European impact on Hauraki iwi began on 3November 1769 when Lieutenant James Cook in HMS Endeavour sailed into Te Whanganui-o-Hei or Mercury Bay. In the following 12 days Cook and Joseph Banks described Maori settlement and life in the bay in a way which is unequalled by any other accounts (Salmond 1991:191–211).
People in the bay appeared to be anticipating attack. Cook was told that people came from the north to raid them, taking away their wives and children. On the northern side of the bay was a fortified pa named Wharetaewa and an arched rock, Te Puta-oparetauhinu, which had five or six houses surrounded by a fence. This rock, which collapsed early this century, appealed to Banks who called it "the most beautifuly romantick thing I ever saw" (Beaglehole 19621: 434). Wharetaewa was described as having a strong palisade about ten feet high around the pa; inside the sloping ground was terraced into 20 divisions each containing from one or two to 12–14 houses. The individual terraces also had palisades round them and were linked by lanes. Large quantities of fernroot and dried fish were seen inside the pa while outside the palisades were a few houses, large nets and a small plot (about half an acre) planted with gourds and sweet potatoes. No other gardens were seen in the bay (Beaglehole 19621: 433).
On the south side of the bay at Purangi, a group of people were collecting fernroot and drying shellfish and producing large heaps of shells in the process. They lived on the beach under the barest of shelter and told Cook's party they had houses and a fort elsewhere and were taking the food away (Beaglehole 19621: 427). These people were of Ngati Pou (or Te Uri-o-Pou) from the western side of the Firth of Thames and had kinship ties with Ngati Hei (Salmond 1991:197). At least some Ngati Whanaunga were present as Horeta to Tanewha has left several accounts of his encounter as a small boy with the Europeans.
There was also a small village near the entrance to Whitianga River (called Mangrove River by Cook) and a pa in ruins on the east side of the entrance, apparently attacked by Ngai Te Rangi some 15–20 years before (Salmond 1991:202).
