Te Tiriti o Waitangi and Early New Zealand History

Vocabulary practice flashcards covering Māori society, early European contact, the Musket Wars, the Declaration of Independence, Te Tiriti o Waitangi, the Northern War, Kīngitanga, and the New Zealand Wars.

Iwi

A Māori tribe; the largest political unit in traditional Māori society.

Hapū

A sub-tribe or clan; a primary political and economic division of an iwi.

Whānau

Extended family in Māori society.

Tikanga

Customs, traditional values, and customary practices governing Māori behavior and society.

Mana

Authority, spiritual power, prestige, or status.

Tapu

Sacred, set apart, or under religious restriction.

Utu

Reciprocity, maintaining balance in relationships, or the seeking of revenge.

Rangatira

A Māori chief or leader.

Tohunga

An expert or priest skilled in spiritual rituals or practical knowledge.

Pākehā

A term used by Māori to refer to non-Māori people, particularly those of European descent.

Abel Tasman

A Dutch seafarer from Lutjegast in the service of the Dutch East India Company who became the first European officially recognized to reach New Zealand in 1642.

Moordenaers Bay

'Murderers' Bay' (now Golden Bay), named by Abel Tasman following a violent 19 December 1642 encounter between his men and local Ngāti Tūmatakōkiri that left four Dutch sailors dead.

James Cook

British navigator, cartographer, and captain who arrived in 1769 and completed three voyages accurately charting the coastline and outline of New Zealand.

Musket Wars

A series of intertribal conflicts between 1807 and 1845 escalated by the acquisition of European muskets, causing an estimated 20,000 deaths and massive population displacement.

Hongi Hika

Influential Ngāpuhi rangatira who acquired muskets through European trade and travel to England, leading large-scale military campaigns across the North Island in the 1820s.

Battle of Moremonui

The opening battle of the Musket Wars fought in 1807 or 1808, where Ngāti Whātua, armed only with traditional weapons, defeated musket-armed Ngāpuhi.

Battle of Te Ika-a-ranganui

An 1826 battle where Hongi Hika defeated Ngāti Whātua, devastating the Auckland isthmus and causing survivors to take refuge in the Waikato.

Āpihai Te Kawau

Ngāti Whātua chief of Tāmaki Makaurau who signed Te Tiriti o Waitangi in 1840 and invited Governor William Hobson to establish the colonial capital at Auckland.

James Busby

The first official British Resident in New Zealand, appointed in 1833 to mediate settler-Māori affairs, who coordinated the 1834 flag selection and drafted the 1835 Declaration of Independence.

Flag of the United Tribes

A flag selected by northern chiefs at Waitangi in 1834, recognized by the British Crown to give New Zealand-built trading ships legal protection and status under international law.

He Whakaputanga

The Declaration of Independence of the United Tribes of New Zealand, signed by 34 northern chiefs in 1835 asserting their sovereign authority (rangatiratanga).

William Hobson

The British naval officer who drafted the Treaty of Waitangi on behalf of the Crown and served as the first Governor of New Zealand from 1840 until his death in 1842.

Henry Williams

Anglican priest and head of the Church Missionary Society in New Zealand who, with his son Edward, translated the English draft of the Treaty of Waitangi into te reo Māori on the night of 4 February 1840.

Kāwanatanga

A transliteration meaning 'governorship'; the term used in Article One of Te Tiriti o Waitangi to translate the British Crown's claim of sovereignty.

Tino rangatiratanga

Full chiefly authority, self-determination, and independence; guaranteed to Māori chiefs over their lands, settlements, and treasures in Article Two of Te Tiriti o Waitangi.

Sovereignty

Supreme power or rule; ceded to the British Crown in the English draft of Article One, but omitted in favor of 'kāwanatanga' in the Māori text.

Pre-emption

The exclusive legal right granted to the British Crown in Article Two to purchase Māori land if landowners chose to sell.

Article Three

The section of the Treaty of Waitangi extending Queen Victoria's royal protection to Māori and conferring upon them the same rights and privileges as British subjects.

Waitangi Treaty Grounds

An 18.5-hectare historic site within a 506ha estate gifted to New Zealand by Lord Bledisloe in 1934, recognized as the 'birthplace of our nation' and New Zealand's first National Historic Landmark.

Hōne Heke

A prominent Ngāpuhi rangatira who was the first chief to sign the Treaty of Waitangi, but later cut down the Kororāreka flagstaff four times between 1844 and 1845 in protest against British control.

Kororāreka

A major Bay of Islands trading town and port (now Russell) that served as a center of early European settlement and was attacked and sacked in March 1845 during the Northern War.

Te Ruki Kawiti

A northern Ngāpuhi chief, military strategist, and ally of Hōne Heke during the Northern War (1845–1846), renowned for designing sophisticated defensive fortifications at Ōhaeawai and Ruapekapeka.

Tāmati Wāka Nene

A prominent Ngāpuhi chief and Wesleyan convert who advocated signing the Treaty of Waitangi in 1840 and led Māori forces allied with the British against Hōne Heke and Kawiti.

Gunfighter Pā

An evolved Māori fortified position designed with subterranean bunkers, rifle trenches, firing slits, and shock-absorbing timber palisades to withstand heavy musket and artillery bombardment.

Ruapekapeka

A fortified gunfighter pā built by Te Ruki Kawiti, known as 'the bat's nest', which was besieged by British forces in January 1846 during the final battle of the Northern War.

Kīngitanga

The Māori King Movement, established in the central North Island in the 1850s to unite iwi under a single monarch, protect Māori autonomy, and halt the ongoing alienation of land.

Pōtatau Te Wherowhero

The paramount Waikato chief who was crowned as the first Māori King at Ngāruawāhia in June 1858.

Waitara dispute

An 1859–1860 controversy over the Crown's purchase of the Pekapeka block at Waitara from Te Teira despite the objections of paramount chief Wiremu Kīngi, which triggered the First Taranaki War.

Wiremu Kīngi Te Rangitāke

Te Ātiawa rangatira who opposed the Crown's purchase of land at Waitara, insisting that individual chiefs lacked the authority to alienate collective tribal territory.

New Zealand Company

A private commercial colonisation enterprise founded by Edward Gibbon Wakefield in the 1830s to buy land cheaply from Māori and sell it to incoming British settlers for profit.

Duncan Cameron

Lieutenant-General and commander of British Imperial forces in New Zealand who directed the road construction and military invasion of the Waikato between 1863 and 1864.

Mangatāwhiri Stream

A tributary of the Waikato River that served as the aukati (border line) protecting Kīngitanga territory, crossed by General Cameron on 12 July 1863 to initiate the Invasion of the Waikato.

Great South Road

A military supply road constructed southward from Auckland to Queen's Redoubt at Pōkeno between 1862 and 1863 to prepare for the invasion of the Waikato.

Rangiriri

A major fortified defensive line and site of a pivotal, bloody battle on 20 November 1863 during the Waikato campaign, leading to a costly British breakthrough.

Ōrākau

The site of a fierce three-day siege in April 1864 ('Rewi's Last Stand'), where 300 Māori defenders defied 1,700 British troops with the famous vow 'Ka whawhai tonu mātou, āke, āke, āke!'.

Raupatu

The confiscation of over 3 million acres of Māori land by the British colonial government as punishment following the New Zealand Wars.

Native Land Court

A colonial court established in the 1860s to convert communal Māori customary land titles into individual freehold titles, which greatly facilitated European land acquisition.

Waitangi Tribunal

A permanent commission of inquiry established in 1975 to hear and investigate Māori claims concerning Crown actions that breached the terms and principles of the Treaty of Waitangi.