Photo: Supplied by publicist
Between 1840 and 1870 New Zealand transformed from a Rangatira state, with the population overwhelmingly Māori , to a settler colony.
Among the influx, 12 thousand colonial British soldiers brought here to protect British interests who fought in the New Zealand Land Wars.
They fought against Ngapuhi in the 1840s, against Taranaki iwi, and Waikato's Kingitanga and their allies, in the 1860s.
Later around a fifth of the soldiers applied to take their discharge from the Army in New Zealand, becoming 'soldier settlers'.
The story of those soldiers, known as the Redcoats, has been told in a new book Garrison World - by Victoria University history professor Charlotte Macdonald.
