At the south-eastern zone of Hauraki influence, Ngati Tamatera claimed interests as far south as Motukouru, and held sway over the area inland to Te Aroha where their rights intersected with those of Ngati Maru, Ngati Haua, and others. The Marutuahu clashed regularly with Ngaiterangi, who moved into the Tauranga district in the eighteenth century, the outward bounds of control shifting between the two peoples with the fortune of battle. Immediately prior to the Ngapuhi invasions, in the early nineteenth century, Te Moananui exercised rights in lands from Te Kahakaha to Opeope Swamp to Teroa on the inner side of the Kati Kati Harbour to Motukoura, and into the interior.8 Even during the dislocations consequent on the Ngapuhi invasions (described below), Marutuahu continued to mount raids from their interior refuge into the Tauranga harbour area.9
The tribal status quo was severely disturbed by the raids of Ngapuhi in the early nineteenth century. The acquisition of muskets shifted the balance abruptly, throwing the whole region into a state of considerable flux in the period immediately prior to the declaration of British sovereignty. The Ngapuhi musket raids and the consequent arming of all iwi in the vicinity greatly exacerbated traditional fluctuations of warfare and alliance. Old accommodations and balances were disrupted: temporary departures from the exposed coast, occupations of inland areas, and a reassertion of rights when tribes moved back to their former lands resulted from the struggle to maintain viability within that vortex of power. This recent history of warfare and movement was to add greatly to the complications of claims as native tenure was converted into European title in the first thirty years of the colony. On the one hand, tribes claimed areas occupied during the 1820s and early 1830s, citing battles fought and pa established, and on the other, were anxious to reassert rights to ancestral lands reoccupied since then.10
At first the Marutuahu confederacy held its own, Kelly describes successful counterattacks by Ngati Maru, Ngati Whanaunga, and Ngati Paoa into the Bay of Islands.11 By the 1820s, however, the Hauraki tribes had been forced to withdraw into the interior. Ngati Tamatera departed from the exposed Tauranga coast—neither they nor Ngaiterangi taking up permanent residence in the Te Kahakaha-Moukouru region for many decades thereafter.12 Ngati Paoa also retreated south from their settlements on the Auckland isthmus. Mokoia and Mauinaina were sacked circa November 1820, and the shores of the Tamaki River and Waiheke Island were vacated. Totara pa (Thames) fell two months later. Ngati Paoa and other 'Thames' tribes took up residence in middle Waikato with Ngati Haua and Ngati Raukawa of Te Kaokaoroa-o-Patetere to whom they were closely allied through marriage." Waikato were then drawn into the conflict as Ngapuhi pushed south, attacking through the exposed Hauraki flank. Counterattacks followed from Waikato and the Marutuahu who consolidated their strength by building
8 See Report on Te Moananui's and Ngaiterangi Claims to Lands at Kati Kati. AJHR, 1867, A-20, p. 7.
9 Turoa, Nga Iwi o Hauraki, The Iwi of Hauraki.
10 See Monin on this point with reference to Waiheke Island in, 'Islands lying between Slipper Island,'
PP.23-25.
11 Kelly, ainui, pp. 272-273.
12See Report on Te Moananui's and Ngaiterangi Claims to Lands at Kati Kati. AJHR, 1867, A-20, pp. 7-27.
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