In the early hours of 13 December 1863 the Forest Rangers No. 1 Company, led by Lieutenant William Jackson, attacked a Māori camp at Paparātā during bush-scouring operations in the Hunua Ranges during the Waikato War. It was a Sunday morning and the group of 50 men, women and children were praying at the time of the attack. Seven of their number were killed, in what one newspaper described as an act of ‘cold-blooded murder’ on the part of Jackson’s men.^[1]

During the course of the attack a number of items were seized, including a box containing three flags. One was a red pennant, about six feet in length, with a white cross on it. Another was a small square handkerchief that featured the Union Jack. The third flag, just over eight feet long and five feet wide, and made of red silk, had a white cross symbolising Christianity next to Te Whetu Marama o te Ata, the bright and morning star, with ‘Aotearoa’ in large lettering underneath.[2] 

The ‘Aotearoa’ flag was made by Te Arawa woman Hēni Te Kiri Karamū, also known at different times as Jane Foley (Hēni Pore) or Jane Russell, using material she had obtained at Whāngārei several years before the war.[3]  Many years later, in around 1900, Hēni was photographed with a second flag, this one featuring a cross, a crescent with three large stars above it, and the word ‘Aotearoa’ along the bottom. This was not one of the flags seized at Paparātā.