1. Te Rangihaeata played a leading part in the Wairau Affray and the Hutt Valley Campaign.
14 Facts About Te Rangihaeata
1. 2.
Te Rangihaeata, a member of the Maori iwi Ngati Toa, was born at Kawhia in about the 1780s.
3.
Te Rangihaeata's father was Te Rakaherea, his mother was Waitohi, the elder sister of Te Rauparaha and an important chief or ariki, and his maternal grandmother was Parekowhatu of Ngati Raukawa.
4.
Te Rangihaeata grew up in Te Rauparaha's shadow and became his trusted ally.
5.
Te Rangihaeata's sister was Rangi Topeora who was a chief of Ngati Toa and signed the Treaty of Waitangi at Kapiti on 14 May 1840.
6.
Te Rangihaeata rose to prominence during the period of intertribal fighting known as the Musket Wars.
7.
Te Rangihaeata encouraged the whalers and the traders and was prepared to tolerate the missionaries.
8.
Te Rangihaeata valued them for the technology they introduced and the trade goods they were offering.
9.
When in 1843 Arthur Wakefield and the Nelson settlers were claiming the Wairau Valley, chiefs Te Rauparaha and Te Rangihaeata visited Nelson and made their position very clear.
10.
Te Rangihaeata promised that he would kill any settlers who tried to take his land from him.
11.
Te Rangihaeata had his men firmly but nonviolently remove them, being scrupulously careful to return to them all their surveying equipment and personal possessions, but burning their thatch huts.
12.
Once again Te Rangihaeata became involved in the resistance, destroying the farms and the possessions of the settlers on disputed land, but not injuring anyone.
13.
Te Rangihaeata fought the British to a stalemate until the British were able to mobilise the Te Ati Awa and other iwi to oppose him.
14.
Te Rangihaeata remained at Poroutawhao until his death from measles on 18 November 1855.