The move from Rangiuru pā to the mission and town of Ōtaki began the decline of the Ngāti Raukawa economy and chiefly authority, brought about by a combined force of the church and state, the Waitangi Tribunal heard at on July 25-26.

The tribunal hearing at Raukawa Marae (via video link) was the last in a series of 17 weeks of claimant hearings held throughout the Ngāti Raukawa rohe (area) – from Rangitikei through Ōtaki with the southern boundary at Kukutauaki, northern Waikanae.

The Ngāti Raukawa “whānau of Te Rauparaha” contended that the arrest and detaining of Te Rauparaha was tantamount to hostage-taking; an unlawful act by the government intended to undermine iwi leadership and coerce the iwi into giving up large areas of land in Ōtaki and elsewhere. The claimants called on the Crown to formally apologise to Ngāti Raukawa for its action, which was at a time when extensive lands were given to the Anglican mission.

Descendants of Te Rauparaha’s Ngāti Raukawa whānau – Piripi Walker, Stephanie Turner and Heeni Collins of Ngāti Huia, along with Ngāti Raukawa historian Te Kenehi Teira – presented their claims (Wai 113C and Wai 1944), in relation to Crown actions that led to  alienation of Ngāti Raukawa lands and loss of customary rights and practices. The claimants descend from Te Rauparaha’s wife, Te Akau. They called for all Crown land at Rangiuru and Taumanuka to return to the iwi.

In relation to Te Rauparaha’s arrest or “abduction”, Moroati Kiharoa of Ngāti Raukawa and a contemporary of Te Rauparaha was quoted in Te Karere in 1860: “Hopuhia ana Te Rauparaha e Kawana Kerei kia kitea to matou pouri, a taia noatia te hokinga mai o Te Rauparaha. No te kitenga o Kawana kua pai to matou mahi, ka whakahokia mai a Te Rauparaha”. (Te Rauparaha was seized by Governor Grey to try us, and he kept him in custody with the same view until he was released. When the governor saw we behaved well, he sent Te Rauparaha back.)

While the Crown had already apologised to Ngāti Toarangatira in 2012 for this, the whānau referred to one of the original Wai 113 claimants, the late Iwikatea Nicholson, who said at Raukawa Marae in 2014 that the action also impacted Ngāti Raukawa heavily. Te Rauparaha was Ngāti Huia (Ngāti Raukawa) on his mother’s side and it was under his mana that the settlement of Waikato and Taranaki iwi occurred in the lower North Island and top of the south.

By arresting Te Rauparaha in 1846 and pursuing Te Rangihaeata north to Poroutawhao, near Manawatū, the Crown had removed the senior leadership within Ngāti Raukawa who were against land sales and colonisation. A new generation of Ngāti Raukawa were offered a vision of Māori and Pākēhā living in mutual peace and prosperity. Ancestral pā of Ngāti Raukawa at Rangiuru and Ōtaki Beach were dismantled and the town of Ōtaki was established as a “model English village”. The settler government and Anglican church leaders worked closely together in the 1840s to establish schools nationwide for Māori, as Christianity was seen as part of the “civilisation” process.

Governor Grey’s 1847 Education Ordinance funded church schools, provided Māori consented to giving land, so that schools could teach horticulture, grow their own food and be self-supporting.[1]

It soon became apparent that it was Europeans who would be governing the missionary land (school and farm), without recognising the need for partnership with iwi under the Treaty. The five land blocks awarded by Crown grant in Ōtaki (585 acres or 240 hectares) were put in the hands of three Church Missionary Society trustees: Archdeacon of Waiapu Ven William Williams, Archdeacon of Kāpiti Octavius Hadfield, and Rev Richard Taylor of Whanganui. By the 1880s, Europeans so out-numbered Māori in Ōtaki that Ngāti Raukawa had little voice in local government and had lost ownership and control of their land and township.

As stated by Māori legal expert Ani Mikaere (Wai 2200, Wai 1580 with Whatarangi Winiata) in her closing submission on July 26, on signing the Treaty at Rangiuru and Kāpiti in 1840, Ngāti Raukawa leaders were not signing away their mana or rangatiratanga, and many significant leaders of the iwi did not sign. Much emphasis was given to Te Rauparaha as the most powerful chief in the region, who signed twice, and the views of those who did not sign were overlooked. Ani named leaders who did not sign as “Taratoa, Te Whatanui, Te Ahukaramū, Ngārangiorehua, Te Paea and others”.

“The reality was that our mana was intact; indeed, Ngāti Raukawa law would continue to prevail within our territory for another 20 years or more before being seriously undermined by introduced diseases, by enforced land removal and by the social, political and economic upheaval that followed,” Ani said.

The final phases of the Wai 2200 Porirua ki Manawatū Waitangi Tribunal hearing are Crown submissions, followed by another opportunity for claimants to have their last say. 

^[1]    Teira, T.K. & Collins, H., ‘Ōtaki – Ngāti Raukawa Customary Interests’, a report commissioned by the Crown Forestry Rental Trust for the Porirua ki Manawatū District Inquiry, Wai 2200,  2023, pp. 105-6 ; citing Howe, E., ‘Anglicans and Māori School Trusts, The 1905 Royal Commission Background Recommendations and Influence’, Occasional Paper, Anglican Historical Society, Auckland, 2004, p.