New Zealand’s First War: Or, the Rebellion of Hone Heke

Thomas Lindsay Buick (1865-1938) became interested in New Zealand history while working as a political journalist in Wellington, and became an influential figure in the field. He wrote twelve books and numerous pamphlets on the early history of the country and was elected Fellow of the Royal Historical Society in 1914. This book, first published in Wellington in 1926, describes one of the most significant conflicts in nineteenth-century New Zealand, the Flagstaff War (1845-6), in which European settlers and their Maori supporters fought those Maori who were resisting colonial encroachment. A key figure during the war was the Nga Puhi chief Hone Heke, from the Bay of Islands, who famously refused to acknowledge British sovereignty and repeatedly felled the British flagpole in Kororareka. Buick’s account probes the complex relationships among the warring factions, describes the individual phases of the war, and explains how peace was eventually restored.