The strangest war : the story of the Maori Wars, 1860-1872 / by Edgar Holt.

Includes bibliographical references (p. 264-267) and index.

Part 1. White and brown: The Governor -- Settlers and Maoris -- The missionaries -- The colonists -- The Treaty -- The Bishop -- The land -- Part 2. The conflict: First blood -- The Flagstaff War -- Grey takes over -- Preserving the Treaty -- Years of peace -- The Maori King -- Waitara Purchase -- Troops in trouble -- Digging for victory -- The same Sir George -- Uneasy truce -- Check to the king -- The Gate Pa -- The "good and peaceful" -- General and Governor -- The end in sight -- Prisoners' base -- The last escapes.

"Sir Frederic Rogers, Permanent Under-Secretary at the Colonial Office in the 1860's, described the long struggle in New Zealand between the Maori natives and the British troops, with their colonial volunteers as "the strangest war that ever was carried on". Though the underlying cause of the Maori wars was the white colonists' desire to acquire land that legally belonged to the Maoris, they were in no sense imperialist wars; for most of the time, indeed, the home government was desperately seeking to withdraw all Imperial troops from New Zealand and to leave the colonists to fight their own battles--as they eventually did. Many notable personalities were concerned in the wars and the events leading up to them--empire-builders like Edward Gibbon Wakefield and Sir George Grey whose quarrels with the commanding generals in New Zealand provide some of the most bizarre incidents in the story; the memorable Bishop Selwyn; a gallery of new Zealand statemen. Among the Maoris, too, there were many remarkable characters, such as Hone Heke, hero of the "flagstaff war" who thought it unsporting to cut off his enemy's food supplies; Wiremu Tamihana, the famous "king-maker" who confounded British governors with his apt quotations from the Bible; and Te Kooti, the escaped prisoner of war who waged a savage but brilliant guerrilla campaign against the colonist for four years. Mr Holt's book is a modern and comprehensive description of a series of hard-fought wars, famous in New Zealand but little known elsewhere"--Dust jacket.