Tuai of Ngare Raumati: Teaching Europeans in the early 19th century

Abstract

Tuai of Ngare Raumati was probably the most written-about Māori in the first quarter of the 19th century. He was a man who lived in unstable times, who moved flexibly within European and Māori society, and who engaged with almost everyone he met, according to a French observer, with “the tact and shrewdness which enabled [him] to realise with whom he had to deal and by what means he could commend himself to all” (Dumont D’Urville in Sharp 1971: 38). His name—or a version of it—appears in most indexes of books about the pre-1830s Bay of Islands. But almost all modern references to him are in passing. Our article seeks to bring into focus this shadowy figure who played a significant role in New Zealand history, and in particular the relationships between Māori and the first Pākehā settlers in the north of New Zealand.