The Kingmaker
Wiremu's father was a war leader from the area of Matamata. He was called Te Waharoa.
During the early stages of the Musket Wars Ngati Haua avoided attack from tribes who had guns.
But another tribe, to the north, Ngati Maru was affected and they fled to Matamata and threatened to take over.
Te Waharoa became resentful when they built a new home close to his.
He made a war plan and pretended to leave to visit Tauranga. But he secretly stayed and attacked Ngati Maru forcing them to leave.
During his life, Te Waharoa continued fighting and joined in several battles to support tribes in Rotorua and Tauranga.
Around 1835, Christian missionaries tried to bring peace to the tribes by setting up a station at Puriri near the Waihou River.
Te Waharoa was keen to have the missionaries in his district (rohe) but he was not a Christian believer.
More wars broke out and it was difficult for the missionaries to spread the word of peace.
In 1836 the missionaries were attacked by another member of the tribe but Wiremu Taminhana tried to save them and managed to return some of the property that had been stolen.
1845 - 1872
War was raging in Taranaki by some Maori tribes against the Pakeha forces. Ngati Haua were aligned with King Potatu, who had forbidden their involvement. But when he died, things changed and they were let down by another tribe, Ngati Awa.
For a long time in the 1850s, Tamihana tried to keep the peace and spent a lot of time working to develop the role of Maori king and worked hard to support him. He tried to keep the peace but war broke out again.
In 1863, Ngati Haua decided to join the Kingitanga Forces during the Waikato Wars and took part in attacks on Auckland.
Wiremu and his sons took part in some attacks on Auckland in 1863 to help build a line of defence at Meremere near Pokeno, north of Te Kauwhata. Wiremu's forces were defeated there and again at Rangiriri a while later.
At this time Wiremu sent a greenstone gift to General Cameron as an indication of his surrender. Unfortunately, the General was not interested because he wanted all the Maori tribes to surrender.
At this time, Ngati Haua retreated to live on the slopes of Mount Maungatautari. General Cameron followed him and the tribe left the pa to join the battle at Orakau near Kihikihi.
In 1864, the Kingitanga tribe was defeated by the Pakeha forces. Wiremu decided to detach himself from the Kingitanga movement. Some lands were confiscated by the Government and some were sold.
Wiremu Tamihana needed some money so he leased a large amount of land to Josiah Firth.
The last words of Wiremu Tamihana were "Tell Mr Firth that if he is willing he should abide here continually."
When he died the missionary Richard Taylor wrote: 'There is something very sad in the death of this patriotic chief; a man of clear, straight-forward views; sad that a man, who possessed such an influence for good, should thus have been ignored by the Government, when, by his aid, had he been admitted to our councils, a permanent good feeling might have been established between the two races.'
The current Ngati Haua district includes ()
and is based on maps from 1840 and detail from a book called Tainui by Pei Te Hurinui-Jones. Ngati Haua acknowledge that there may be some overlapping land interests by other tribes around the borders.
picture from Teara website. On the banks of the Waihou River in 1865 or 66.
Since 1859, entrepreneur Josiah Clifton Firth (back row, second from left) had sought to acquire the fertile Matamata plains, and following the war in the Waikato, he negotiated with Wiremu Tamihana Tarapipipi Te Waharoa of Ngati Haua (back row, third from left) to lease substantial tracts.
Wiremu's son was called Tupu Tai Ngakawa.
Note: This summary is transposed from Wikipedia information - January 2015
The purpose is to simplify the language and enable secondary school students to understand the wars at that time in relation to wars in The Hobbit by JRR Tolkien.
The purpose is to simplify the language and enable secondary school students to understand the wars at that time in relation to wars in The Hobbit by JRR Tolkien.