Te Rauparaha’s migration to Kapiti

For years Ngāti Toa had fought the Waikato tribes over the fertile country around Kāwhia Harbour, the tribe's home since the Tainui canoe landed. Te Rauparaha, born to a Ngāti Toa father and a Ngāti Raukawa mother, was not of the highest rank, but his fighting skill and fierce defence of the tribe made him its leader. In 1819 he went south with a musket-carrying war party from the north under Tūwhare, Patuone and Nene, which reached Cook Strait. There he saw a sailing ship pass, and a northern chief said that by moving south he could grow great through trading with such ships for guns. He urged his people to move to the Kāpiti district, rich in land and food and within reach of Pākehā traders.

The move was forced in 1820, when Waikato and Ngāti Maniapoto, several thousand strong, invaded. Beaten at Te Kakara, Ngāti Toa were besieged for months at Te Arawī, south of the harbour. Kinship saved them. Te Rangituataka of Ngāti Maniapoto smuggled food in and urged Te Rauparaha to seek shelter among Te Āti Awa in Taranaki, and since many inside were close kin of the Waikato tribes, they were let go. Te Rauparaha set fire to his carved house and composed a lament beginning 'Tērā ia ngā tai o Honipaka' (O ye waters of Honipaka). Near the Mōkau River he had fires lit and women dressed as chiefs posted beside them, so his small party looked like an army. That ruse gave the first stage its name: Te Heke Tahutahuahi, the migration of fire-lighting. About 1,500 Ngāti Toa then planted crops in Taranaki on land lent by Te Āti Awa.

By 1822 the second stage was moving: Te Heke Tātaramoa, named for the bramble bush and the hardship it stood for. With some Te Āti Awa alongside, the migrants numbered a few thousand, many of them women, children and old people, and all walked hundreds of kilometres; some died of exhaustion. The early going was peaceful, thanks to peace-making and marriages Te Rauparaha had arranged, while other tribes stepped aside from a musket-armed force. Trouble began on the Manawatū River, where canoes went missing and Ngāti Toa struck a Rangitāne settlement in return. Te Rauparaha's biography records that Muaūpoko asked him and his family to Lake Papaitonga as guests and fell on them after dark; he escaped, but at least three of his children died. Ngāti Toa took the Muaūpoko lake pā (fortified villages) in reprisal, and the senior chief Te Pēhi Kupe captured Kāpiti Island. About 1824 a canoe fleet drawn from tribes across the region and the South Island attacked Kāpiti at night at Waiorua and was beaten off, securing Ngāti Toa's hold.

Ngāti Toa built what Te Ara calls a maritime trading empire across Cook Strait. Ships traded at Kāpiti from 1827, and Te Rauparaha's sway over his allies rested on controlling guns and ammunition, paid for with flax scraped by captives. Raids across the strait from about 1827 left Ngāti Toa and their allies, by the mid-1830s, holding most of the upper South Island, and Ngāti Raukawa and Taranaki allies followed in later migrations to take up land. The whole movement is remembered as the journey from the north, Te Heke Mai-i-raro. Te Ara's Ngāti Toa history credits Te Rauparaha's tactics and his frequent choice of diplomacy over force; the tribes he defeated credit the muskets. In 1840 he put his name to the Treaty of Waitangi, believing it secured his conquests. By 1846 the government had seized him, and the Crown later forced the sale of most Ngāti Toa land on both sides of the strait.