kaitaia

Events In History

Northernmost town in New Zealand. The Ngāti Kahu and Ngāti Kurī tribes had dwelt with Te Rarawa in the district for some decades before the Te Rarawa leader Nōpera Pana-kareao invited missionaries into the area. At the mission station, established in 1833 by Joseph Matthews and William Puckey, 61 chiefs signed the Treaty of Waitangi on 28 April 1840. In the early years, Māori assisted with building, planting and road-making, and grew wheat and food crops. They took their produce to Auckland markets in their vessel, the Fairy. A few Europeans arrived in the 1850s, and settlement expanded rapidly between 1870 and 1900, when kauri-gum diggers, including many from Dalmatia, set up. Milling of native forest and flax made Kaitāia the Far North’s commercial centre by 1900.

Meaning of place name
Lit: Food in abundance, but may be a contraction of Kaitataia: kai: food; tataia: arranged or set in order.