Foundations

The founding ancestor of Ngāpuhi is Rāhiri, the son of Tauramoko and Te Hauangiangi. Tauramoko was a descendant of Kupe, from Matawhaorua, and Nukutawhiti, of the Ngātokimatawhaorua canoe. Te Hauangiangi was the daughter of Puhi, who captained the Mataatua canoe northwards from the Bay of Plenty. Rāhiri was born at Whiria pā, near Opononi in the Hokianga.^[9] The early tribes led by Rāhiri's descendants lived in the Hokianga, Kaikohe, and Pouerua areas.^[10]

Through intermarriage with other iwi and expansionist land migration, the descendants of Rāhiri formed tribes across the Northland peninsula. These actions also fostered ties with neighbouring iwi. Auha and Whakaaria, for example, led expansion eastward from Kaikohe and Pouērua into the Bay of Islands area, overrunning and often intermarrying with Ngāi Tāhuhu, Ngāti Manaia, Te Wahineiti and Ngāti Miru. These tribes in the east were the first to use the name Ngāpuhi. As the eastern and western groups merged, the name came to describe all the tribes settled in the Hokianga and Bay of Islands. In the late 1700s and early 1800s, the Ngāpuhi tribes pushed further east through the southern Bay of Islands to the open coast, absorbing tribes such as Ngāti Manu, Te Kapotai, Te Uri o Rata, Ngare Raumati, and Ngātiwai.^[10]

Hosting the first Christian mission

Ruatara was chief of the Ngāpuhi from 1812 to his death in 1815. In 1814, he invited the Rev. Samuel Marsden to set up the first ever Christian mission in New Zealand on Ngāpuhi land. The presence of these influential Pākehā secured Ruatara's access to European plants, technology and knowledge, which he distributed to other Māori, thus increasing his mana. After the death of Ruatara, his uncle Hongi Hika became protector of the mission.

Thomas Kendall, John King, and William Hall, missionaries of the Church Missionary Society, founded the first mission station in Oihi Bay (a small cove in the north-east of Rangihoua Bay) in the Bay of Islands in 1814 and over the next decades established farms and schools in the area.^[11] In 1823 Rev. Henry Williams and his wife Marianne established a mission station at Paihia on land owned by Ana Hamu, the wife of Te Koki.^{[12][13][14][11]} In 1826, Henry's brother William and his wife Jane joined the CMS mission at Paihia. Marianne and Jane Williams established schools for the Ngāpuhi. William Williams lead the CMS missionaries in the translation of the Bible and other Christian literature; with the first chapters of the Māori Bible being printed at Paihia by William Colenso in 1827. The missionaries did not succeed in converting a single Māori until 1830 when Rawiri Taiwhanga (1818–1874), a Ngāpuhi chief, was baptised.^[15][16] Ruatara and Hongi Hika themselves welcomed the missionaries' presence, but did not convert.^[17] Hōne Heke attended the CMS mission school at Kerikeri and Heke and his wife Ono, were baptised in 1835.^[11]

Musket Wars

By the early 19th century, the Bay of Islands had become a prominent shipping port in New Zealand. Through increased trade with Europeans, initiated by Ruatara, Ngāpuhi gained greater access to European weapons, including muskets. Armed with European firearms, Ngāpuhi, led by Hongi Hika, launched a series of expansionist campaigns, with resounding slaughters across Northland and in the Waikato and Bay of Plenty.^[18]

United Tribes of New Zealand and the Declaration of Independence

On 28 October 1835, various Northland chiefs, primarily from the Ngāpuhi tribe, met at Waitangi with British resident James Busby and signed the Declaration of the Independence of New Zealand, proclaiming the United Tribes of New Zealand. In 1836, the Crown received and recognized the United Tribes' independence under King William IV. By 1839, 52 chiefs from around Northland and central North Island had signed the Declaration, including most Ngāpuhi chiefs and Pōtatau Te Wherowhero, ariki of the Tainui tribes of the Waikato (iwi).^[19]

Flagstaff War and re-erection of the flagstaff

In 1840, the Ngāpuhi chiefs were all signatories to the Treaty of Waitangi. However, from 1845 to 1846, Ngāpuhi fought against the British Crown over treaty disputes and European encroachment and interference. The Māori forces were led by Te Ruki Kawiti and Hōne Heke, who instigated the war when he chopped down the flagpole at Kororāreka to commence what is sometimes called the Flagstaff War. The British did not fight alone but had Ngāpuhi allies; Tāmati Wāka Nene had given the government assurances of the good behaviour of the Ngāpuhi and he felt that Hōne Heke had betrayed his trust in instigating the Flagstaff War.

The outcome of the Flagstaff War is a matter of some debate. Although the war was widely lauded as a British victory,^[20] it is clear that the outcome was somewhat more complex, even contentious. The flagstaff which had proved so controversial was not re-erected by the colonial government. Whilst the Bay of Islands and Hokianga was still nominally under British influence, the fact that the Government's flag was not re-erected was symbolically very significant. Such significance was not lost on Henry Williams, who, writing to E. G. Marsh on 28 May 1846, stating that "the flag-staff in the Bay is still prostrate, and the natives here rule. These are humiliating facts to the proud Englishman, many of whom thought they could govern by a mere name."^[21][22]

The legacy of Kawiti's rebellion during the Flagstaff War was that during the time of Governor Grey and Governor Thomas Gore Browne, the colonial administrators were obliged to take account of opinions of the Ngāpuhi before taking action in the Hokianga and Bay of Islands.

The Waitangi Tribunal in The Te Roroa Report 1992 (Wai 38) state that "[a]fter the war in the north, government policy was to place a buffer zone of European settlement between Ngāpuhi and Auckland. This matched Ngati Whatua's desire to have more settlers and townships, a greater abundance of trade goods and protection from Ngāpuhi, their traditional foe."^[23]

The flagstaff that now stands at Kororareka was erected in January 1858 at the direction of Kawiti's son Maihi Paraone Kawiti, as a signal to Governor Thomas Gore Browne, that Maihi did not follow his father's path. In a symbolic act, the 400 Ngāpuhi warriors involved in preparing and erecting the flagpole 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 on 11 March 1845, and they would not allow any other to render any assistance in this work.^[24] The erection of the fifth flagstaff at Kororareka by the Ngāpuhi warriors who had conducted the Flagstaff War, and not by government decree, indicates the colonial government did not want to risk any further confrontation with the Ngāpuhi. The continuing symbolism of the fifth flagpole at Kororareka is that it exists because of the goodwill of the Ngāpuhi.

Notwithstanding the achievements of Te Ruki Kawiti and Hōne Heke in pushing back colonial government control over the Ngāpuhi, in the years after the Flagstaff War over 2,000 km² of Ngāpuhi land was alienated from Māori control. As part of Maihi Paraone Kawiti's erection of the fifth flagpole at Kororareka, he offered the Governor all the lands between Karetu and Moerewa to north of Waiomio and as far south as the Ruapekapeka Pa. Tawai Kawiti described this offer of land as being "a whariki" (or mat) for the flag to repose on. The offer was accepted but was paid for at half the land's value.^[25]

20th and 21st centuries

Amidst cultural and economic decline, the twentieth century saw a steady migration of Ngāpuhi Māori from Northland into other regions of the North Island, mainly Auckland, Waikato and the Bay of Plenty. In part, this has seen the organisation of Ngāpuhi into large geographic and urban divisions.^[26]

Kia tū tika ai te whare tapu o Ngāpuhi.
(May the sacred house of Ngāpuhi always stand firm.)

— Ngāpuhi motto

The whārenui of Ōkorihi marae burned down in 2003.^[2]