Charles Philippe Hippolyte de Thierry (1793 – 8 July 1864) was a nineteenth century adventurer who attempted to establish his own sovereign state in New Zealand in the years before British annexation.

Biography

De Thierry was from a French family that had fled to England following the revolution. He claims to have been born in 1793 while his parents were fleeing, probably in Grave in the Netherlands

Netherlands

The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...

. Upon reaching England, his father Charles Antoine de Thierry, claimed the title of Baron.

De Thierry was enrolled at Magdalen College, Oxford

Magdalen College, Oxford

Magdalen College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England. As of 2006 the college had an estimated financial endowment of £153 million. Magdalen is currently top of the Norrington Table after over half of its 2010 finalists received first-class degrees, a record...

 and claimed to have transferred to a college of the University of Cambridge

University of Cambridge

The University of Cambridge is a public research university located in Cambridge, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest university in both the United Kingdom and the English-speaking world , and the seventh-oldest globally...

 Cambridge. There, he met Hongi Hika

Hongi Hika

Hongi Hika was a New Zealand Māori rangatira and war leader of the Ngāpuhi iwi . Hongi Hika used European weapons to overrun much of northern New Zealand in the first of the Musket Wars...

, the Ngāpuhi

Ngapuhi

Ngāpuhi is a Māori iwi located in the Northland region of New Zealand, and centred in the Hokianga, the Bay of Islands and Whāngārei.Ngāpuhi has the largest affiliation of any New Zealand iwi, with 122,214 people registered , and formed from 150 hapu, with 55 marae.-Foundations:The founding...

 chief who was visiting England, and the missionary Thomas Kendall

Thomas Kendall

Thomas Kendall was a New Zealand lapsed missionary, recorder of the Māori language, schoolmaster, arms dealer, and Pākehā Māori.-Early life: Lincolnshire and London, 1778-1813:...

. De Thierry subsequently arranged a purchase of 40,000 acres at Hokianga

Hokianga

Hokianga is an area surrounding the Hokianga Harbour, also known as The Hokianga River, a long estuarine drowned valley on the west coast in the north of the North Island of New Zealand....

, in Northland, through Kendall.

After travels in North America

North America

North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...

 and the Caribbean

Caribbean

The Caribbean is a crescent-shaped group of islands more than 2,000 miles long separating the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea, to the west and south, from the Atlantic Ocean, to the east and north...

, de Thierry came to the Pacific in 1835. In the Marquesas Islands

Marquesas Islands

The Marquesas Islands enana and Te Fenua `Enata , both meaning "The Land of Men") are a group of volcanic islands in French Polynesia, an overseas collectivity of France in the southern Pacific Ocean. The Marquesas are located at 9° 00S, 139° 30W...

, he announced himself King of Nuku Hiva

Nuku Hiva

Nuku Hiva is the largest of the Marquesas Islands in French Polynesia, an overseas territory of France in the Pacific Ocean. It was formerly also known as Île Marchand and Madison Island....

.

By 1837, de Thierry had reached Sydney

Sydney

Sydney is the most populous city in Australia and the state capital of New South Wales. Sydney is located on Australia's south-east coast of the Tasman Sea. As of June 2010, the greater metropolitan area had an approximate population of 4.6 million people...

, where he recruited some colonists to join him in his New Zealand possessions. Arriving at Hokianga, the local Maori rangatira

Rangatira

Rangatira are the hereditary Māori leaders of hapū, and were described by ethnologists such as Elsdon Best as chieftains . Ideally, rangatira were people of great practical wisdom who held authority on behalf of the tribe and maintained boundaries between a tribe's land and that of other tribes...

 (chiefs) Tāmati Wāka Nene

Tamati Waka Nene

Tāmati Wāka Nene was a Māori rangatira who fought as an ally of the British in the Flagstaff War.-Origin and mana:...

 and Eruera Maihi Patuone

Eruera Maihi Patuone

Eruera Maihi Patuone , was a Māori rangatira, the son of the Ngati Hao chief Tapua and his wife Te Kawehau. His exact birth year is not know, but it is estimated that he was at least 108 years old when he died....

 rejected his claims, but he was allowed to settle. His settlement was a failure. De Thierry continued to agitate for a French colony led by himself, but this activity was curtailed by the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi

Treaty of Waitangi

The Treaty of Waitangi is a treaty first signed on 6 February 1840 by representatives of the British Crown and various Māori chiefs from the North Island of New Zealand....

in 1840.

De Thierry subsequently moved to Auckland, where he survived as a piano teacher until his sudden death on 8 July 1864.