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Updated: May 19, 2025
The intention was to assault from the rear, and he believed they would have been certain of the enemy, without incurring any considerable loss. The fall of Ruapekapeka brought peace to the northern half of New Zealand, and when the Governor visited Heke it was 'To explain to him that I was his friend, which he admitted.
That enforced the necessity, urgent enough in itself, for capturing the fortress. The Maoris had spent all their craft of defence on Wereroa, as, in the former New Zealand war, they did on Ruapekapeka. Engirt by palisades of wood, high and strong, they cried defiance to the Pakeha. The general in control of the British troops would not tackle Wereroa with the strength at his disposal.
We await them in this place, and if they want us, just let them come on. That was Sir George Grey's summary of the resistance which the English forces, moving to invest Ruapekapeka, had to meet. Fortune smiled, and exacted little as return sacrifice. 'Our force, he narrated, 'was strengthened by a detachment of friendly Maoris under the command of Waka Nene, a grizzled warrior.
He was my chief adviser among the Maoris, and his services were of the utmost value to me. Waka Nene recognised the necessity, in New Zealand, of a government which could control both races. The former mistake, of trying to storm a well-defended pa, was replaced at Ruapekapeka by an artillery bombardment.
This officer began his military operations with a much larger force, and advanced against the strongest position which the Maoris had yet fortified that of Ruapekapeka, or the Bats' Nest. The name was only too appropriate at this period, for the place seemed to abound with creatures of darkness.
Heke was at a pah called Ikorangi; but Kawiti had 500 Maoris at a nearer pah called Ruapekapeka. Ruapekapeka.# Despard took his men sixteen miles in boats up a river; then nine miles through the forest, and on the 31st December he had 1,173 soldiers with 450 friendly natives in a camp 800 yards from the pah.
The main stronghold of Heke and Kawiti was a pa designated, in Maori, Ruapekapeka, of which the English equivalent is 'Bat's Nest. Here the Maoris were in martial clover, having reasoned with themselves: 'We'll build a pa the Pakehas can't take, if we are behind its walls.
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