Flagstaff Hill, New Zealand - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Flagstaff Hill overlooks the Bay of Islands

Bay of Islands

The Bay of Islands is an area in the Northland Region of the North Island of New Zealand. Located 60 km north-west of Whangarei, it is close to the northern tip of the country....

, New Zealand

New Zealand

New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...

. Directly north of the small historical village of Russell

Russell, New Zealand

Russell, formerly known as Kororareka, was the first permanent European settlement and sea port in New Zealand. It is situated in the Bay of Islands, in the far north of the North Island. As at the 2006 census it had a resident population of 816, an increase of 12 from 2001...

, the flagstaff on the hill played a significant role in early relations between the local Māori of 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...

iwi

Iwi

In New Zealand society, iwi form the largest everyday social units in Māori culture. The word iwi means "'peoples' or 'nations'. In "the work of European writers which treat iwi and hapū as parts of a hierarchical structure", it has been used to mean "tribe" , or confederation of tribes,...

and early British colonials

Pakeha

Pākehā is a Māori language word for New Zealanders who are "of European descent". They are mostly descended from British and to a lesser extent Irish settlers of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, although some Pākehā have Dutch, Scandinavian, German, Yugoslav or other ancestry...

History

After 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....

was signed in February 1840 at Waitangi

Waitangi, Northland

For the main port and settlement at the Chatham Islands, see Waitangi, Chatham IslandsWaitangi is a township located in the Bay of Islands on the North Island of New Zealand. It is located close to the town of Paihia , 60 kilometres north of Whangarei...

, across the bay, relations between the Ngāpuhi

Ngapuhi

and pākehā

Pakeha

(used by the Ngāpuhi

Ngapuhi

to mean British European) began to deteriorate. Hone Heke

Hone Heke

Hone Wiremu Heke Pokai was a Māori rangatira and war leader in Northern New Zealand and a nephew of Hongi Hika, an earlier war leader of the Ngāpuhi iwi. Hone Heke is considered the principal instigator of the Flagstaff War....

, a local Māori chief, identified the flagstaff flying the Union Jack above the bay at Kororareka, as the symbolic representation of the loss of control by the Ngāpuhi

Ngapuhi

in the years following the signing of the Treaty. There are a number of causes of Heke's anger, such the fact that the capital of New Zealand had been moved from Okiato

Okiato

Okiato or Old Russell is a small holiday spot in the Bay of Islands, New Zealand, seven km south of present-day Russell. It was New Zealand's first national capital, for a short time from 1840 to 1841, before the seat of government was moved to Auckland...

(Old Russell) to Auckland

Auckland

The Auckland metropolitan area , in the North Island of New Zealand, is the largest and most populous urban area in the country with residents, percent of the country's population. Auckland also has the largest Polynesian population of any city in the world...

in 1841, and the colonial government had imposed customs duties on ships entering the Bay of Islands, these and other actions of the colonial government were viewed by Heke as reducing the trade between the Ngāpuhi

Ngapuhi

with the foreigners. Traders in the Bay of Island also ferment trouble by saying that flag-staff, flying the Queen's flag; showed that the country [whenua] was gone to the Queen, and that the Ngāpuhi

Ngapuhi

were no longer their own masters, but slaves to Queen Victoria.

The flagstaff was cut down for the first time on 8 July 1844, by Te Haratua, an ally of Hone Heke

Hone Heke

. Heke had set out to cut down the flagstaff but had been persuaded by Archdeacon William Williams

William Williams (bishop)

William Williams was the first Anglican Bishop of Waiapu and the father and grandfather of two others. He led the CMS missionaries in the translation of the Bible into Māori and he published an early dictionary and grammar of the Māori language.-Early life:Williams was born in Nottingham to Thomas...

not to do so. The flagstaff was replaced and troops sent to guard the flagstaff. On 10 January 1845 the flagstaff was cut down a second time, on this occasion by Hone Heke

Hone Heke

. On the 18th January 1845, a flagstaff sheathed in iron was erected. The next morning the flagstaff was cut down again by Hone Heke

Hone Heke

. The next attack on the flagstaff by Hone Heke

Hone Heke

was a much more serious incident, Hone Heke

Hone Heke

's warriors attacked the guard post, killing all the defenders and Heke cut down the flagstaff for the fourth time. At the same time, possibly as a diversion, Te Ruki Kawiti and his men attacked the town of Kororareka. This was the beginning of what would be called the 'Flagstaff War

Flagstaff War

The Flagstaff War – also known as Hone Heke's Rebellion, the Northern War and erroneously as the First Māori War – was fought between 11 March 1845 and 11 January 1846 in and around the Bay of Islands, New Zealand...

' or the 'Northern War'. In 1846 Hone Heke

Hone Heke

and Te Ruki Kawiti agreed peace terms with the government. The British colonial government did not re-erect the flagstaff again, fearing to provoke further conflict.

The flagstaff that now stands at Kororareka was erected in January 1858 at the direction of Kawiti's son Maihi Paraone Kawiti; with the flag being named Whakakotahitanga, “being at one with the Queen.” As a further symbolic act the 400 Ngāpuhi

Ngapuhi

warriors involved in preparing and erecting the flagstaff were selected from the ‘rebel’ forces of Kawiti and Heke – that is, Ngāpuhi

Ngapuhi

from the hapu

Hapu

A hapū is sometimes described as "the basic political unit within Maori society".A named division of a Māori iwi , membership is determined by genealogical descent; a hapū is made up of a number of whānau groups. Generally hapū range in size from 150-200 although there is no upper limit...

of 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:...

(who had fought as allies of the British forces during the Flagstaff War

Flagstaff War

), observed, but did not participate in the erection of the fifth flagpole. The restoration of the flagpole was presented by Maihi Paraone Kawiti was a voluntary act on the part of the Ngāpuhi

Ngapuhi

that had cut it down in 1845, and they would not allow any other to render any assistance in this work. The continuing symbolism of the fifth flagstaff at Kororareka is that it exists because of the goodwill of the Ngāpuhi

Ngapuhi

Tourism

The hill is a favoured destination for many of the tourists coming to Russell, with walking tracks leading up the hill, which provides sweeping views over the bay. The bush around the hill is also Kiwi

Kiwi

Kiwi are flightless birds endemic to New Zealand, in the genus Apteryx and family Apterygidae.At around the size of a domestic chicken, kiwi are by far the smallest living ratites and lay the largest egg in relation to their body size of any species of bird in the world...

territory, though the birds are too shy to be seen by passing wanderers.

External links

Flagstaff Hill Track (from the New Zealand Department of Conservation
New Zealand Department of Conservation
The Department of Conservation , commonly known by its acronym, "DOC", is the state sector organisation which deals with the conservation of New Zealand’s natural and historic heritage...

website)

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