Flagstaff Hill (New Zealand)

Hōne Heke, 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 in the years following the signing of the Treaty.

[1][2] There are a number of causes of Heke's anger, such the fact that the capital of New Zealand had been moved from Okiato (Old Russell) to Auckland 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 with the foreigners.

At the same time, possibly as a diversion, Te Ruki Kawiti and his men attacked the town of Kororareka.

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.”[8] As a further symbolic act the 400 Ngāpuhi warriors involved in preparing and erecting the flagstaff were selected from the ‘rebel’ forces of Kawiti and Heke – that is, Ngāpuhi from the hapū of Tāmati Wāka Nene (who had fought as allies of the British forces during the 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 that had cut it down in 1845, and they would not allow any other to render any assistance in this work.