Matthew Wright " Potato Wars"

The fighting that swept New Zealand during the early nineteenth century is usually, if inaccurately, called the 'Musket Wars' - a period moniker that stands in defiance of the military point that muskets were not key weapons until the last third of the period. The more crucial European product was the potato, which, as has been argued, effectively fuelled the conflict.` This helped translate the wars to a stunning scale, dwarfing the New Zealand Wars that followed. There were over 500 engagements. Taua thundered from one end of New Zealand to the other. Up to 40,000 Maori were dislocated, either through enslavement or migration," nearly half the estimated total population of the late eighteenth century. To this can be added casualties of perhaps 20,000 - spread over the period, but still about 19 or 20 percent of the estimated population.

Potatoes were introduced to Nga Puhi in 1794, becoming a key staple with better food value for weight than kumara, easier to cultivate and store, and - unlike kumara - tillable by slaves and women. The result was a logistical revolution; potatoes effectively fuelled the long range taua that made the 'Musket Wars' so different from any fighting that had gone before. Slaves brought back from these massive raids were put to work tending potato patches, freeing up labour to create even larger taua.By the 1830s, European blankets, foodstuffs and consumer goods were well distributed through Maori society. By this time most toa had a flintlock musket ngutu parera` - sometimes Tower flintlocks, more often the cheap Birmingham built 'trade muskets' sold by unscrupulous merchants in spite of missionary protests.` Others had the more lethal tupara, the double-barrelled shotgun.

Matthew Wright 'Two Peoples, One Land'