Remembering the New Zealand Wars, University of Auckland, 28 October 2025
Rā Maumahara, the National Day of Commemoration for the New Zealand Wars, is marked every year on 28 October. University of Auckland historian Dr Rowan Light believes it’s an important chance to acknowledge and learn these histories.
About 3000 people were killed across all campaigns in the New Zealand Wars (1845-1872), around 75 percent of them Māori, a heavy loss from a total Māori population of about 60,000 at the time.
Rā Maumahara, the National Day of Commemoration for the New Zealand Wars, marked every year on 28 October, is a chance to acknowledge and learn these histories as citizens,” says Dr Rowan Light, a University of Auckland historian who specialises in how we remember and memorialise wars.