Walk 9: Te Porere Redoubt, 28 Dec 2018
Te Pōrere, in the shadow of Tongariro, is the site of the last major battle of the New Zealand Wars was fought on 4 October 1869 between Te Kooti and a combined force of Armed Constabulary and Māori fighters.
Te Kooti or an ally built this British style redoubt/pa but the angles were poorly sited and the horizontal loopholes prevented the defenders from firing down into the ditch, which the government forces speedily occupied after taking out two small detached positions.
The dead from Te Porere are buried on site. Te Kooti got away into the bush with other survivors.
Te Kehakeha led him and others ‘in the general direction of Te Rena via an old Ngāti Hotu track’. Te Rena belonged to the remnant of the Ngati Hotu. (Source: The National Park District Inquiry Report, Page 173.)
Walk: Central North Island 42
Te Kooti
“Perhaps time will allow us to see this figure in perspective, and help us to decide whether he was murderer, butcher, and slayer of innocent women and children. Or was he really a military genius, a Maori hero, who suffered defeat only twice in the long years of campaigning. Was he a prophet, a spiritual leader, who could refashion the adherents of a pagan cult into warriors who could fight with rules, who could show mercy to prisoners, who could begin and end the fighting with worship of God. Te Kooti Rikirangi Te Turuki—mystery man of the Maori race—we see him now in a clearer light.”
Article: Did This Change the Course of History? by Ernest E. Bush
*See page on Te Kooti’s war.
NZShortWalks 