Nga Tohu

In 1840 more than 500 chiefs signed the Treaty of Waitangi, New Zealand’s founding document. Ngā Tohu, when complete, will contain a biographical sketch of each signatory.


Signing

SignatureSheetSigned asProbable nameTribeHapūSigning Occasion
21Sheet 7 — The Herald (Bunbury) SheetPukekoPūkekoNgāti Toa?Cloudy Bay 17 June 1840

Pūkeko signed the Herald (Bunbury) sheet of the Treaty of Waitangi on 17 June 1840, on board HMS Herald anchored in Cloudy Bay in Marlborough. He was a Ngāti Toa rangatira (chief) from Porirua.

In 1847 Pūkeko was listed as one of the owners of the Wairau Block. [1] In 1858 he was part of a group of Ngāti Toa rangatira who were paid £240 for their claim to land in Aotea, Whaīngaroa, and Kāwhia, Ngāti Toa’s base before they migrated south in 1822. [2]

Pūkeko was part of a group who wrote to Governor Gore Browne in 1860 askling that the Kohimarama conferences be made permanent as a way to solve the troubles affecting Māori and Pākehā and spread peace across the land. [3]

Horopapera Pūkeko was one of a Ngāti Toa group who in 1854 received £2,000 of a promised £3,000 in return for giving up all claims to land in the South Island. [4]


[1] Report from Mr. C. W. Ligar, Surveyor-General, to His Excellency the Lieutenant-governor, 8 March 1847

[2] ‘Claims of Ngatitoa on West Coast, Whaingaora district’, Maori deeds of land purchases in the North Island of New Zealand: Volume one, H. Hanson Turton, George Didsbury, 1877

[3] ‘Friday, August 3rd, 1860’, Proceedings of the Kohimarama Conference, comprising nos. 13 to 18 of the “Maori Messenger”

[4] ‘Receipt for £2,000 paid to Ngatitoa Tribe’, A compendium of official documents relative to native affairs in the South Island, Volume one, Alexander Mackay


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