Kōrero: European ideas about Māori

Rangihoua (written as Ranghe Hue in Augustus Earle's watercolour), in the Bay of Islands, was a significant place of early contact between Māori and European. Samuel Marsden’s missionaries based themselves there when they arrived in 1814. They were given protection by the Ngāpuhi chief Ruatara. Ruatara had first met Marsden in 1809 and had lived with him at Parramatta, west of Sydney, for eight months learning Western techniques of agriculture. In welcoming the missionaries, Ruatara also encouraged the planting of European crops such as wheat, and the introduction of farm animals. Ruatara thus became for early Europeans a prime example of the ability of Māori to become 'civilised'.