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Hokianga Harbour - historical outpost
The Hokianga Harbour has its own history of being defined as an outpost.
The Polynesians settled NZ almost a thousand years before European explorers found it.
Whalers and sealerswere amongst the first Europeans to reach these shores and in 1814 Protestant missionaries introduced Christianity.
Back then it was known as "god's farthest outpost" and by 1838 there were 2000 European settlers, most of them in the far North of NZ.
The Hokianga did a brisk and lively shore based trade dealing in kauri timber, pork, potatoes and flax. Ship building developed as an additional economy in the 1830's.
Wesleyan mission stations were established in the Hokianga at Mangungu in 1828 and at Pakanae in 1837. Waimamaku was regularly visited as an outpost by Wesleyan missionaries.
French Roman Catholic missionaries arrived in the Hokianga in 1838 from where they launched Catholiscim in the South pacific. Mgr Pompallier, Fr Servant, and Br Michel landed at Totara Point in Hokianga Harbour in January 1838. The first Mass celebrated on New Zealand soil on 13 January inaugurated the Catholic Church in the country.
"Before 1840, the land was "sold" to Europeans for trading depots and mission stations or speculation.
Throughout the period of British imperial responsibility for Maori affairs, 1840-1862, Hokianga chiefs continued the strategies of friendship and hospitality they had adopted towards the pre-1840 settlers.
They willingly sold land to the Crown in the hope that more Europeans would come and live among them and provide an abundance of goods and services.
Maori used the Hokianga courts to settle disputes and decide ownership for their own purposes. These included defining areas of land for leasing rights to cut timber and flax and dig gum for sale to Europeans, a welcome source of annual income; also, for leasing or selling small blocks to European traders for depots, stores and residences."
(Taken from Waitangi Tribunal reports: www.waitangi-tribunal.govt.nz)