george grey

Governors and Governors-General

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  New Zealand has had 16 resident governors and 20 Governors-General. Two early governors were called governor-in-chief.

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• Page 1 - Governors and governors-generalNew Zealand has had 16 resident governors and 20 Governors-General. Two early governors were called

The Treaty in practice

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  Amalgamating Māori into colonial settler society was a key part of British policy in New Zealand after 1840. Economic and social change, along with land-purchase programmes, were central to this process.

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• Page 2 – Slide to war

  War raged in the North Island in the mid-19th century. The period from 1860, when conflict broke out in Taranaki, through to about 1872, is commonly called the New Zealand Wars

Treaty timeline

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  See some of the key events between 1800 and 1849 relating to the Treaty of Waitangi.

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• Page 1 - Treaty events 1800-49See some of the key events between 1800 and 1849 relating to the Treaty of Waitangi.

Māori King movement - 1860-94

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  King Tāwhiao's reign was dominated by the Waikato War and its fallout.

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• Page 2 - Build up to warLike his father, King Tāwhiao opposed the war in Taranaki. The government, however, remained unconvinced. In July 1860 Governor Gore Browne sought to isolate the Kīngitanga and

History of the Governor-General

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  New Zealand has had a governor or (from 1917) a Governor-General since 1840. The work of these men and women has reflected the constitutional and political history of New Zealand in many ways.

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• Page 4 - Responsible governmentIn the 1840s settlers were demanding a say in government. Governor Grey suspended an overly elaborate constitution in 1846, but the New Zealand Constitution Act 1852 gave male

War in Waikato

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  After fighting broke out again in Taranaki in early 1863, Governor George Grey turned his attention to the region he saw as the root of his problems with Māori: Waikato. This was the heartland of the anti-landselling King Movement (Kīngitanga). Grey vowed to ‘dig around’ the Kīngitanga until it fell.

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• Page 2 - Invasion plansGovernor Gore Browne demanded that the Kīngitanga submit ‘without reserve’ to the British Queen and began planning an invasion of Waikato shortly before his reassignment to

War in Tauranga

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  During the first half of 1864 the focus of the New Zealand Wars shifted from Waikato to Tauranga. In this phase of the conflict British forces suffered a catastrophic defeat at Pukehinahina – better known as the Gate pā – but later inflicted heavy losses on Māori forces at Te Ranga.

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• Page 4 - British soul searchingBritish soul-searching after the defeat at Gate Pā did not begin with an acknowledgement of the superior tactics and capability of their

The Northern War

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  The Northern War, fought in the Bay of Islands in 1845-46, was the first serious challenge to the Crown in the years after the Treaty of Waitangi. Its opening shots marked the beginning of the wider North Island conflicts that are often referred to as the New Zealand Wars.

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• Page 7 – Ruapekapeka

  Ruapekapeka may have been a tactical victory for the British, but many consider the outcome to have been a draw. Heke and Kawiti had escaped with their forces largely intact,

• Page 8 – Peace breaks out

  Historian James Belich contends that Grey won the propaganda war and Kawiti and Heke won the real war on the battlefield. Others argue that Belich's revisionism goes too far