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Te Kooti's War was among the last of the New Zealand wars, the series of 19th century conflicts between the Māori and the colonising European settlers. It was fought in the East Coast region and across the heavily forested central North Island and Bay of Plenty between New Zealand government military forces and followers of spiritual leader Te Kooti Arikirangi Te Turuki. The conflict was sparked by Te Kooti's return to New Zealand after two years of internment on the Chatham Islands, from where he had escaped with almost 200 Māori prisoners of war and their families. Te Kooti, who had been held without trial on the island for two years, told the government he and his followers wished to be left in peace and would fight only if pursued and attacked. But two weeks after their return to New Zealand, members of Te Kooti's party found themselves being pursued by a force of militia, government troops and Māori volunteers. Te Kooti's force routed them in an ambush, seizing arms, ammunition, food and horses. The engagement was the first in what became a four-year guerrilla war, involving more than 30 expeditions by colonial and Māori troops against Te Kooti's dwindling number of warriors. Although initially fighting defensively against pursuing government forces, Te Kooti went on the offensive from November 1868, starting with the so-called Poverty Bay massacre, a well-organised lightning strike against selected European settlers and Māori opponents in the Matawhero district, in which 51 men, women and children were slaughtered and their homes set alight. The attack prompted another vigorous pursuit by government forces, which included a siege at Ngatapa pā that came to a bloody end: although Te Kooti escaped the siege, Māori forces loyal to the government caught and executed more than 130 of his supporters, as well as prisoners he had earlier seized. Dissatisfied with the Māori King Movement's reluctance to continue its fight against European invasion and confiscation, Te Kooti offered Māori an Old Testament vision of salvation from oppression and a return to a promised land. Wounded three times in battle, he gained a reputation for being immune to death, uttered prophecies that had the appearance of being fulfilled, and developed an image of a mighty warrior riding a white horse, reflecting themes of Christian Apocalypticism. In early 1870 Te Kooti gained refuge from Tūhoe tribes, which consequently suffered a series of damaging raids in which crops and villages were destroyed, as other Māori ''iwi'' were lured by the promise of a ₤5000 reward for Te Kooti's capture. Te Kooti was finally granted sanctuary by the Māori king in 1872 and moved to the King Country, where he continued to develop rituals, texts and prayers of his Ringatū faith. He was formally pardoned by the government in February 1883 and died in 1893. A 2013 Waitangi Tribunal report said the action of Crown forces on the East Coast from 1865 to 1869—the East Coast Wars and the start of Te Kooti's War—resulted in the deaths of proportionately more Māori than in any other district during the New Zealand wars. It condemned the "illegal imprisonment" on the Chatham Islands of a quarter of the East Coast region's adult male population and said the loss in war of an estimated 43 percent of the male population, many through acts of "lawless brutality", was a stain on New Zealand's history and character.〔(【引用サイトリンク】 publisher = Waitangi Tribunal )〕 ==Background to war== Te Kooti Arikirangi Te Turuki was born about 1832 into the Ngati Maru sub-tribe of the Māori people in Poverty Bay on the south shore of East Cape. By the age of 20 he had become known as one of a group of "bother boys" or "social bandits" who led protests over land rights in the Makaraka district near present-day Gisborne, seizing horses and cattle that were being grazed without agreement on Māori land and also plundering settlers' homes, often taking alcohol. The protests were part of a movement to recover occupied land and set up a "coalition" against the government. Despite his involvement in land politics, Te Kooti stayed clear of the Pai Mārire (Hauhau) religion when it spread to the East Coast in early 1865. He fought with ''kūpapa'' ("loyal") Māori and government troops against Pai Mārire men, women and children in the week-long siege of Waerenga-a-Hika in October 1865. Te Kooi claimed to have killed two Pai Mārire fighters in the battle, but was accused of being a spy and was arrested after the siege ended. He was released after an investigation, but five months later, on 3 March 1866, he was seized again—for reasons now unclear, but probably after accusations by prominent Māori and settlers he had antagonised—and shipped with several hundred Pai Mārire prisoners and their families to the Chatham Islands for internment without trial.〔 His repeated pleas to be told of what offence he had been accused of, and to be put on trial, were ignored. Prisoners were kept in poor conditions with minimal health care and forced to build roads and barracks and plough cultivations without the aid of animals. In April 1867, a year after their arrival, prisoners were told they would not be repatriated until East Coast land confiscations had been determined. By 1868 the mood of the exiles darkened as they realised there were no plans to return them to New Zealand. On 4 July 1868 Te Kooti led a carefully planned and executed breakout from their internment, overpowering guards, seizing arms and ammunition and commandeering a schooner, the ''Rifleman'', which was moored at the settlement of Waitangi. A total of 298 people—163 men, 64 women and 71 children—sailed out of the Chatham Islands, arriving at a secluded cove at Whareongaonga, south of Turanga (modern-day Gisborne), on 9 July. During his time of exile Te Kooti claimed he experienced a series of spiritual revelations that formed the basis of what became known as the Ringatū ("Raised hand") faith, which was strongly influenced by Old Testament prophecies of divine direction and deliverance from enemies. The apparently unerring fulfillment of Te Kooti's predictions won him the unwavering support of other ''whakarau'' (prisoners), and in a letter given to the crew of the ''Rifleman'' after arrival in New Zealand, he wrote that Jehovah had intervened to deliver his people from their captivity. The letter also asked that they be left in peace and not be pursued as they made their way to the interior of the North Island.〔 While in the Chathams Te Kooti also learned of the sale of disputed Poverty Bay land in which he held an interest. The transactions involved many of those, both Māori and European settler, whom he later killed in his Poverty Bay campaigns. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Te Kooti's War」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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