With the end of the land wars and the arrival of the railway the Waikato prospered, until a banking crisis in distant Europe introduced the colony to its first financial depression.
By 1972, with Te Kooti finally under the virtual protective custody of Ngati Maniapoto and the last echoes of the disastrous land wars fading away, Pakeha settlement of Waikato began to take on an air of permanence. Englishstyle social, religious and political institutions were established and the settlers worked hard at replicating a European community in the remote, and often inhospitable environment. It was brutally hard, particularly for women and children, who went without many of the things considered essential for a civilised existence.
For the seminomadic and independent Maori, who had developed a system of moving between bird-hunting grounds, fishing streams and coastal harbours, as dictated by the seasons for a largely hunter-gatherer society, life was tough enough.
For Europeans, traditionally bound to the concept of a permanent home and dependent on growing most of their vegetables and with a range of artisans and services provided by others in the community, survival was as near to impossible as it could be. Adaptation of the Maori lifestyle and its systems of food gathering and preparation was slow for some and never fully achieved by others. In addition, and in spite of the resolve of many immigrants, the age-old British class system had followed them to New Zealand, creating further problems and inequalities.
Men who had served as officers in the colonial militia, apparently drawn from