Hongi Hika

Hongi Hika (c. 1772 – 6 March 1828) is a New Zealand Māori rangatira (chief) and war leader of the Ngāpuhi iwi (tribe).

Hongi Hika uses European weapons to overrun much of northern New Zealand in the first of the Musket Wars.

He also encourages Pākehā (European) settlement, patronizes New Zealand's first missionaries, introduces Māori to Western agriculture and helps put the Māori language into writing.

He travels to England and meets King George IV.

Hongi Hika's military campaigns, and the other Musket Wars, are one of the most important stimuli for the British annexation of New Zealand and subsequent Treaty of Waitangi with Ngāpuhi and many other iwi.

He is a pivotal figure in the period when Māori history emerges from myth and oral tradition and Pākehā begin to settle rather than just visit.

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