POMARE (?1804-51) was a chief of the Ngati-Mutunga branch of Ngati-Awa. He married Tawhiti, a daughter of Te Rauparaha. About 1825 or 1826 he led his people in a heke to take possession of the district about Cook Strait, where by permission of Te Rauparaha he occupied the shores of Whanganui-a-Tara (Wellington harbour). When other sections of the tribe followed from Taranaki after the fall of Pukerangiora (1831) there were disputes over land, and some fighting. Pomare's brother Tiwai having been killed at Haowhenua (1834), his wife's brothers dug up the grave. Pomare thereupon abandoned her, and sent her back to her people with the two younger children. He himself kept the eldest. Pomare then took to wife Hera Wai-taoro, daughter of Te Manu-tohe-roa (of Puketapu). Topeora endeavoured unsuccessfully to heal the breach with the Ngati-Toa, bringing back Tawhiti and offering also Topeora, a daughter of Rangihaeata (afterwards the wife of Te Hiko-o-te-Rangi). Pomare made over his rights at Port Nicholson to Te Puni, Wi Tako and Wharepouri (1834), and began to consider seriously the proposal of Pakiwhara that they should move to the Chatham Islands, then occupied by a well fed, inoffensive people (the Moriori). Pakiwhara and Te Wharepa, son of Te Poki, had tapued Pitt Island. At a meeting held at the Kumutoto pa in 1835 it was decided that Ngati-Mutunga and Ngati-Tama should undertake the expedition. Accordingly they seized the schooner Rodney, then in harbour, and compelled her to make two trips to the Chatham Islands (14 Nov and 30 Nov) taking, it is said, about 900 Maori and seven large canoes. The Moriori were incapable of making any resistance, and in two years they were quite enslaved and reduced in numbers (by violence and cannibalism) to 200 souls. After the death of Patukawenga (1836) Pomare became the leading chief of Ngati-Mutunga. He agreed with Te Poki to make war on the Ngati-Tama for Waitangi (Chathams). Pomare sold the land to R. D. Hanson in 1840, and the Ngati-Tama were taken to New Zealand by the Cuba (Jun 1840).

Pomare returned in Oct 1842 to Wellington, where he owned land. He was firmly reproved by Wi Kingi te Rangitake for his conduct towards the Ngati-Tama and the Moriori. In Apr 1844 Pomare was baptised by Hadfield at Waikanae with the name of 'Wiremu Piti Pomare.' He died at the Chathams on 29 Jan 1851. He left no direct descendants and was succeeded by his nephew, Wiremu Naera Pomare.

App. H.R., 1867, A1, p. 1, i; Polyn. Jour., vol. i. 84, 155; Selwyn, Annals; S. P. Smith, Taranaki, 522-3; White, Ko Nga Tatai Whakapapa ... Tainui, 1889, p. 33.

Reference: Volume 2, page 91

🌳 Further sources