The Armed Constabulary Field Force remained in existence until 1885, and that year saw also the end of the occupation of redoubts on the frontier. Officered by a splendid set of frontier soldiers the Force had been the mainstay of the colony's defences during the dark years of the last war. Its semi-civil foundation did not prevent it carrying through regular campaigns with success in wild, almost impregnable country. The North-west Mounted Police of Canada is perhaps the frontier body which in organization most nearly resembles our Field Force of 1868–85, but the New Zealand Armed Constabulary had infinitely more fighting. For a long time after the close of our wars the Constabulary were engaged in patrol and garrison duty on the borders of the pakeha-settled country. This generation perhaps scarcely realizes the conditions in many farming districts in the North Island up to the beginning of the “eighties.” Hauhau incursions were still threatened, and a chain of redoubts and block-houses, each manned by a detachment of blue-uniformed Armed Constabulary, guarded the pale between settlers and Kingites in the Upper Waikato. These little forts were meant for business, and, though they were never attacked, they frequently sheltered the wives and children of settlers at night up to the year 1873. The blockhouses were modelled on those built by the backwoods settlers in America for defence against the Indians; they were of two storeys, the upper storey projecting about 

3 feet over the lower one all round. The redoubts were substantial works, with deep trench and tall earth parapets enclosing the barrack-rooms. Far in the back country the traveller or the land-seeker of those days would see a tall flagstaff flying the British ensign in front of some little manuka-palisaded blockhouse or ditched and ramparted redoubt, the sign that the pakeha law kept an armed watch on the still glowering natives. The farthest south blockhouse on the Waikato frontier was that at Orakau, overlooking the farmsteads of one or two pioneer settlers. One of the most important strategic posts of those times, up to the early “eighties,” was Taupo, on the shore of the great central lake, and there were stockades and redoubts on the Taupo-Napier Road and on either side of the Urewera Country, garrisoned by men who were none the less smart soldiers because they spent much of their time in cutting roads for the settlers and bridging rivers and helping to lay telegraph-lines. The palmy days of the Armed Constabulary perhaps were those of the later field operations in Taranaki. The Waimate Plains were alive with war preparations in 1879–81, and many a New Zealander then obtained his first experience of military life under campaigning conditions. A little later came the settled conditions that led to the general disbandment of a force which served New Zealand very well in its time and generation for well-nigh a score of years. Some of the Armed Constabulary were drafted to Auckland, Wellington, and Lyttelton, to help in building the forts for harbour defence under the scheme initiated by Sir William Jervois, and many went into the civilian Police Force.

The Maori King movement, called the Kingitanga in Maori, is a Maori movement that arose among some of the Maori iwi (tribes) of New Zealand in the central North Island in the 1850s, to establish a role similar in status to that of the monarch of the British colonists, as a way of halting the alienation of Maori land. The first Maori king, Potatau Te Wherowhero, was crowned in 1858. The monarchy is non-hereditary in principle, although every monarch since Potatau Te Wherowhero has been a child of the previous monarch. The movement arose among a group of central North Island iwi in the 1850s as a means of attaining Maori unity to halt the alienation of land at a time of rapid population growth by European colonists. The movement sought to establish a monarch who could claim status similar to that of Queen Victoria and thus provide a way for Maori to deal 

with Pakeha (Europeans) on equal footing. It took on the appearance of an alternative government with its own flag, newspaper, bank, councillors, magistrates and law enforcement. It was viewed by the colonial government as a challenge to the supremacy of the British monarchy, leading in turn to the 1863 invasion of the Waikato, which was partly motivated by a drive to neutralise the Kingitanga's power and influence. Following their defeat at Orakau in 1864, Kingitanga forces withdrew into the Ngati Maniapoto tribal region of the North Island that became known as the King Country. From the early 1850s, North Island Maori came under increasing pressure to satisfy the demand of European settler farmers for arable land. While Maori cultivated small areas, relying on extensive forests for berry, birds and roots, settlers expanded their production capacity by burning forest and fern and planting grass seed in the ashes. Some influential chiefs including Te Rauparaha opposed land sales in the 1840s (culminating in the 1843 Wairau Affray), and the view became more widespread in the following decade, when the Pakeha (European) population grew to outnumber Maori and the colonial government's Native Land Purchase Department adopted unscrupulous methods to take ownership, which included offers to chiefs or small groups of owners. Deals with individual Maori or groups that did not represent majority interests also dragged Maori into disputes with one another. As the white frontier encroached further on their land, many became concerned that their land, and race, would soon be overrun. Around 1853 Maori revived the ancient tribal runanga or chiefly war councils where land issues were raised and in May 1854 a large meeting—attracting as many as 2000 Maori leaders—was held at Manawapou in south Taranaki where speakers urged concerted opposition to selling land.  The meetings provided an important forum for Te Rauparaha's son, Christian convert Tamihana Te Rauparaha, who in 1851 had visited England where he was presented to Queen Victoria. Tamihana Te Rauparaha had returned to New Zealand with the idea of forming a Maori kingdom, with one king ruling over all iwi (tribes), and used the runanga to secure the agreement of influential North Island chiefs to his idea. The kotahitanga or unity movement was aimed at bringing to Maori the unity that was an obvious strength among the Europeans. It was believed that by having a monarch who could claim status similar to that of Queen Victoria, Maori would be able to deal with Pakeha on equal footing. It was also intended to establish a system of law and order in Maori communities to which the Auckland government had so far shown little interest.

Awards: Sash of the Order of Merit.