. In the process, the British, settlers and allied Maori ended up fighting other Maori, and by the late 1860s the wars had really become a civil war. And the fighting was tough for all who fought in them. In this book, Matthew Wright outlines what happened and why First published July 2006.
