Story: Taranaki region

Surveyors’ camp, Waimate plain, around 1880

Surveyors’ camp, Waimate plain, around 1880

In the 1870s, as a result of Premier Julius Vogel’s policies encouraging immigration, there was a pressing need for more land for the new waves of settlers from Britain and Europe. In 1878 surveying teams crossed the Waingongoro River near Hāwera to subdivide the Waimate plain for farms and townships. Although the area had been part of the massive 809,000-hectare confiscation of Taranaki lands, Māori had laid down their arms in 1869 and believed this land had been allocated to them under the New Zealand Settlements Act 1863. Māori opposition to the advancing settlers grew, and Pākehā disquiet about this eventually led to the 1881 invasion of the settlement of Parihaka.

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Private collection
Reference: Edwin Stanley Brookes, Frontier life : Taranaki, New Zealand, NZ. Auckland: Brett, 1892
Lithograph after a drawing by E. S. Brookes

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How to cite this page:

Ron Lambert, 'Taranaki region - Pākehā settlement', Te Ara - the Encyclopedia of New Zealand, http://www.TeAra.govt.nz/en/artwork/25301/surveyors-camp-waimate-plain-around-1880 (accessed 19 April 2024)

Story by Ron Lambert, updated 1 Aug 2015