Where did Rewi Maniapoto grow up and live?

📍Kihikihi, Waikato, New Zealand

1807 – 1894

“Ko au ko Rewi Maniapoto. I was born around 1807 of Ngāti Maniapoto descent, and my name is most remembered for the words spoken at Ōrākau in April 1864, when the Crown's forces besieged our pā for three days: Ka whawhai tonu mātou, ake ake ake — We will fight on, for ever and ever and ever. We were outnumbered and without water, and we fought on. When we finally broke out through the encircling forces, many of our people died. But the words survived. The King Country — Te Rohe Pōtae — was Ngāti Maniapoto's land, and I held it closed to Pākehā settlement for years after the wars. I negotiated the entry of the railway into the King Country in 1881 on terms that recognised Māori authority. Ōrākau was not a defeat. It was a statement of who we were.”

👍 LovedThe King Country and its vast interior landscape — the forests, the rivers, the sense of a domain that was still Māori. The Ōrākau words that have outlasted every military outcome. The negotiation of the railway that showed political intelligence alongside military courage.

👎 DislikedThe losses at Ōrākau — the people who died breaking out. The long dispossession of Māori land that no military courage could ultimately prevent. The world that my grandchildren inherited.

Map showing where Rewi Maniapoto lived — Kihikihi, Waikato, New Zealand

🗺️ Approximate location today

Street view of Rewi Maniapoto's home at Kihikihi, Waikato, New Zealand

📍 Street view today

Sources: Cowan, J. The New Zealand Wars (1922), Government Printer; Belich, J. The New Zealand Wars (1986), Auckland University Press; Stokes, E. Milestones: The Waikato-King Country (1990)