Te Roroa Claim

1 Te Ao Hou (The New World)

1.1 Tauiwi (Newcomers)

Ta Ao Hou (The New World)

1.1. Tauiwi (Newcomers)

The Te Roroa claim is a direct outcome of the responses of four leading rangatira to the expansion of European trade, settlement and Christianity in their areas in the nineteenth century. Their names are Parore Te Awha, Te Rore Taoho, Tiopira Kinaki and Hapakuku Moetara. Brief stories of their lives up to 1875 are included here as they illustrate the movement of people from community to community in pursuit of European trade as well as mahinga kai. Furthermore they illustrate early Te Roroa initiatives in selling land and the extent to which they were willing to sell. By the 1870s, each of these chiefs was based in the respective kainga from which he exercised his mana over the territory of this claim.

Te Roroa occupied the hinterland of two of the northern harbours visited by commercial shipping from the late 1820s, the Hokianga and the Kaipara. A lively shore-based trade in kauri timber, pork and potatoes and ship building developed in the Hokianga in the 1830s and was expanding into the Kaipara by 1840. Wesleyan mission stations were established in the Hokianga at Mangungu in 1828, at Pakanae in 1837 and at Tangiteroria in the Kaipara in 1836. French Roman Catholic missionaries arrived in the Hokianga in 1838.{FNREF:0-86472-088-2:1.1:1} As Te Roroa had familial connections to both areas, contact with Europeans prior to the 1870s "would have been unavoidable, though in general contact tended to be restricted to those of rank in Te Roroa" (B34:att 1).

The most devastating development in the early years of European contact was the intensification of rivalry, shifting alliances and warfare between Ngapuhi and Ngati Whatua and their hapu, not only for traditional purposes but for the lion's share of the European trade. The greatest defeat, inflicted on Ngapuhi, was at Moremonui in 1807. Among those who escaped was Hongi Hika. He became the leading musket trading chief in the Bay of Islands, and embarked on a number of successful war expeditions against the southern tribes. In 1819 a group of Te Roroa led by Tuwhare, son of the warrior chief, Taoho, joined an expedition south to Te Whanganui-a-Tara and the Wairarapa. In 1825 Hongi avenged Ngapuhi's defeat in the battle of Te Ika-a-Ranganui. Both sides suffered heavy losses, but Hongi's party was victorious. Ngati Whatua were captured or fled.

Although only two Te Roroa chiefs were at Te Ika-a-Ranganui and there were no Te Roroa casualties, "Te Roroa and N'Whatua were one" (A4:433). Following the defeat of Ngati Whatua, Parore Te Awha, a Ngapuhi relative of Te Roroa, later claimed that he protected a party of 70 Te Roroa men, women and children at Kaihu and they all went to live at Waipoua (E2(a):14). The main body of Te Roroa under Taoho went to their kainga at Waimamaku and stayed there for many years. With them was Taoho's son, Te Rore Taoho, and grandson, Tiopira Kinaki.

Parore Te Awha was born at Mangakahia about 1795.{FNREF:0-86472-088-2:1.1:2} On his father's side he was descended from Te Ponaharakeke, of Ngati Rua-Ngaio hapu ki Whanganui, a renowned Ngapuhi chief. His mother, Pehirangi, was a granddaughter of Whakakaaria of the Ngai Tawake and Ngati Tautahi hapu of Kaikohe and Ngapuhi, and was a second cousin of Hongi Hika. As a consequence of disputes between the descendants of Toa's first wife, Waitarehu, and his third wife, Te Hei, Parore's grandfather had been driven out of Waipoua and had gone to live at Mangakahia. His reduced circumstances gave rise to the pepeha, "Te Kuihi kai raupo" (the pukeko eating raupo) and his people became known as Te Kuihi.

In childhood, Parore was taken to Kaihu, and later, for safety, to Kaikohe. By 1821 he was living in Whangarei with his wahine matua, Tawera, daughter of the warrior chief, Kukupe of Te Kuihi, and half-sister of the toa, Te Tirarau and Te Ihi who supported Hongi Hika, and sister of Taurau Kukupa. After participating in the 1821 Ngapuhi taua to Tamaki and Thames which led to retaliation, Parore, with his wife and father-in-law, moved to the Waipoua valley. But they were not welcomed by Te Roroa who were then living principally at Maunganui Bluff and Opanake. Indeed their chief, Taoho, set up a rahui at Maunganui Bluff as a boundary mark between the two groups.

In 1825, Parore was warned of a pending attack by a Ngapuhi taua on Ngati Whatua ki Kaipara and went along the beach to Te Kopuru where a hui was held and Ngapuhi were dissuaded from invading Te Roroa territory. Whether Parore was at Te Ika-a-Ranganui is unclear. But after Ngati Whatua were defeated in 1825, he is said to have remained at Waipoua "principally on account of Hongi's mana".{FNREF:0-86472-088-2:1.1:3}

Although Parore participated in Pomare's ill-fated raid in Waikato in 1826 and the Girls' War in the Bay of Islands, he was more a trader than a warrior. J S Polack who visited his pa, Te Kauri, at Waipoua in 1832, found him "in the prime of life, possessing a countenance remarkably pleasing; his stature was tall ... he had an air at once noble and dignified, from the habitual exercise of authority".{FNREF:0-86472-088-2:1.1:4} He was engaged in the flax trade at Kaihu and the spar trade in Hokianga and keenly desired to have Pakeha residing in his settlements for trading purposes. Although the people at Waipoua had acquired iron, cloth, tobacco and muskets and were growing introduced crops which they desired to exchange for trade goods, Waipoua was too isolated to become a trading centre. One reason Parore moved to Kaihu and the northern Wairoa may well have been to grow crops and participate in the Kaipara provision and timber trade.

Parore's move to Kaihu is said to have been a consequence of his being involved in a fight with Te Roroa at Waiwhatawhata over a woman about 1835, during which Maratea was killed. It was Maratea who had shot Hongi Hika in 1827 causing his eventual death at Whangarei on 3 March 1828. Maratea had been living at Pakanae under the protection of the leading chief of the south Hokianga, Moetara Motu Tangaporutu, of Ngati Korokoro. Parore withdrew to his pa at Waipoua which was attacked in retaliation, but after one day's fighting Moetara made peace. About a year later, in 1836, Parore left Waipoua never to return (A4:422-434).

With the spread of peace and Christianity, Ngati Whatua, who had fled or been captured after Te Ika-a-Ranganui, gradually returned home. Waimamaku was regularly visited as an outpost by Wesleyan missionaries from Pakanae. Baptised Maori teachers converted people in the Kaipara before a mission station was opened. Outposts such as Kaihu were visited regularly. Parore and 200 others were converted in 1839.

Te Roroa living in the south Hokianga and Waimamaku returned unmolested to Waipoua and Kaihu. Among those who returned to Kaihu was Te Rore Taoho, uncle of Tiopira Kinaki. Both uncle and nephew became contestants against Parore Te Awha in future land deals in the area.

Te Rore Taoho, son of Taoho and his second wife, Koata, was born about 1810 at Pokapu, Taoho's pa on the upper Kaihu stream, from which his mahinga (places where food is produced) were worked (E2(a):157). "A wanderer very much given to war" (B4:37), he was at Kaihu when Te Ika-a-Ranganui was fought, then for some years at Waimamaku and Waipoua. But he returned to Kaihu several times to hold it against Parore's attempts "to get it" (E2(a):157-159, 163). Opanake became his permanent base and he became the leading chief in the upper part of the Kaihu valley. He dug gum at Maunganui, and before the time of the Waikato war, put 200 gum diggers from the Hokianga on the land (B34:att 1; E2(a):159).

Tiopira Kinaki was the son of Te Rurunga and Te Rore Taoho's half sister, Te Taua (A4:431). He was born about 1819-1820 at Tarawapoaka, Kaihu, a kainga of his maternal grandfather, Taoho. His father was killed at Poneke (Wellington) on Tuwhare's expedition (E2(a):157) and his early education was undertaken by his grandfather, Taoho, as befitted a child of high rank. After they moved to Waimamaku he almost certainly came under the influence of the Wesleyan missionaries, learnt to read and write in his own language and was baptised "Tiopira" (Theophilus).

As a youth he was present at Waiwhatawhata when his maternal uncle was slain (A4:432-433). After Parore Te Awha left Waipoua his mother returned to Waipoua to live. Three years later Tiopira Kinaki and Te Roroa from Waimamaku followed. The first potatoes they planted at Waikara were pulled up by Parore. They then planted kumara which he did not pull up (A4:434-435).

After this, Governor Hobson came and Tiopira went to the Hokianga to see him. He was also at Waikara when the governor's emissary, Captain Symonds, passed through (A4:435). He was probably too young to sign the Treaty but he supported the kaupapa. During Hone Heke's war, he fought alongside his cousin, Hakaraia. According to tradition, he and F E Maning, the Pakeha-Maori who became a Native Land Court judge, were comrades in arms (C12(a):8).

During the war he went to Waimamaku and married a woman of rank and great beauty, his second cousin, Marara Mahuhu. Their marriage merged three blood lines from Toa and provided a symbolic link between the three Te Roroa kainga, Kaihu, Waipoua and Waimamaku. Their eldest children were born at Waipoua.

In 1850 Tiopira moved to lower Waihou on the Hokianga to assist his wife's Te Rarawa relatives in the timber trade and became known as Tiopira Rehi (expert). By the close of the 1860s he was based at Whenuahou, Waipoua, but he continued to live and work at Waimamaku, Kaihu, Kawerua, and Maunganui Bluff, the latter two being summer residences where canoes were built and fish caught and dried. Te Roroa engaged in gum digging and small-scale trading at Kawerua under Tiopira's chiefly management. His cousin, Hapakuku Moetara, directed economic activities at Waimamaku, and his uncle, Te Rore Taoho, at Kaihu and Maunganui Bluff (E2(a):156 passim).

Hapakuku Moetara was a son of Rewha, who took over the mana of his brother, Moetara Motu Tongaporutu, assumed his name, and signed the Treaty of Waitangi as Rangatira Moetara (C12(b):1; D11:2). In the 1820s and 1830s, Moetara Motu Tongaporutu resided at Pakanae, a strong, strategic position from which to control the south Hokianga European trade. After Te Ika-a-Ranganui, he had Ngati Whatua refugees living under him producing pork and potatoes; also access to land as far south as Maunganui Bluff, including Waimamaku and Waipoua. Realising the advantages of peace and Christianity, he was baptised before his death in 1838.{FNREF:0-86472-088-2:1.1:5} Hapakuku inherited his uncle's and his father's mana.

Through his mother, Te Hana, Hapakuku was connected to the senior line of Te Roroa (see appendix 6), and claimed interests in Te Roroa land. Both his uncle and his father were involved in a number of land transactions with Europeans before the Treaty. He and his relatives continued to sell and lease land between 1840 and 1875.

Accordingly, by 1870, the chiefs Tiopira, Hapakuku Moetara and Te Rore Taoho exercised the mana of the hapu in the areas where they lived - Waipoua, Waimamaku and Kaihu respectively. Although "their" areas can be separately identified, they nevertheless saw their interests as being collectively Te Roroa, as subsequent dealings with the Crown and Native Land Court will show. And it will be recalled that Parore Te Awha had moved to Kaihu in 1836. By 1864, when visited by the colonial secretary, he had established many acres of maize, kumara and potatoes, with several weather board houses, stock yards, granaries, barns and several iron ploughs and horse drays.{FNREF:0-86472-088-2:1.1:6} He was on Te Roroa's southern boundary, in the area also occupied by Te Rore Taoho.

At this time then, the kainga at Waimamaku, Waipoua and Kaihu were well established. Christianity had been accepted first as a result of Wesleyan missionaries and later through visits from Church of England clergy. On 11 January 1875, Saint Mary's church at Te Taita was opened on land set aside by Te Rore Taoho. The service was conducted in Maori and attended by all the community, including settlers from Wairoa.{FNREF:0-86472-088-2:1.1:7} The chiefs who later dealt with the Crown in respect of the lands, the subject of this claim, were accordingly familiar with the intentions of the Treaty and the guarantees by the Crown which it contained, and the Christian principles upon which the Treaty was founded.