Tītokowaru's War was a military conflict that took place in the South Taranaki region of New Zealand's North Island from June 1868 to March 1869 between the Ngāti Ruanui and Ngāruahine Māori tribes and the New Zealand Government. The conflict, near the conclusion of the New Zealand wars, was a revival of hostilities of the Second Taranaki War as Riwha Tītokowaru, chief of Ngāruahine, responded to the continued surveying and settlement of confiscated land with well-planned and effective attacks on settlers and government troops in an effort to block the occupation of Māori land.
The war, coinciding with a violent raid on a European settlement on the East Coast by fugitive guerrilla fighter Te Kooti, shattered what European colonists regarded as a new era of peace and prosperity, creating fears of a "general uprising of hostile Māoris", but once Tītokowaru was defeated and the East Coast threat minimised, the alienation of Māori land, as well as the political subjugation of Māori, continued at an even more rapid pace.
Tītokowaru, who had fought in the Second Taranaki War, was a skilful West Coast Māori warrior. Formerly a follower of Te Ua Haumēne, he was also a priest and prophet of his Pai Mārire political and religious movement. Although Tītokowaru's forces were numerically small and initially outnumbered in battle 12 to one by government troops,
Tītokowaru's apparent invincibility created a security crisis in 1868, with the government fearing attacks on Wanganui and Manawatū. Yet according to historian James Belich, his achievements were gradually watered down to the point where his name was erased from the most widely read New Zealand histories. Belich concluded: "As a result, the military crisis of which he was the principal architect—perhaps the greatest threat to European dominance in the history of New Zealand—has all but disappeared from the received version." On 9 June 1868, Ngāti Ruanui warriors escalated their campaign, shooting and tomahawking three settlers felling and sawing timber on the east side of the Waingongoro River, between Hāwera and Manaia. Soon after, a member of the Armed Constabulary, the colonial regular army, was shot and mutilated by tomahawk near the Waihi Redoubt (at present-day Normanby). The upper part of his body was taken by Hauhau warriors to Te Ngutu o Te Manu, a village 16 km north of Hāwera, where it was cooked and eaten. Tītokowaru issued a letter threatening that other pākehā intruders on the land would also be killed and eaten, warning: "I have begun to eat the flesh of the white man... My throat is continually open for the eating of human flesh by day and night." The hearts of two of the Constabulary soldiers were cut from their bodies by Māori warriors, prompting McDonnell to make the dramatic gesture of kissing the blade of his sword and vowing, "I shall have revenge for this."
Less than three weeks later, on 7 September 1868, McDonnell returned to the Ngāti Ruanui heartland, this time determined to skirt Te Ngutu o Te Manu and first strike at another village to the east, Ruaruru, before returning to Te Ngutu. The plan went awry when his column of 360 men became disoriented in the forest, missing Ruaruru and approaching Te Ngutu from the north. Shots fired at the occupants of outlying huts warned Tītokowaru of the direction of McDonnell's approach, giving the chief time to organise his defence. He remained in the pā with 20 men and sent the remaining 40, in small groups, to hidden rifle pits in bush surrounding a clearing that led to the palisade, and possibly other positions within the clearing itself. McDonnell's force, attempting to storm the palisade, came under immediate and very heavy fire from front, right and rear, with troops "being knocked over like ninepins" by unseen marksmen. McDonnell hesitated, torn between advancing with further losses or retreating, watching as the inexperienced volunteer recruits from the Wellington Rangers and Rifles either bunched together and froze or panicked and fled. One newspaper correspondent wrote: "Unless something is done and done quickly we had all better clear out." and withdraw to Pātea, which prompted colonists to leave their farms and redoubts and retreat to the safety of Wanganui. The abandoned colonist sites were quickly occupied by Ngāruahine warriors. The palisade, attached to 30 cm-thick posts, reached 5m above the ground, with a gap at its base to allow defenders in the trenches to fire beneath it. Inside the pā were trenches, covered walkways and shellproof underground shelters roofed with strong timbers, packed earth and galvanised roofing iron. At one corner was a 10m-high taumaihi,
Whitmore returned to Wanganui on 18 January 1869 and immediately began preparing for a major offensive against Tītokowaru. A week later he set off with 800 Armed Constabulary and Wanganui and Kai-Iwi Mounted Corps, as well as 200 kūpapa under Major Keepa, clinging to the coast to avoid the danger of bush ambushes. On 1 February he was at Nukumaru and the force dug itself in 100m away from the stockade. Two Armstrong guns were brought up on 2 February and used to shell the pā, causing little damage and no casualties. Whitmore suffered several casualties from a rearguard defence near the Waitōtara River, but caught up with them on 13 March at Otautu, north of Pātea, when six colonial soldiers were killed and 12 wounded in an attempted assault on the Māori camp. The Government abandoned attempts to pursue him further and apart from mopping-up actions to capture his former allies in South Taranaki, the war had come to an end.