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, 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." 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." 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