agreement included Ngati Paoa, and the other 'Thames' tribes, as well as Te Akitai, and some Ngati Whatua.19
Hauraki at 1840
Despite the depredations of disease and the upheaval of war in the first decades of the nineteenth century, by 1840 Hauraki Maori had managed to re-establish themselves on the peninsula and in the region of Auckland, and to lay the foundations of an advantageous social and economic relationship with Pakeha.20 There had been considerable contact with Pakeha since the 1790s. Cook's description of the Firth of Thames attracted a great number of ships to the region—sealing and whaling ships for repairs at Waiheke, and for spars—which Maori provisioned with potatoes in exchange for iron and goods.21 That economic contact generated by the Hauraki position on the coastal trading routes was abruptly cut off by the tribal turmoil of the 1820s. Nonetheless in the following decade, the Hauraki tribes were able to re-establish themselves along the shores of the gulf; capitalising on the growing European presence in the area.
Early contact at Mercury Bay. William A. Price Collection, Alexander Turnbull Library
19 Ibid., pp. II-I2. For further discussion of Fairburn purchase.
20 For fuller discussion of Hauraki social and economic position in this period see Oliver, The Social and Economic Situation of Hauraki Maori After Colonisation; R.C.J. Stone, The Economic Impoverishment of Hauraki Maori Through Colonisation, 7830-7930, report prepared for Hauraki Maori Trust Board, 1997.
21 B. Kayes, The Ancestors of Ngati Paoa.' Cited in Waitangi Tribunal, Report on the Waiheke Island Claim, p. 3.
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