The Battle of Gate Pā was a pivotal event in New Zealand history and is a testament to the resilience and strategic prowess of Māori forces. It was a resounding victory over the British during the New Zealand Wars, a conflict that continues to captivate historians with its complexities and nuances. Indeed, scholarly debate continues as to how the battle unfolded. Historians tend to polarise themselves, with some arguing for James Cowan’s account of hand-to-hand combat and those who side with James Belich’s account of the battle being a trap devised by Māori to lure the British into a predetermined killing zone. This essay will examine all these arguments and weigh up the evidence.
To understand why the British were defeated at Gate Pā, it is crucial first to outline the enemy dispositions and course of the battle from primary and secondary sources. According to James Cowan, the British forces at Gate Pa numbered 1,650 infantry and 17 artillery. The infantry comprised 420 men from the Naval Brigade, 50 from the Royal Artillery, 300 from the 43rd Regiment, 700 from the 68th Regiment, and 180 from the 12th, 14th, 40th and 65th Regiments. The artillery train comprised five Armstrong guns, two naval cannons, two howitzers, and eight mortars. The British were led by Duncan Cameron, who positioned most of the 68th Regiment behind the pā on 28 April, the day before the battle, to encircle Māori forces. The Māori force at Gate Pā numbered 230 warriors, most of whom were Ngāi Te Rangi, Ngati Koheriki and Ngati Ranginui. They were led by Rāwiri Puhirake, who positioned 200 warriors in the central redoubt and the remaining 30 warriors in the lesser redoubt.
Gate Pā was situated on Pukehinahina ridge, only five kilometres from the British camp at Te Papa (modern-day Tauranga). The pa itself was 80 metres long and 18 metres wide and was named Gate Pā because it was near a gate in a post-and-rail fence above a ditch built by Māori to divide the edge of their land and the town of Te Papa. It had an outer fence to impede charging soldiers but was not as robust as other pā. Instead, it was largely made up of small outer trenches, rifle pits and bunkers designed to ensure that if an artillery shell broke through the wood-and-earth roofs, only a few occupants would be affected. As stated by James Belich, “Gate Pā was a masterpiece of trench and bunker warfare. Sophisticated anti-artillery bunkers enabled the garrison to survive the heavy bombardment” (Stephens, 1998). This was the challenge that Cameron found himself confronting on 29 April 1864.
Now, let us examine the course of the battle itself. The source chosen for this account primarily comes from the writings of James Cowan in The New Zealand Wars: Volume I. At 8 am on 29 April 1864, the British opened fire upon Gate Pā with 17 artillery pieces, which Cowan himself stated “were the heaviest used in the war of 1863-64” (Cowan, 1955, p.425). Most of the artillery fire was directed at the left angle of the pā. At 12 pm, a 6-pounder Armstrong gun was manoeuvred across the arm of the Kopurererua Swamp to provide enfilading fire upon the Māori left flank. As stated by Cowan, “The frail stockade soon began to vanish before the storm of projectiles, and the earth of the parapets was sent flying in showers” (Cowan, 1955, p.426). Meanwhile, Rāwiri Puhirake strode up and down the parapets, urging his men to stand fast and be firm in the face of the heavy artillery fire. In all, 15 Māori were killed during the artillery barrage.
By 4 pm, General Duncan Cameron ordered an assault by 300 soldiers and marines under H.M.S. Harrier and H.G. Booth with 300 more infantry in reserve. The British forces soon entered the pa from the left angle and central redoubt, whereby they engaged the Māori defenders in fierce hand-to-hand combat. The fighting raged back towards the rear of the pā, where the British became confused and disorganised by crooked trenches, roofed-over pits, and the intricate design of the pa. After ten minutes, the surviving British troops fled from the pā in disorder. British casualties numbered 31 killed and 80 wounded, while Māori losses numbered 25 killed and wounded. In the aftermath of the battle, some Māori chose not to mutilate the dead and even gave water to wounded British soldiers. As Cowan explains, “The defenders of Puke-hinahina [sic] treated the wounded British with a humanity and chivalry that surprised their foes” (Cowan, 1955, p.429). However, as dusk approached and the British began to dig in around the pā, the surviving Māori defenders took the opportunity to escape under the cover of darkness.
While this account is rooted in primary sources, including interviews with battle participants, it is crucial to note the ongoing scholarly discourse. Subsequent historians, such as James Belich, have scrutinised and reinterpreted many aspects of Cowan's narrative. In his book The New Zealand Wars and the Victorian Interpretation of Racial Conflict, Belich argues that the hand-to-hand fighting described by Cowan did not occur due to the low number of British wounded who received anything other than gunshot wounds. Instead, Belich argues that the main redoubt at Gate Pa was designed to be a trap for British forces. He writes that the British assault party scattered the small force of Māori warriors occupying the trench and parapet before a lull took place. However, the British forces were struck by heavy volleys from close range, “Some men were even shot from beneath their feet as they stood on the roofs of covered trenches and bunkers – a horrible fate” (Belich, 2015, p.186). Being unable to retaliate against their hidden enemies, they withstood enemy fire for five to ten minutes before the surviving British soldiers, despite the efforts of their officers, broke and fled the pā in disorder.
Belich’s argument, known as the “trap theory”, has many supporters, including Gordon McLachlan in A Short History of the New Zealand Wars. In his book, McLachlan argues that while there are many explanations for the British rout at Gate Pā, only James Belich’s trap theory makes sense. As McLachlan explains, “Once the officers were cut down by largely unseen assailants, the men became disoriented and terrified, and fled” (McLachlan, 2019, p.138). In his report to George Grey, Duncan Cameron wrote that he was unable to explain the rout of his soldiers and attributed it to “the confusion of the interior defences, and the sudden fall of so many of their officers” (McLachlan, 2019, p.138). If we take this argument on board, it appears that the death of the British officers, whose job it was to lead and discipline the soldiers under their command, caused the unrestrained soldiers to panic and rout.
The trap theory also has some correlation when considering the Māori manoeuvres that took place weeks before the battle. Between 28 March and 21 April, Māori forces tried to incite the British to attack them head-on. On 28 March, Henare Wiremu Taratoa wrote to Colonel Henry Greer, saying, “A challenge between us is declared. The day of fighting, Friday, the 1st day of April, 1864. This is a fixed challenge from all the tribes” (Mikaere & Simons, 2023, p.80). The intention was to draw British forces under Greer out of his camp at Te Papa to attack a well-defended pā further inland where they would be more vulnerable. This was because Rāwiri Puhirake had neither the numbers to launch a surprise attack nor to win an open, set-piece battle against British infantry, as demonstrated during the Battle of Te Ranga two months later. As pointed out by Gordon McLachlan, “He needed the battle sooner rather than later, although he was awaiting the arrival of reinforcements from the East Coast” (McLachlan, 2019, p.135). Ultimately, Greer ignored this challenge and Rawiri Puhirake’s East Coast reinforcements were defeated at the Battle of Maketū on 7-9 April. However, he would get the battle he wanted when Duncan Cameron arrived at Camp Te Papa on 21 April with reinforcements from the Waikato and Auckland.
The seeming disparity between Cowan and Belich’s accounts has led to alternate explanations about what happened at the Battle of Gate Pā. In Frontier, Peter Maxwell's battle account differs from that of Cowan and Belich. According to Maxwell, the British pushed through the gap in the palisades to be confronted by the trench system “collapsed by shellfire, turned slippery by the drizzle, and littered with shattered timber” (Maxwell, 2011, p.90). According to Maxwell, the Māori opened fire with their shotguns from the secondary row of trenches to their left and stood up to engage the British, who were stalled by reinforcements at the pā entrance. This contrasts with Cowan’s account, in which the Māori were driven back to the rear of the pā during the hand-to-hand combat that ensued. Indeed, Maxwell also criticises Belich’s revision of Cowan’s history of the New Zealand Wars, stating that “Belich claims that his goal is to overturn Victorian stereotypes, but instead, by this omission he perpetrates them” (Maxwell, 2011, p.10). This is unfair because Belich was writing when New Zealand history was undergoing a period of revision that emphasised including both Māori and European viewpoints.
Maxwell can be seen as a revisionist who strongly opposes James Belich's arguments regarding the New Zealand Wars. However, he acknowledges that Māori at Gate Pā fired upon the British from concealed trenches and rifle pits, which is included in Belich’s battle account. However, in Landscapes of Conflict, Nigel Prickett combines the theories of Cowan and Belich into one account. He writes that the attack initially went well, with British forces gaining the interior of the pa, until their officers were shot by the Māori defenders positioned beneath them in underground bunkers and rifle trenches. Prickett says a small group of Māori attempted to escape to the back of the pa before elements of the 68th Regiment opened fire upon them and forced them to rush back into the defences, at which point the British broke and fled. As explained by Prickett, “A critical part of the tactics was staying hidden when the enemy charged into the pa, and so having the advantage of concealment with the enemy exposed on the parapets above” (Prickett, 2002, p.92). Here, Prickett identifies superior Māori tactics and fighting qualities to explain their victory at Gate Pā.
Based upon all these arguments and evaluations by historians, it appears that most of the confusion and theories about what transpired at Gate Pā originate from Belich’s account in The New Zealand Wars and the Victorian Interpretation of Racial Conflict. As stated, Belich wrote his revision of the wars in the 1980s, when historians sought to incorporate Māori perspectives on New Zealand history into academic study. As stated by Peter Maxwell, Belich’s book was hailed as the definitive account of the New Zealand Wars, with historians stating it as “brilliant”, “seminal”, “meticulously researched”, and “powerfully persuasive” (Maxwell, 2011, p.9). However, Maxwell claims that, like Cowan, Belich also had his bias. Belich describes the Battle of Gate Pa as “arguably the most important battle of the New Zealand Wars, in terms of both its political effects and its wider implications for military technology” (Belich, 2015, p.180). This statement is based on the argument that contemporary British interpretations were shocked by the magnitude of the defeat and the need to mitigate it. Indeed, the British victory at the Battle of Te Ranga on 21 June 1864 helped alleviate the defeat at Gate Pā. However, the psychological impact of the military defeat in the former battle lingered throughout the rest of the New Zealand Wars.
Another opponent of Belich’s arguments is John M. Gates, who argues against his claim that the British defeat was solely due to its errors. The British acknowledged Māori tactics and the sophistication of Gate Pā, with the Auckland Weekly News writing, “the chief cause of our defeat was the military tact, patience, and courage of our opponents” (Gates, 2001, p.62). In the New Zealand Herald, writers acknowledged the role of the pā design in the British defeat, stating that Gate Pa was “even more strongly and scientifically constructed than those which have already excited the wonder and admiration of our best engineers” (Gates, 2001, p.62). According to Gates, these primary sources undermine Belich's argument that the British did not fully acknowledge Māori ingenuity and skill regarding the battle's outcome. However, this does not detract from the fact that British forces could have done better tactically and strategically. Although the 68th Regiment surrounded Gate Pa from the south while the 43rd Regiment attacked from the north, Cameron decided to make a frontal assault on the pā, a repeat of his tactics at the Battle of Rangiriri. One wonders why he did not try a diversionary attack like the one he successfully executed at Paterangi in February 1864.
At this point, the layout of the Gate Pā itself is worth discussing in length. Known in Te Reo Māori as Pukehinahina, Gate Pā was the outcome of a period of evolution in pā design that stretched back to the Musket Wars of the 1820s and 1830s. In pre-colonial times, Māori pā were constructed on strategic positions, usually on hilltops or by rivers and ravines, and were concentric with several lines of trenches. Ian Knight said all of them were at least two to four metres deep, with excavated soil piled up between them to form ramparts. Because the Māori in pre-European times had no firearms, warriors defending their fortifications were usually positioned either on high platforms to shower the enemy with stones and spears or in between the palings at ground level, whereby they could jab at the enemy with their spears and striking weapons. Usually, pā were stormed in the same way European commanders gained entrance to a castle or town during the Middle Ages: either by a ruse or by starving the garrison into surrendering. This classical period of Māori warfare lasted from roughly 1500 to 1820 when pā suddenly became vulnerable to musket and artillery fire.
Beginning in 1820, pā underwent a period of modernisation to deal with the new tactics and technologies introduced to New Zealand by the European settlers. The classic Māori pā transformed into what Ian Knight calls the “gunfighter pā.” Unlike classic pā, gunfighter pā were rarely built on high ground and instead were usually constructed on slopes that offered Māori warriors a clear escape route after a battle had been fought. Indeed, as stated by Ian Knight, gunfighter pā were not intended to be occupied for extended periods: “They were intended to make a military point – to serve as a challenge to the enemy, to provoke an attack over carefully prepared ground, to inflict casualties, or simply to build up the mana of the defenders” (Knight, 2013, p.10). However, like classic pā designs, gunfighter pā consisted of palisades and trench systems that enabled warriors to shelter themselves and open fire upon the enemy from behind their defences. When attacked by enemy infantry, Māori warriors would retreat to their inner line and use the outer palisade as an obstacle to confuse the attackers. In contrast, hidden rifle pits screened with fern were used to surprise them. Gate Pā was the outcome of forty years of pā construction.
According to contemporary accounts, when Duncan Cameron saw the 43rd Regiment and Naval Brigade retreat from Gate Pā in disorder, he dashed his field-glass on the ground and returned to his tent to conceal his emotion from his officers. Although known for his stoicism, Cameron and other British generals found it hard to believe that indigenous peoples like the Māori could invent sophisticated trench systems to counter British artillery. During the Waikato Campaign, Cameron had tried a river-borne assault at Meremere, frontal infantry assaults at Rangiriri, an outflanking manoeuvre at Paterangi, and encirclement at Orakau. However, all Cameron got from these battles were incomplete victories, so he hoped victory at Gate Pā would give him the knockout blow that would decisively defeat the Māori King Movement. The defeat at Gate Pā convinced Cameron of the futility of taking a modern pā with traditional infantry and artillery tactics. Although he would campaign in South Taranaki the following year, he hesitated to attack a Māori pā head-on. In his report to Governor George Grey, he wrote, “Experience has shown me that it is not generally desirable to attack such positions” (Dalley & McLean, 2005, p.139). Cameron would later resign and leave New Zealand on 1 August 1865.
To conclude this essay, it is important to dispel some myths surrounding Gate Pā and Māori warfare during the New Zealand Wars. First is the notion promoted by James Belich that the Māori invented modern trench and bunker warfare. This statement is incorrect because Europeans developed sophisticated anti-artillery fortifications as early as the Italian Wars (1494-1559). As pointed out by David Chandler, “The architects of the Italian Renaissance were the first to conceive designs capable of defying the new power of siege cannon” (Chandler, 2000, p.106). Second is the widely held belief that after the Battle of Gate Pā, the British mapped its fortifications and used them as a model for trench warfare during the First World War. Although the British indeed made a detailed sketch of the Gate Pā fortifications in the aftermath of the battle, the notion that the British based their trench systems on Māori ones has since been discredited by historians. As stated by Matthew Wright, “It is difficult to see how such an idea can even have been proposed” (Wright, 2021, p.37). Despite these myths, it does not detract from the fact that the Māori inflicted a severe defeat on British forces comparable to the Battle of Puketakauere in 1860 during the First Taranaki War.
Gate Pā was one of the defining battles in the New Zealand Wars. It was a significant British defeat that demonstrated that they had found no effective means to deal with the modern pā system. Nevertheless, historians still debate why the British were defeated. Some argue for Cowan’s account, while others paraphrase Belich’s argument. In the end, it appears that the death of the British officers, combined with the smoke and fire within the pā, disoriented the British soldiers and caused them to flee in disorder, thereby giving victory to Rāwiri Puhirake.
Bibliography
Belich, James. The New Zealand Wars and the Victorian Interpretation of Racial Conflict. Auckland, Auckland University Press, 2015.
Chandler, David G. The Art of Warfare on Land. Harmondsworth, Penguin Books, 2000.
Cowan, James. The New Zealand Wars: A History of the Māori Campaigns and the Pioneering Period: Volume I (1845-1864). Wellington, R.E. Owen, 1955.
Dalley, Bronwyn. & McLean, Gavin. Frontier of Dreams: The Story of New Zealand. Auckland, Hodder Moa, 2005.
Gates, John M. “James Belich and the Modern Maori Pa: Revisionist History Revised.” War & Society, 19:2 (2001): 47-68. DOI: 10.1179/072924701791201503.
Knight, Ian. The New Zealand Wars 1820-72. Oxford, Osprey Publishing, 2013.
Maxwell, Peter. Frontier: The Battle for the North Island of New Zealand 1860-1872. Auckland, Maxwell Publishing, 2011.
McLauchlan, Gordon. A Short History of the New Zealand Wars. Auckland, Bateman Publishing, 2019.
Mikaere, Buddy. & Simons, Cliff. Victory at Gate Pā? The Battle of Pukehinahina-Gate Pā: 1864. Auckland, Upstart Press, 2023.
Prickett, Nigel. Landscapes of Conflict: A Field Guide to the New Zealand Wars. Auckland, Random House, 2002.
Stephens, Tainui. The New Zealand Wars: The Invasion of Waikato. New Zealand, Landmark Productions, 1998. DVD.
Wright, Matthew. The New Zealand Wars. Auckland, Oratia Books, 2021.
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