Atlas of the New Zealand Wars: Volume One 1834-1864, Early Engagements to the Second Taranaki War - Derek Leask

‘Derek Leask’s Atlas is a magnificent labour of love. It adds a whole new — visual — dimension to our understanding of the New Zealand Wars.’ — James Belich, Beit Professor of Global and Imperial History, University of Oxford

In the Atlas of the New Zealand Wars, five decades of maps and plans from 1834 to 1884 provide remarkable new insight into the deep conflicts running through nineteenth-century Aotearoa.

Beginning with early skirmishes off the Taranaki coast and at the Chathams, Volume One follows the tracks inland from the Bay of Islands towards the Hokianga in the Northern Wars; it reveals the web of Te Rauparaha's influence radiating out from Kapiti to Port Nicholson and across Cook Strait to the Wairau; it takes us inside the barracks and ramparts of the colony's new towns; and concludes as the brewing unrest around Waitara in Taranaki explodes into war.

Through the maps, we meet the people: Hone Heke and FitzRoy, Te Rangitake and Pratt, warriors and missionaries; and we go where they went: from the flagpole at Kororareka to Kawiti's pa at Ruapekapeka, up the Hutt River to Boulcott's farm, across Taranaki from Waitara to Kaitake pa. Through both tangata and whenua we understand the conflicts and their consequences anew.

Based on thirty years of research, the Atlas of the New Zealand Wars reveals a complex series of challenges and misunderstandings, skirmishes and negotiations, battles and wars that have profoundly shaped the lives of Maori and Pakeha on these islands ever since.

‘In this Atlas the maps themselves tell stories: he kura i tangihia – a treasure saluted, remembered, wept over; he maimai aroha – a token of affection which weaves the heavens above and the earth below – kia tuia te rangi e tū nei, kia tuia te papa e takoto nei, and those who have fled their mortal coils – rātou i wehea atu. I await with bated breath the second volume and Derek Leask’s exploration of the war in my homelands of Waikato and Te Rohe Pōtae, the King Country. In the words of our great Rangatira Wahanui: “Hanga paitia tātou kia piri ki te piringa pono.” “Let us conduct ourselves in a proper way so that we may be bound together by a bond of unity.”' —Tom Roa (Ngāti Maniapoto, Waikato, Ngāti Apakura), Professor, University of Waikato

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