Dancing with the King: The Rise and Fall of the King Country, 1864-1885

by Michael Belgrave

After the battle of Orakau in 1864 and the end of the war in the Waikato, Tawhiao, the second Maori King, and his supporters were forced into an armed isolation in the Rohe Potae, the King Country. For the next twenty years, the King Country operated as an independent state - a land governed by the Maori King where settlers and the Crown entered at risk of their lives.

Dancing with the King is the story of the King Country when it was the King's country, and of the negotiations between the King and the Queen that finally opened the area to European settlement. For twenty years, the King and the Queen's representatives engaged in a dance of diplomacy involving gamesmanship, conspiracy, pageantry and hard headed politics, with the occasional act of violence or threat of it. While the Crown refused to acknowledge the King's legitimacy, the colonial government and the settlers were forced to treat Tawhiao as a King, to negotiate with him as the ruler and representative of a sovereign state, and to accord him the respect and formality that this involved. Colonial negotiators even made Tawhiao offers of settlement that came very close to recognising his sovereign authority.

Dancing with the King is a riveting account of a key moment in New Zealand history as an extraordinary cast of characters - Tawhiao and Rewi Maniapoto, Donald McLean and George Grey - negotiated the role of the King and the Queen, of Maori and Pakeha, in New Zealand.

455 pages, Kindle Edition

First published October 1, 2017

Reviews

[Simon · Rating 4 out of 5]

An exhaustive and well-written study of the difficulties of diplomacy and communication between the New Zealand colonial government and the coalition of iwi under the Kīngitanga after the confiscation of the Waikato in 1864. This book is not a general history of the Kīngitanga, rather a focused analysis on the negotiations between the Kīngitanga and the colonial government, and assumes the reader is already familiar with both the events of the New Zealand Wars that led to the creation of the aukati around the Rohe Pōtae and the general history of New Zealand during the period covered in the book, so I wouldn't recommend it if you are not already familiar with both of these topics.

[Thomas Isern · Rating 5 out of 5]

A masterly Pakeha historian's chronicle of the remarkable crystallization, the gradual erosion, and the ultimate resilience of Maori sovereignty in the interior of the North Island (the King Country). A work to contemplate while riding the Northern Explorer across country.

[Gordon Scrimgeour · Rating 3 out of 5]

It is very helpful for those of us who live in proximity to the Kingitanga.
It reveals the roots of some current practices.