A BRIEF TIMELINE OF THE WAIRARAPA
The Wairarapa is a large and bountiful region with a long and complex history. Maori oral tradition tells us the area is a part of the huge fish ‘Te Ika a Maui’, hooked and caught by Maui – a Polynesian tupua (super hero). The fish is the North Island of New Zealand. Te Karu o Te Ika a Maui, the eye of the fish, is Lake Wairarapa (Wairarapa Moana) and its mouth, Te Waha o Te Ika a Maui, is Palliser Bay.
The geographically distinctive Wairarapa valley, bounded by the Remutaka (Rimutaka) and Tararua mountain ranges on the western side and the large hills of the eastern coastline, has been shaped by a system of northeast trending faults, which are still very active today. The valley was once covered in giant podocarp forest, of Totara, Miro and Matai in the north and a mixture of forest, fernland, shrubland, some grassland, swamp and lake in the south.
1000 KUPE
The epic journey of the great Polynesian explorer Kupe left ancient names on the Wairarapa landscape, Nga waka a Kupe, the great waka of Kupe is located near Martinborough and Nga Ra o Kupe, located on the South Coast at Matakitaki a Kupe (Cape Palliser).
1200 FIRST SETTLERS
Traces of settlements two centuries after Kupe have been unearthed on the south coast of the Wairarapa. Archaeological evidence tells us that New Zealand’s oldest inhabited dwelling is a whare (house) site located in the Omoekau Valley above Cape Palliser. The residents were proficient gardeners and an intensive walled system of Kumara gardens is still distinguishable today. Their coastal situation gave them access to an ocean teeming with kai moana (sea food) as well as entry onto the coastal highway by waka (watercraft) or on foot.
1600 IWI
By 1600 Rangitane and then Ngati Kahungunu have arrived and settled in the Wairarapa. Conflict and disputes take place between the two iwi, however intermarriage and diplomacy prevail and on the whole, they coexist peacefully in the region. ‘Te Rerewa’, a political agreement negotiated in the 1600’s established an ongoing accord between the two iwi which still continues today.
1642 ABEL TASMAN
‘A large land, uplifted high’ (Abel Tasman)
Abel Tasman, sent by the Dutch East India Company to find terra australis (the unknown Southern Land) sights the Southern Alps. He later anchors in what is now called Golden Bay and then sails for Chile soon after. His passage east takes him along the south coast of the Wairarapa. He names his discovery ‘New Zealand’ and it appears as a ragged new line on European maps.
1770 CAPTAIN JAMES COOK
Tangata whenua (People of the land), Rangitane o Wairarapa and Ngati Kahungunu o Wairarapa, had been settled throughout the region for several centuries, living with relative ease and making use of the Wairarapa’s rich resources when Captain James Cook sailed up the coast in 1770. Ancestors of the south coast hapu Ngati Hinewaka ventured out to Cook’s ship, Endeavour.
“Canoes came off to the ship wherein were between 30 & 40 of the Natives who had been puling after us for some time; it appear’d from the behaver of these people that they had heard of our being upon the coast, for they came along side and some of them on board the ship with out showing the least signs of fear: they were no sooner on board than they asked for nails but when nails were given them … (it) was plain that they had never seen any before, yet thay not only knowed how to ask for them but knowed what use to apply them to and therefore must have heard of Nails which they called Whow, the name of a tool among them made generally of bone which they use as a chisel… ”
1955, Beaglehole J.C. (ed) The Journals of Captain James Cook, Vol. 1 pg178, Cambridge
The locals exchanged koura (crayfish) for the nails.
1820
The arrival of pakeha eventually had a devastating effect on the Maori population of the Wairarapa. A number of war parties from the far north, recently equipped with muskets obtained from pakeha, passed through the region in the 1820s, killing and eating a large number of local Maori. |
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1830
In the early 1830s, members of the Taranaki tribes who had recently arrived and settled in the Wellington area followed the first wave of intruders into the region. After a series of skirmishes that went the way of the musket carrying aggressors many Wairarapa hapu decided to withdraw to the Kahungunu ancestral homeland at Nukutaurua on the Mahia Peninsular. Some Rangitaane hapu joined relatives in the Manawatu, while others, of both iwi, chose to withdraw deep into the Wairarapa bush and wait.
1839
In England the ambitious Edward Gibbon Wakefield has plans to colonise New Zealand. With others he starts the New Zealand Company and they send the Tory to explore New Zealand’s investment potential.
1839
Explorer Charles Heaphy sees Lake Wairarapa from a Rimutaka ridge.
1840
William Deans and Ensign Abel Best are the first Europeans to trek around the coast to 'Widerup or Palliser Bay'. Robert Stokes crosses the Rimutaka Range in 1841 and Charles Kettle travels through the Manawatu Gorge and down through the Wairarapa in 1842.
1840
6 Feb, New Zealand’s founding document ‘The Treaty of Waitangi’, is signed.
1841
‘Te Heke o nga Rangatira’, a peace treaty between the Wairarapa rangatira Tutepakihirangi and the occupying Te Atiawa rangatira Te Wharepouri sees the return of the local iwi to their homelands. At the same time the first New Zealand Company settlers, attracted by extravagant promises of work and a chance to buy land, arrived at Port Nicholson (Wellington) and began casting their eyes over the broad Wairarapa valley, assessing its potential as pastoral lands for their herds of sheep.
1843
Access to pastoral land is almost impossible around the southern coast and the New Zealand Company’s surveyor Samuel Brees sets out to find an overland route to Wairarapa and Hawkes Bay.
1843
Meanwhile, pioneering settlers drive 350 merino sheep around the rugged rocks of the southern coast and begin the development of some of New Zealand’s largest sheep stations. Frederick Weld, Charles Bidwill, Charles Clifford, William Vavasour and Henry Petre arrange 14 year leases with the Ngati Kahungunu rangatira Te Rangi-taka-i-waho. Charles Clifford’s station ‘Wharekaka’ is the first sheep station in New Zealand. Unknowingly the five grazier farmers put in place the framework of the future shape of the Wairarapa.
1845
The Crown threatens military action and confiscates eighty thousand acres at Maungaroa (White Rock) after an incident involving settler Billy Barton’s staff and rangatira Te Wereta Te Kawekairangi.
“I would not allow them to feed their sheep upon my land and enrich themselves at my expense.” Te Wereta Te Kawekairangi, 1845
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