Personal details
Full Name:
- Te Rauparaha
Lifetime:
- ?–27 Nov 1849

Te Rauparaha was a Ngāti Toa chief and warrior. Sometimes called the 'Napoleon of the Southern Hemisphere', he ruled the lower end of the North Island from his base at Kapiti Island for the best part of 20 years
Read more...Events In History
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27 November 1849Death of Te Rauparaha
The formidable Ngāti Toa leader had dominated Te Moana-o-Raukawa - the Cook Strait region - from his base at Kāpiti Island for nearly 20 years. Read more...
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17 June 1843The Wairau incident
Four Māori and 22 Europeans were killed in the first violent clash between Māori and Pākehā since the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi. Read more...
Articles
The Wairau incident
On 17 June 1843, 22 European settlers and four Māori died when an armed party of New Zealand Company settlers clashed with Ngāti Toa over the purchase of land in the Wairau valley, near modern-day Blenheim.
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Page 2 – Ngāti Toa and the New Zealand Company
The Wairau incident had its origins in the migration of Ngāti Toa and its allies from Kāwhia to the Kāpiti coast in the southern North Island.
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Page 3 – Violence erupts
When Te Rauparaha and Te Rangihaeata told William Wakefield to stop the survey, he told his brother Arthur to ignore them.
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Page 4 – The fallout from Wairau
The news from Wairau shocked settlers throughout the colony. The killing of men who had surrendered was viewed as cold-blooded murder. Many feared that these events signalled
A frontier of chaos?
In the years before the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi, relations between Māori and Europeans were marred by a number of high-profile incidents.
- Page 5 - Captain Stewart and the ElizabethIn 1830 Captain William Stewart of the brig Elizabeth made an arrangement with the Ngāti Toa leader Te Rauparaha to ferry a taua (war party) of 100 warriors from his base on
War in Wellington
In 1846 fighting broke out in the Wellington region when Ngāti Toa chief Te Rangihaeata backed local Maori opposed to European settlement in Hutt Valley. The campaign claimed few lives but effectively ended Ngāti Toa resistance in the region.
- Page 6 - Last battlesIn mid-1846, Governor George Grey decided to neutralise the Ngāti Toa threat in the Wellington region by arresting Te
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Main image: Taupō pā, Plimmerton
Painting of Te Rauparaha's Taupō pā by George Angas, painted in 1844.