Early history Prior to European colonisation, Waitara lay on the main overland route between the
Waikato and Taranaki districts. Vestiges of numerous
pā on all strategic heights in the district indicate close settlement and closely contested possession, just before and in early European times, by various tribes. Whalers and
sealers, who had come from the northern hemisphere, gained help from and formed relationships with local Māori in the early 19th-century, but the area was largely vacated in the 1820s and 1830s following warfare between the resident
Te Āti Awa iwi (tribe) and those of iwi from north
Auckland down to the
Waikato. Some Te Āti Awa were taken to Waikato as prisoners and slaves, but most migrated to the
Cook Strait area in pursuit of guns and goods from whalers and traders.
Pākehā settlers who came to New Plymouth (founded in 1841) in the 1840s and 1850s viewed nearby Waitara as the most valuable of Taranaki's coastal lands because of its fertile soil and superior harbour. The
New Zealand Company drew up plans for settlement from New Plymouth to beyond Waitara, and sold blocks to immigrants despite a lack of proof that the company's initial purchase of the land had been legitimate. The company claimed that Te Āti Awa had either abandoned the land or lost possession of it, owing to conquest by Waikato Māori. (The
Land Claims Commission later upheld this view, but subsequently Governor
Robert FitzRoy (in office 1843–1845) rejected it, as did the
Waitangi Tribunal in 1996.)
First Taranaki War Tensions between settlers and local Māori began as early as July 1842, when settlers who had taken up land north of the Waitara River were driven from their farms. A year later 100 men, women and children sat in a surveyors' path to disrupt the surveying of land for sale. The dispute ultimately led to the outbreak of war in Waitara on 17 March 1860, when 500 troops began a bombardment of Kingi's Te Kohia pā, which had been built two days' prior. By the end of March, of the four
kāinga in the Pekapeka block (Te Whanga, Kuikui, Hurirapa and Wherohia), only Hurirapa, the community led by Ihaia and Teira, remained. As a result of this operation,
Colour Sergeant John Lucas was awarded the
Victoria Cross.
Second Taranaki War In May 1863
war resumed in Taranaki. The government immediately renounced the earlier Waitara purchase, abandoning all claims to it, and instead created a plan for the confiscation of greater tracts of land under new laws, supposedly as a reprisal for the Oakura killings. In 1865 the Pekapeka block that had been at the heart of the initial dispute with Kingi was confiscated – therefore finding its way back into government control – on the basis that Kingi was at war, though the Waitangi Tribunal concluded there was no evidence he had engaged in hostilities after 1861. In 1884 the Government returned as "Native reserves" 103,000 hectares of the 526,000 hectares of Taranaki land it had confiscated, although the land remained in government control. By 1990 half of the "reserves" had been sold to
Pākehā settlers by the
Native Trustee without reference to Maori. The remainder was leased to settlers with Maori receiving only a
"peppercorn" rental return. The Pekapeka Block – which had been the catalyst of the Taranaki Wars and, by extension, the policy of land confiscation – was divided up and given as endowments, or gifts, to the Waitara Borough Council and Taranaki Harbours Board. In 1989 the land was transferred to the
New Plymouth District Council, which in turn voted in March 2004 to sell it to the Government with the intention of it being passed to Te Āti Awa as part of the Waitangi Treaty settlement. That process was blocked by the High Court in November 2005 after a challenge by the Waitara Leaseholders Association. Association members, each of whom owns a house but
leases the (once confiscated) land on which it stands, want to own the land
freehold.
Treaty settlement In September 1990 the
Waitangi Tribunal began hearing 21
Treaty of Waitangi claims concerning the Taranaki district. Much of the tribunal's investigation focused on events around Waitara from 1840 to 1859. The tribunal presented its report to the Government in June 1996, noting: "The Taranaki claims could be the largest in the country. There may be no others where as many Treaty breaches had equivalent force and effect over a comparable time. For the Taranaki hapu, conflict and struggle have been present since the first European settlement in 1841 ... Taranaki Maori were dispossessed of their land, leadership, means of livelihood, personal freedom, and social structure and values. As Maori, they were denied their rights of autonomy, and as British subjects, their civil rights were removed. For decades, they were subjected to sustained attacks on their property and persons." In its report, the tribunal observed that to the offence of local Maori, many street names in Waitara honoured the architects of the illegal land confiscation, including chief crown purchasing agent
Donald McLean, Land Purchase Commissioner Robert Parris, Governor
Thomas Gore Browne and military officers
Charles Emilius Gold and Peter Cracroft. It said: "It is our view that name changes are needed. It is when leaders like Kingi, who understood the prerequisites for peace, are similarly memorialised on the land and embedded in public consciousness that those names will cease to stand for conquest and the Waitara war will end." In November 1999 the New Zealand Government signed a Heads of Agreement with Te Āti Awa to settle its claims, a process that would provide financial compensation and an apology for the confiscation of land.
Marae Waitara has two marae. Kairau Marae features Te Hungaririki meeting house, and is a meeting ground for the
Pukerangiora hapū of
Te Āti Awa. In October 2020, the Government committed $300,080 from the
Provincial Growth Fund to upgrade the marae, creating 15 jobs. Ōwae or Manukorihi Marae features Te Ikaroa a Māui meeting house and is a marae of
Te Āti Awa hapū of
Manukorihi,
Ngāti Rāhiri and
Ngāti Te Whiti. In October 2020, the Government committed $360,002 to upgrade the marae and another marae, creating 15 jobs. ==Demographics==