The population of the village grew to more than 2,000, attracting Māori who had been dispossessed of their land by confiscations[1] and impressing European visitors with its cleanliness and industry, and its extensive cultivations producing cash crops as well as food sufficient to feed its inhabitants.

When an influx of European settlers in Taranaki created a demand for farmland that outstripped the availability, the Grey government stepped up efforts to secure title to land it had confiscated but subsequently not taken up for settlement.

Te Whiti and Tohu were arrested and jailed for 16 months, 1,600 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.

Large meetings were held monthly, where Te Whiti warned of increasing levels of bribery and corruption to coerce Māori to sell their land, yet European visitors continued to be welcomed with dignity, courtesy and hospitality.

It had its own police force, bakery and bank, used advanced agricultural machinery, and organised large teams who worked the coast and bush to harvest enough seafood and game to feed the thousands who came to the meetings.

[9] In June 1868 hostilities resumed in Taranaki as a Ngāti Ruanui chief, Riwha Tītokowaru, launched a series of effective raids on settlers and government troops in an effort to block the occupation of Māori land.

Te Whiti's announcement at the meeting was reported to Premier Edward Stafford by Taranaki Land Purchase Officer Robert Reid Parris, who described him as "this young chief whose influence was strong in the province and with Tawhiao".

[17] In June Premier Sir George Grey and Native Minister John Sheehan held a big meeting at Waitara to dispense "gifts" including tinned fruits and jam, alcohol, clothing and perfume to Taranaki chiefs willing to sell.

Neither Te Whiti nor Tawhiao attended, so Sheehan visited Parihaka and then the Waimate Plains, where he appeared to have persuaded Tītokowaru to permit land to be surveyed on the proviso that burial places, cultivations and fishing grounds would be respected and that fenced reserves would be created.

[18] Hectored by the settler press, which claimed extra farmland was needed and that "these lands should no longer be retained by turbulent, semi-barbarous people, too idle to put them to any use",[19] the Government on 26 March began advertising the sale of the first 16,000 acres (65 km2) of the Waimate Plains.

Magistrates in Patea County advised Grey that Māori had 10 days to stop "molesting property" or they would be "shot down", while MP Major Harry Atkinson encouraged farmers to enrol as volunteers and militia soldiers.

[31] The Grey government was on the point of collapse following a series of no-confidence motions, but to provide a legal backing for its move rushed the Maori Prisoners' Trial Bill through both Houses on the final day of its session in office, Whitmore justifying the haste by claiming the "actual safety of the country and of the lives and property of its loyal subjects" was at stake.

The Act provided for an "inquiry into alleged grievances of Aboriginal Natives in relation to certain lands taken by the Crown"—the confiscated territory in Taranaki—and it also enabled the Governor to postpone the trials of the Māori prisoners, who had been scheduled to appear at the Supreme Court in Wellington in late December.

[2][9] Historian Dick Scott has claimed Fox, who had already expressed in writing his wish that the Waimate Plains be sold and settled, was appointed chairman of the commission on the proviso that he support the government's land policies in the area and secure central Taranaki for white settlement.

In one incident 300 fencers arrived at the roadline near Pungarehu, dug up the road, sowed it in wheat and constructed a fence, with a newspaper reporting: "They looked like an immense swarm of bees or an army of locusts, moving with a steady and uninterrupted movement across the face of the earth.

"[42][43] By September about 150 fencers had been detained and sent to South Island jails[43] and the adult male ranks at Parihaka were so depleted, the constabulary were often manhandling young boys and old men, whose fences were often only symbolic, consisting of sticks and branches.

[44] When a group of 59 Māori appeared in the District Court in New Plymouth on 23 September for trial on charges of having unlawfully obstructed the free passage of a thoroughfare, a jury of 12 settlers deliberated for 45 minutes before returning to say they could not agree on a verdict.

The bloody clashes between armed soldiers and unarmed Māori building fences on their own land, as well as the increasing numbers of deaths in custody in the freezing South Island jails, were already attracting the attention of the British House of Commons and newspapers in Europe.

Gordon was more sympathetic to the Māori[9] and had already been dismissed as a "gospel-grinding nigger lover" by retired Native Land Court judge Frederick Maning and a man of "wild democratic theories" by Premier Hall.

Bryce's replacement as Native Minister, Canterbury farmer William Rolleston, secured two votes worth a total of £184,000 for contingency defence against Taranaki Māori and the government significantly boosted the number of Armed Constabulary on the west coast.

At 8pm on 19 October, two hours before the Governor returned to Wellington, however, Hall convened an emergency meeting of his Executive Council and Prendergast issued a proclamation berating Te Whiti and his people for their "threatening attitude", their rebellious speech and their resistance of the armed constabulary.

It gave them 14 days to accept the "large and ample" reserves on the conditions attached to them by the government and willingly submit to the law of the Queen or the lands would forever pass away from them and they alone would be responsible for this and "for the great evil which must fall on them."

Colonel William Bazire Messenger, who had been called from his Pungarehu farm to command a detachment of 120 Armed Constabulary for the invasion, later recalled: Their attitude of passive resistance and patient obedience to Te Whiti's orders was extraordinary.

When his demand was met with silence, he ordered the Riot Act to be read, warning that "persons unlawfully, riotously, and tumultuously assembled together, to the disturbance of the public peace"[57] had one hour to disperse or receive a jail sentence of hard labour for life.

Bryce then ordered the arrest of Te Whiti, Tohu and Hiroki, a Waikato Māori who had sought refuge at Parihaka after killing a cook travelling with a survey party in south Taranaki in late 1878.

They were finally released in March 1883—a month after a general amnesty was proclaimed for all Māori[67]—and returned to Parihaka, still under threat of arrest under the powers of the West Coast Peace Preservation Act, renewed in August 1883.

In August 1884 Te Whiti and Tohu began a new campaign to publicise the loss of their land, embarking on large protest marches across Taranaki, as far south as Patea and north to White Cliffs.

In 1895 Parihaka received a state visit by the Minister for Labour, William Pember Reeves and, two months later, Premier Richard Seddon, who engaged in a tense exchange with Te Whiti over past injustices.

Seddon, speaking to Patea settlers days later, boasted over the increased rate of land acquisition by the Government and told them Parihaka had encouraged Māori to lead "lazy and dissolute" lives.

[72] A sardonic "song-play" about Māori land issues including Parihaka, Songs for the Judges, with words by Mervyn Thompson and music by William Dart, was performed in Auckland in February 1980 and toured in 1981.