Māori King movement
The Māori King movement, called the Kīngitanga in Māori, is a Māori movement that arose among some of the Māori iwi of New Zealand in the central North Island in the 1850s, to establish a role similar in status to that of the monarchy of the United Kingdom as a way of halting the alienation of Māori land. The first Māori king, Pōtatau Te Wherowhero, was crowned in 1858. The monarchy is non-hereditary in principle, although every monarch since Pōtatau Te Wherowhero has been a child of the previous monarch. The eighth monarch is Nga wai hono i te po, who was elected and crowned in September 2024.
The Māori monarch operates in a non-constitutional capacity outside the New Zealand government, without explicit legal or judicial power. Reigning monarchs retain the position of paramount chief of several iwi, and wield some power over these, especially within Tainui. The influence of the Māori monarch is widespread in Māoridom despite the movement not being adhered to by several major iwi, notably Tūhoe, Ngāti Porou, and the largest of all, Ngāpuhi. The headquarters for the King movement is Tūrangawaewae Marae in the town of Ngāruawāhia.
The movement arose among a group of central North Island iwi in the 1850s as a means of attaining Māori unity to halt the alienation of land at a time of rapid population growth by European colonists. The movement sought to establish a monarch who could claim status similar to that of Queen Victoria and thus provide a way for Māori to deal with Pākehā on equal footing. It took on the appearance of an alternative government with its own flag, newspaper, bank, councillors, magistrates and law enforcement. It was viewed by the colonial government as a challenge to the supremacy of the monarchy of the United Kingdom, leading in turn to the 1863 invasion of the Waikato, which was partly motivated by a drive to neutralise the Kīngitanga's power and influence. Following their defeat at Ōrākau in 1864, the Kingites withdrew into the Ngāti Maniapoto tribal region of the North Island that became known as the King Country.
History
Background
From the early 1850s, North Island Māori came under increasing pressure to satisfy the demand of European settler farmers for arable land. While Māori cultivated small areas, relying on extensive forests for berry, birds and roots, settlers expanded their production capacity by burning forest and fern and planting grass seed in the ashes. Some influential chiefs including Te Rauparaha opposed land sales in the 1840s, and the view became more widespread in the following decade, when the Pākehā population grew to outnumber Māori and the colonial government's Native Land Purchase Department adopted unscrupulous methods to take ownership, which included offers to chiefs or small groups of owners. Deals with individual Māori or groups that did not represent majority interests also dragged Māori into disputes with one another. As the white frontier encroached further on their land, many became concerned that their land, and race, would soon be overrun.Around 1853 Māori revived the ancient tribal runanga or chiefly war councils where land issues were raised and in May 1854 a large meeting—attracting as many as 2000 Māori leaders—was held at Manawapou in south Taranaki where speakers urged concerted opposition to selling land.
The meetings provided an important forum for Te Rauparaha's son, Christian convert Tamihana Te Rauparaha, who in 1851 had visited England where he was presented to Queen Victoria. Tamihana Te Rauparaha had returned to New Zealand with the idea of forming a Māori kingdom, with one king ruling over all iwi, and used the rūnanga to secure the agreement of influential North Island chiefs to his idea. The kotahitanga or unity movement was aimed at bringing to Māori the unity that was an obvious strength among the Europeans. It was believed that by having a monarch who could claim status similar to that of Queen Victoria, Māori would be able to deal with Pākehā on equal footing. It was also intended to establish a system of law and order in Māori communities to which the Auckland government had so far shown little interest.
Pōtatau Te Wherowhero
Several North Island candidates who were asked to put themselves forward declined; in February 1857, a few weeks after a key intertribal meeting in Taupō, Wiremu Tamihana, a chief of the Ngāti Hauā iwi in eastern Waikato, circulated a proposal to appoint as king the elderly and high-ranking Waikato chief Te Wherowhero, and a major meeting to deal with it was organised to be held at Rangiriri in April.After initially declining—he was unwilling to undertake new ventures at his age and was described by a European visitor as blind and decrepit, "on the very brink of his grave"—Te Wherowhero agreed in September 1857 to accept the kingship and in June 1858 he was crowned at Ngāruawāhia, later adopting the name Pōtatau Te Wherowhero or simply Pōtatau.
In his acceptance speech Pōtatau stressed the spirit of unity symbolised by the kingship and called on his people to "hold fast to love, to the law, and to faith in God." Over time the King movement came to have a flag, a council of state, a code of laws, a "King's Resident Magistrate", police, a surveyor and a newspaper, Te Hokioi, all of which gave the movement the appearance of an alternative government. The lives of his followers were given new purpose with the lawmaking, trials, and lengthy meetings and debates. Historian Michael King noted: "In the eyes of his supporters, the chiefs who had raised him up had made him a repository for their own mana and tapu and for that of their lands. Pōtatau was now a man of intensified prestige and sacredness. This belief was to impel people to go to heroic lengths to uphold the kingship and, subsequently, to fight for it."
Pōtatau proclaimed the boundary separating his authority from that of the Governor, saying: "Let Maungatautari be our boundary. Do not encroach on this side. Likewise I am not to set foot on that side." The King envisaged a conjoint administration in which he ruled in territory still under Māori customary title while the Governor ruled in areas acquired by the Crown.
Governor Thomas Gore Browne had been watching developments with concern. In June 1857 he wrote to London that "I apprehend no sort of danger from the present movement, but it is evident that the establishment of a separate nationality by the Māoris in any form or shape if persevered in would end sooner or later in collision." Though there were still no signs the movement was developing an aggressive spirit, Browne soon began expressing his fear that "it will resolve into a conflict of race and become the greatest political difficulty we have had to contend with".
Recognition of the new King, however, was not immediate: though there was widespread respect for the movement's efforts in establishing a "land league" to slow land sales, Pōtatau's role was strongly embraced only by Waikato Māori, with iwi of North Auckland and south of Waikato showing him scant recognition. Some opponents dismissed the Kīngitanga as a solely Waikato movement. Throughout 1859 emissaries of the King movement travelled through the North Island, including Taranaki, Wanganui and Hawkes Bay, seeking further adherents, with iwi sometimes divided in their support. Even within the movement there was said to be deep division: historian Keith Sinclair claimed "moderates" aligned themselves with Wiremu Tamihana, and "anti-European extremists" followed Ngāti Maniapoto chief and warlord Rewi Maniapoto, although Belich and historian Vincent O'Malley dispute this, saying both factions were driven by shared objectives and concerns and that divisions had been exaggerated by historians. Tribal rivalries may also have weakened unity. Historian B.J. Dalton observed: "Outside the Waikato, the King Movement appealed most to the younger generation who could see no other way of gaining the mana their fathers had won in battle."
On 10 April 1860, three weeks after the start of the Taranaki wars, deputations from west coast iwi Te Āti Awa and Ngā Ruanui attended a gathering of Waikato Māori at Ngāruawāhia and tendered their formal allegiance to the king. Discussions at that meeting, and at a second meeting at Peria six weeks later that attracted a large group of supporters from the lower Waikato, centered on hostilities in Taranaki and the question of whether the King movement should intervene. A faction of moderates within the movement swung the decision against direct involvement, but news of the meetings led to panic in Auckland over the possibility of a Māori attack on the capital, in turn prompting what Dalton described as "a mood of savage vindictiveness towards all Māori". In late June 1860 large numbers of Waikato Māori travelled to Taranaki to reinforce Te Āti Awa chief Wiremu Kīngi Te Rangitāke's forces and joined in the plunder of abandoned farms, but the intervention was unorganised and on a limited scale, relieving Taranaki settlers of some fear of full-scale Kingite involvement.
Pōtatau died of influenza on 25 June 1860 and was succeeded by his son Matutaera Tāwhiao.
Matutaera Tāwhiao
Tāwhiao's succession to the position of King coincided with a period of increasing friction between Māori and the Auckland-based settler government over issues of land ownership and sovereignty. Hostilities surrounding land purchases in Taranaki spread, erupting into a series of conflicts that became known as the New Zealand Wars.Tamihana, a strategist revered as the "kingmaker", expressed the Kīngitanga movement's key concern in a letter to Browne at the close of the First Taranaki War in 1861. He said Waikato iwi had never signed the Treaty of Waitangi and that Māori were a separate nation. "I do not desire to cast the Queen from this island, but from own piece. I am to be the person to overlook my own piece," he wrote. But Browne regarded the Kīngitanga stance as an act of disloyalty; his plans for the invasion of Waikato were fuelled in large part by his desire to uphold "the Queen's supremacy" in the face of the Kīngitanga challenge. Browne's successor, Sir George Grey, told a large Māori gathering at Taupari near the mouth of the Waikato River in December 1861 that the King movement was bad and should be abandoned. On 9 July 1863 Grey issued an ultimatum that all Māori living between Auckland and the Waikato take an oath of allegiance to Queen Victoria or be expelled south of the Waikato River. Troops invaded Waikato territory three days later.
Kīngitanga forces were forced to fight a defensive war based on frustrating and slowing down their enemy but were unable to prevail over a full-time professional army with almost unlimited manpower and firepower.
Tāwhiao and his close followers fled into the bush and steep limestone valleys of Maniapoto territory, which was subsequently known as the King Country, declaring that Europeans risked death if they crossed the aukati or boundary of the confiscated land. Governor Grey, meanwhile, began steering through Parliament legislation for the widespread seizure of the land of "rebel" Māori. The confiscation of 486,500 hectares of land, including fertile areas under cultivation, burial sites and areas that had been inhabited for centuries, was a bitter blow for Waikato Māori. In 1869 and 1870 Tāwhiao was challenged by Ringatū prophet and guerrilla leader Te Kooti to resume hostilities against the government to try to wrest back the confiscated land. Tawhiao, however, had renounced war and declared 1867–68 as the "year of the lamb" and "year of peace"; in April 1869 he had issued another proclamation that "the slaying of man by man is to cease". Though there were radical elements in the Kīngitanga movement who favoured a resumption of war, including Rewi Maniapoto and possibly Tāwhiao himself, moderates continued to warn the King that they had little chance of success and risked annihilation by becoming involved in Te Kooti's actions.
Tāwhiao remained in exile for 20 years, wandering through Maniapoto and Taranaki settlements, adopting an Old Testament view of himself as an anointed leader of a chosen people wandering in the wilderness awaiting a deliverance into their inheritance.
From the 1870s the Government—keen to push a north–south railway link through the centre of the North Island and open up the King Country to more settlers—made approaches to Tāwhiao to offer peace terms. Grey, by now Premier of New Zealand, visited the King in May 1878 to offer him "lands on the left bank of the Waipa, 500 acres at Ngāruawāhia, land in all the townships" as well as economic aid and rights over roads and land dealings. Tāwhiao refused the offer. Three years later, in July 1881, he summoned Resident Magistrate William Gilbert Mair to a meeting at Alexandra where he and 70 followers laid down their guns, then laid alongside them 70 roasted pigeons and a fantail, explaining, "This means peace."
He travelled to London in 1884 with Western Maori MP Wiremu Te Wheoro to lead a deputation with a petition to the Crown about Māori land grievances but was refused an audience with the Queen. Back in New Zealand in 1886 and seeking Māori solutions to Māori problems through Māori institutions, he petitioned Native Minister John Ballance for the establishment of a Māori Council "for all the chiefs of this Island". When this proposal, too, was ignored, he set up his own Kauhanganui, a Kīngitanga parliament, at Maungakawa in 1892. Though all North Island iwi were invited to attend, participation was confined mainly to the Waikato, Maniapoto and Hauraki people who were already part of the King movement. The assembly's discussions included proceedings in the national Parliament, interpretations of the Treaty of Waitangi, the confiscation issue and conditions for land sales, but its deliberations and recommendations were either ignored or derided by the Parliament and public servants. The establishment of Tāwhiao's Kauhanganui coincided with the formation of a Māori Parliament at Waipatu Marae in Heretaunga. This parliament, which consisted of 96 members from the North and South Islands under Prime Minister Hāmiora Mangakāhia, was formed as part of the Kotahitanga movement, which Tāwhiao refused to join.
From about 1886 until about 1905 it also had a bank, the Bank of Aotearoa, which operated in Parawera, Maungatautari and Maungakawa.
Tāwhiao also instituted a system of annual poukais—visits by the King to Kīngitanga marae, which he devised as a means of drawing people back to their marae on a fixed day each year. The poukais later evolved into regular consultation meetings between Kīngitanga leadership and its followers where funds were also raised to cover the movement's expenses and the upkeep of local marae.
Tāwhiao died suddenly on 26 August 1894 and was succeeded by his oldest son, Mahuta Tāwhiao.