Kingitanga stemmed from similar, smaller scale pan-tribal movements that cropped up amongst the Maori tribes in the central North Island in the early 1850’s, but it wasn’t till 1858 that the Kingites actually crowned a king of this monarch in Potatau Te Wherowhero, a well known war chief at the time. Maori initiated the Maori King Movement or Kingitanga on the basis of wanting to establish a monarch to gain some influence and match the colonising people, the British. Prelude: After the Treaty Of Waitangi