Early Missionary Thomas Kendall facilitated the sale of hundreds of muskets to Ngāpuhi Māori, helping to enable the bloodiest wars in New Zealand history. But there's more to Kendall's story. He was instrumental in the transformation of Te Reo Māori into a written language, and became so fascinated by Māori spirituality that he (in his own words) "almost completely turned from a Christian to a Heathen".

Thomas Kendall was among the very first missionaries to arrive in Aotearoa. In 1814 the devoted Calvinist and former schoolteacher threw caution to the wind, taking himself, his wife and five children to live alongside Māori at Rangihoua in the Bay of Islands.

Kendall had dreams of founding a school, teaching Māori to read and write - and eventually converting them to the Christian faith.

It all went wrong almost immediately. The school failed, Kendall fought bitterly with his fellow missionaries, his wife gave birth to another man's child, and he swiftly discovered the only way for the mission to survive in the Bay of Islands was by trading muskets to Māori - particularly the famous Ngāpuhi Rangatira Hongi Hika.

Over the next decade, Thomas Kendall facilitated the sale of hundreds of muskets to Māori, helping to enable the bloodiest wars in New Zealand history: The Musket Wars.

However, Kendall's most important legacy was formed during a trip to England in 1820 alongside Hongi Hika and another Ngāpuhi chief, Waikato. Together with an academic at Cambridge University, Kendall, Hongi and Waikato would create the first dictionary and grammar of Te Reo Māori.

In the first of a two part series of Black Sheep, William Ray speaks to religious historian Peter Lineham Professor Emeritus at Massey University and Ngāti Rarawa kaumatua Haami Piripi about the complex, fraught story of Thomas Kendall.

Further reading:

• The Legacy of Guilt: a life of Thomas Kendall by Judith Binney
• Thomas Kendall - Dictionary of New Zealand Biography
• Hongi Hika - Dictionary of New Zealand Biography

Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details