Page "Parihaka" Paragraph 3

As fears grew among white settlers that the resistance campaign was a prelude to renewed armed conflict, the Hall Government began planning an armed invasion of Parihaka to close it down.

Pressured by Native Minister John Bryce, the government finally acted in late October 1881 while the sympathetic Governor was out of the country and stormed the village with almost 1600 troops at dawn on 5 November 1881.

Instead of violence, the soldiers were greeted with hundreds of skipping and singing children offering them food.

Te Whiti and Tohu were arrested and jailed for 16 months, 1600 Parihaka inhabitants were expelled and dispersed throughout Taranaki without food or shelter and the remaining 600 residents were issued with government passes to control their movement.

Soldiers looted and destroyed most of the buildings at Parihaka.

Some reserves that had been promised by a commission of inquiry into land confiscations were later seized and sold to cover the cost of crushing the Māori resistance, while others were leased to European settlers, shutting Māori out of involvement in the decisions over land use.