This monument to Tāwhiao, the second Māori king, was put up at Ngāruawāhia in 1895, a year after his death. It was paid for by the New Zealand government as a way of strengthening its reconciliation with the King movement. Monuments to Māori leaders erected in the 1870s had also been paid for by the government, but these largely recognised chiefs who fought for the Crown during the New Zealand wars. Māori also began to erect memorials to their leaders in this period.