The area became home to a number of Māori tribes from the 13th century. From about 1823 the Māori began having contact with European
whalers as well as traders who arrived by
schooner to buy
flax. Around the 1820s and 1830s, whalers targeted
Southern right whales in the
South Taranaki Bight. In March 1828
Richard "Dicky" Barrett (1807–47) set up a trading post at Ngamotu (present-day
New Plymouth). Barrett and his companions, who were armed with muskets and cannon, were welcomed by the Āti Awa tribe for assisting in their continuing wars with
Waikato Māori. Total losses among the imperial, volunteer, and militia troops are estimated to have been 238, while Māori casualties totalled about 200. An uneasy truce was negotiated a year later, only to be broken in April 1863 as tensions over land occupation boiled over again. A total of 5,000 troops fought in the
Second Taranaki War against about 1,500 men, women and children. The style of warfare differed markedly from that of the 1860–61 conflict as the army systematically took possession of Māori land by driving off the inhabitants, adopting a "
scorched earth" strategy of laying waste to the villages and cultivations of Māori, whether warlike or otherwise. As the troops advanced, the Government built an expanding line of redoubts, behind which settlers built homes and developed farms. The effect was a creeping confiscation of almost a million acres (4,000 km2) of land. The present main highway on the inland side of
Mount Taranaki follows the path taken by the colonial forces under Major General
Trevor Chute as they marched, with great difficulty, from
Pātea to New Plymouth in 1866. Armed Māori resistance continued in South Taranaki until early 1869, led by the warrior
Tītokowaru, who reclaimed land almost as far south as
Wanganui. A decade later, spiritual leader
Te Whiti o Rongomai, based at
Parihaka, launched a campaign of passive resistance against government land confiscation, which culminated in a raid by colonial troops on 5 November 1881. The confiscations, subsequently acknowledged by the New Zealand Government as unjust and illegal, began in 1865 and soon included the entire Taranaki district. Towns including
Normanby,
Hāwera and Carlyle (
Pātea) were established on land confiscated as military settlements. The release of a
Waitangi Tribunal report on the situation in 1996 led to some debate on the matter. In a speech to a group of psychologists, Associate Minister of Māori Affairs
Tariana Turia compared the suppression of Taranaki Māori to the
Holocaust, provoking a vigorous reaction around New Zealand, with Prime Minister
Helen Clark among those voicing criticism. ==Economy==