Hongi Hika - Legacy

Legacy

The extent of Hongi Hika's plans and ambitions are unknown. Although he said during his visit to England, "There is only one king in England, there shall be only one king in New Zealand", this is likely bravado. In 1828 Māori lacked a national identity, seeing themselves as belonging to separate iwi. It would be 30 years before Waikato iwi recognised a Māori king. That king was Te Wherowhero, a man who built his mana defending the Waikato against Hongi Hika.

Hongi Hika never attempted to establish any form of long term government over iwi he conquered and most often did not attempt to permanently occupy territory. It is likely his aims were opportunistic, based on increasing the mana Māori accorded to great warriors.

Hongi Hika is mostly remembered as a warrior and leader during the Musket Wars. History has generally attributed Hongi Hika’s military success to his acquisition of muskets, comparing his military skills poorly with the other major Māori war leader of the period, Te Rauparaha. However Hongi Hika had the foresight to acquire European weapons and evolve the design of the Māori war pā and Māori warfare tactics; something which was a nasty surprise to British and colonial forces in later years during his nephew Hone Heke's Rebellion in 1845-46. Hongi Hika's military conquests may not have endured, but his importance lies not only in his campaigns and the social upheaval they caused, but also his encouragement of early European settlement, agricultural improvements and the development of a written version of Māori.

Hongi Hika's whānau would continue to have a say in both settlement and warfare. Twelve years after Hongi Hika’s death, his nephew Hone Heke placed the first signature on the Treaty of Waitangi, legitimating British annexation. Five years later the New Zealand Northern War began on Tuesday 11 March 1845 when Heke cut down the flagpole at Kororareka and with a force of about 600 Māori armed with muskets, double-barrelled guns and also tomahawks attacked Kororareka.

Frederick Edward Maning, a Pākehā Māori, who lived at Hokianga, wrote a near contemporaneous account of Hongi Hika in A history of the war in the north of New Zealand against the chief Heke. Its accuracy is questioned on the basis that it was written with an aim to entertain, rather than with an eye to historical accuracy. In this book, Manning published an account of the death-bed speech of Hongi Hika, which account which is attributed to a Ngāpuhi chief. The account has Hongi Hika saying, ‘Children and friends, pay attention to my last words. After I am gone be kind to the missionaries, be kind also to the other Europeans; welcome them to the shore, trade with them, protect them, and live with them as one people; but if there should land on this shore a people who wear red garments, who do no work, who neither buy or sell, and who always have arms in their hands, then be aware that these are people called soldiers, a dangerous people, whose only occupation is war. When you see them make war against them. Then O my children, be brave! Then, O my friends be strong! Be brave that you may not be enslaved, and that your country may not become the possession of strangers.”