PRESS RELEASE New book: "Gate Pa and Te Ranga; the Full Story"

A new book, "Gate Pa and Te Ranga; the Full Story" by John McLean and John Robinson has been launched to-day by Tross Publishing. It is the first book to be written specifically about these important battles of the New Zealand wars of the 1860s since Gilbert Mair's book, "The Story of Gate Pa" in the 1920s.

The new book describes how Ngaiterangi came to the Tauranga region, the alliances it made during the Musket Wars and how those alliances influenced its decision to take up arms against the Crown during the Kingite rebellion.

Meticulously researched and based on eye-witness accounts at the time, the book traces the battles of the Maketu campaign, Gate Pa and Te Ranga, after which Ngaiterangi and its allies surrendered to the Crown and agreed to accept the law of the land. Since then peace has reigned in the Bay of Plenty and the authors point out that this is the real victory of those far-off battles in 1864.
169 pages of text, plus 16 pages of maps/photos. Price: $30