The New Zealand Wars | The War Britain Lost:1

The New Zealand Wars were a series of armed conflicts that took place in New Zealand from 1845 to 1872 between the New Zealand government and indigenous Māori. Up until the 1960s Europeans referred to them as the Māori wars, and historian James Belich was one of the first to refer to them as the “New Zealand wars“ in his 1987 book The New Zealand wars and the Victorian interpretation of racial conflict. Though the wars were initially localised conflicts triggered by tensions over disputed land purchases, they escalated dramatically from 1860 as the government became convinced it was facing a united Māori resistance to further land sales and a refusal to acknowledge Crown sovereignty. The colonial government summoned thousands of British troops to mount major campaigns to overpower the Māori King Movement and also acquire farming and residential land for British settlers. Later campaigns were aimed at quashing the so-called Hauhau movement, an extremist part of the Pai Mari