Wars Without End: New Zealand’s Land Wars – A Maori Perspective

by Danny Keenan

From the earliest days of European settlement in New Zealand, Maori have struggled to hold on to their land.Tensions began early, arising from disputed land sales. When open conflict between Maori and Imperial forces broke out in the 1840s and 1860s, the struggles only intensified. For both sides, land was at the heart of the conflict, one that casts a long shadow over race relations in modern-day New Zealand.Wars Without End is the first book to approach this contentious subject from a Maori point of view, focusing on the Maori resolve to maintain possession of customary lands and explaining the subtleties of an ongoing and complex conflict. Written by senior Maori historian Danny Keenan, Wars Without End eloquently and powerfully describes the Maori reasons for fighting the Land Wars, placing them in the wider context of the Maori struggle to retain their sovereign estates.The Land Wars might have been quickly forgotten by Pakeha, but for Maori these longstanding struggles are wars without end.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Military History, War, Cultural

312 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2009

Reviews

[Amie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wars Without End is an unflinching dive into Aotearoa’s 19th-century land wars, told squarely from the tangata whenua side of the story. From the dodgy post-Treaty land deals of the 1840s through to the brutal campaigns in Waikato and Taranaki, Keenan traces how simmering tensions exploded into raids, sieges, and scorched-earth confiscations. He’s clear that for Māori, these weren’t tidy “wars” with neat endings - they were part of an ongoing whakapapa of loss, resistance, and unfinished business that still echoes today.

I expected something dry and academic, but Keenan’s writing is crisp and full of purpose. He brings Māori perspectives to the front - chiefs like Te Whiti o Rongomai, but also ordinary whānau defending their whenua against invasion. The irony of “civilising” missions that mostly meant stealing the best paddocks isn’t lost on him, and he doesn’t flinch from the cost: families uprooted, marae seized, communities shattered. As a Pākehā reader, it felt like finally seeing the other half of the photo - uncomfortable, yes, but necessary.

Dense in places but never dull, it’s a vital, sharp-eyed read that reframes New Zealand’s past and its ongoing debates about co-governance and Treaty justice. Keenan doesn’t just recount the wars - he makes you feel the weight of the whenua and the strength of those who refused to let it go.

[Kate · Rating 3 out of 5]

I chose to read this because I am woefully ignorant of my own countries past. Recent forays into have meant I am ready for a book such as this. Listening to the narrator’s voice was educational even before the content he was reading was settling for me. Correct pronunciation of people’s names and where they were from so important for me to hear. A few times I was doh, you have had that all wrong.

There was a lot to take in as far as names and dates were concerned and I found the chapters often jumped around in time which took a bit to get used to. Once I did there was so much learning and I can honestly say I have a greater understanding of how things become complicated and significantly more nuanced than I had previously appreciated. I am now clearer in the role the crown played as well as why the Kingitanga movement began and why it’s so important today.

I have a number of key takeaways that once I heard them I wondered where my head had been at prior to listening to this illuminating book. The fact that tribe, iwi and hapu were never a “whole” connected “people” rather established communities living communally was so helpful to understand today’s situation. The Māori land court is not as neutral or Māori centric as I had assumed. I am of course somewhat outraged at the enormity of the colonial dominance and preference for itself yet heartened that there were many who were humanists within it. There were no surprises that there was significant greed from some individuals who were criminal in their intent and morality and they were not bought to justice.

I found some of the Taranaki centric discussions hard to interpret hence the three stars however very pleased to have read this.

[Leo · Rating 3 out of 5]

TW: colonisation, death, murder, war, racism

The message and facts were so important and very much needed. A 10/10.

However, I found it was difficult to follow with it's constant jumping between dates, people/iwi, years, and wars. It felt like a textbook but without the helpful formating of a textbook to help you try to navigate chronological events as well as topics.

[Chris · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a well written and interesting history of New Zealand’s land wars, from a Maori perspective. One that is long over due.

[David Watson · Rating 5 out of 5]

A history of the 19th century Land Wars in New Zealand from a Maori perspective - and a brilliant interpretation that builds well on the work of Cowan, Sinclair, Belich and others who have also charted these wars. And wars with an 's' they were - to compare them with more outrightly binary wars such as the American Civil War, English Civil War, Spanish Civil War and the two World Wars is misleading. While various conflicts between Maori and the Government, aided by British troops, erupted in different parts of the fledgling new state at the ends of the Earth first in the 1840s then again in the 1860s, there was never a total war engulfing the whole nation. Nonetheless, these were serious conflicts with repercussions that remain right to the present day. Keenan lays out the conflicts, their causes and their complexities well. While Maori were dispossessed of lands both by outright war and later, legislated confiscation and the machinations of the Maori Land Court, Keenan always lays this out in a rational way, never descending into victimhood; and he acknowledges that in pre-colonial times inter-Maori warfare could be savage. Of course that doesn't mean the wrongs of the 1860s wars shouldn't be addressed. I am just grateful as a New Zealander that they have been, since the 1970s by the Waitangi Tribunal and Governments both liberal and conservative. One quibble: While I understand Keenan's thesis that Maori effectively lost the Land Wars with the defeat of the King Movement in 1864 I think he understates the significance of Titkokowaru's war in South Taranaki in the late 1860s. A truly New Zealand War, fought between Maori and settler militia without the assistance of British troops as the earlier conflicts were, it could have turned out differently had Titokowaru and his followers not abandoned the Tauranga Ika pa in early 1869 and retreated inland. James Belich, who wrote a whole book on Titokowaru's War, would surely also disagree with Keenan here too.

[Chris · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very good book and easy to read.