TE RANGITAKE, WIREMU KINGI (? 1795-1882), a chief of Ngati-Awa, was one of the three sons of Reretawhangawhanga and his wife Te Kehu. He claimed relationship with Ngati-Whatua. Owing to a quarrel between the heads of the tribe in the neighbourhood of Maungatautari, one section migrated southward to the Waitara, where one of the brothers married a woman belonging to a younger female branch of the family of Te Teira. The Ngati-Awa had their pa at Manukorihi, on the north bank of the river, where Te Rangitake was born about 1795. Reretawhangawhanga devised the reconnaissance of 80 picked men which brought about the defeat of Waikato at Motunui in 1822. He went south with Te Rauparaha, but was disappointed with the prospect and returned north. In 1824 he took some of his people in the Nihoputa heke to the south. Five years later, as one of the leaders of Ngati Awa, he took part in the reprisals against Nga-Rauru for interfering with his heke. In 1831 Reretawhangawhanga was with Te Rauparaha at Kaiapohia. While he was absent a taua of Waikato, under Te Wherowhero, captured their pa at Pukerangiora and killed or took prisoners many of the vanquished. Some accounts say that Te Rangitake was amongst the prisoners; others that he had gone to Kapiti before the invasion and placed himself under the protection of Te Rauparaha.

About 1833, his hapu having adopted the name 'Manukorihi,' abandoned the pa on the Waitara and joined the Taranaki tribe in the Paukena heke to Cook Strait. There quarrels quickly ensued with Te Rauparaha and Ngati-Raukawa over the allocation of land, and there was never a satisfactory settlement. In 1834 the Ngati-Awa were attacked by the Ngati-Raukawa at Pakakutu pa (Otaki). Reretawhangawhanga led a successful sortie and moved to Haowhenua, where he was again attacked. Through the mediation of Te Heuheu a truce was at length established, and Te Rangitake settled down with his people at Waikanae. The truce was broken in 1839 by the Ngati-Raukawa attacking the Ngati-Awa, the Taranaki and the Ngati-Ruanui at Kuititanga. It was about this time that Te Awaitaia suggested to Rangitake that he might solve the dispute by returning to Waitara. Rangitake was deeply influenced by the teaching of Ripahau (q.v.), who married his daughter, and whom he invited to leave Kapiti and reside with him at Waikanae. When Hadfield opened the mission at Otaki Rangitake was one of his earliest converts. He always evinced a friendly disposition towards the pakeha. When Colonel Wakefield arrived in the Tory (1839) he was one of the first chiefs of Ngati-Awa to sign the Queen Charlotte Sound deed, under which Wakefield endeavoured to persuade the tribe to part with their rights in Taranaki. Reretawhangawhanga died at Waikanae on 26 Sep 1843. After the affray at Wairau Te Rangitake stood firmly with Hadfield against the warlike influence of Te Rauparaha and Rangihaeata. In 1846 again, when the settlers in the Hutt valley were attacked by Rangihaeata, he resisted the disturbers and was largely responsible for protecting the settlement at Port Nicholson.

In the early years of British sovereignty Wi Kingi paid a visit to the Ngapuhi. A quarrel about land between him and Kati (the younger brother of Te Wherowhero) showed that the claims of Waikato to Waitara were not yet abandoned. In 1847, while accompanying Governor Grey in the Inflexible on his visit to Taranaki, Wiremu Kingi firmly declined to abandon his claims at Waitara, and later in the year he evacuated his lands at Waikanae and led 500 of his people with all their possessions back to the ancestral lands. He intended to reoccupy the old cultivations on the north bank of the river at Manukorihi, but finding a party of Waikato (under Rewi) in possession, he obtained permission of Tamati Ruru (the father of Te Teira) to settle on the south bank. In the summer of 1849-50 he erected a strong pa at the mouth. Encouraged by the demand for produce for the goldfields in Australia, Wiremu Kingi's people worked industriously at their farms and prospered exceedingly. In 1854 they were said to own 150 horses, 300 cattle, 40 carts, 35 ploughs, 20 pairs of harrows, 2 winnowing machines and 10 wooden houses. In the late fifties the chief's demeanour changed. Though still loyal to the Government, he was irritated by the land hunger of the pakeha and the gradual transfer of broad acres from Maori to pakeha ownership. Grey was unable fully to regain his cooperation, and Wi Kingi (who now called himself 'Wiremu Kingi Whiti') for a while cultivated a friendship with the Puketapu chief Katatore. Though he held aloof from the Ngati-Ruanui Land League, he found himself involved in a critical dispute over the land which he occupied at Waitara. In the presence of Governor Browne at New Plymouth (7 Mar 1859) he declared his determination to oppose the sale by Teira. Nevertheless he indignantly refused in Dec of that year to accept the King flag, declaring that he loved the pakeha but would keep his land. The sale was completed, however, early in 1860, and surveyors entered upon the block. When the natives under Wi Kingi's influence obstructed and ignored the orders of the Government to desist, troops marched against Waitara (5 Mar 1860). Only then did Wi Kingi turn to the King movement in the hope of receiving the assistance of Waikato. His people erected a pa (Te Hurirapa) and pulled up the survey pegs. Fighting commenced on 17 Mar and practically concluded on 8 Apr, when Wi Kingi's general (Hapurona), defeated at Huirangi, tendered his submission. Some of Wi Kingi's young men, without his consent, went to Ngaruawahia and took the King oath (Apr 1860). The King tribes thereafter considered Waitara to be under their mana and they joined in the fighting. At the instigation of Rewi a Ngati-Maniapoto party was allowed to go to Taranaki, and it beat off an attack at Puketakauere. Wi Kingi went to visit the King at Kihikihi. Fox saw him at Hangatiki in 1861 and they discussed the dispute. With the question still unsettled, Wiremu Kingi retired into the inland Ngati-Maru district, where he lived in seclusion for the next 12 years in close association with the Maori King. When the removal of Sir John Gorst from the Waikato was being discussed at Te Awamutu (Apr 1863) he counselled sending away all the pakeha settlers and seizing their houses. About this time Sir George Grey learned new facts about the Waitara purchase.

In 1867-68 Kingi lived for 18 months with the Taranaki tribe at Warea. He visited Titokowaru, but rejected an invitation in 1868 to join in his insurrection. Later he lived for nearly five years at Parihaka with Te Whiti. It was during this period that he restrained his people from resisting the passage of the Ngati-Maniapoto after the massacre of White Cliffs. Though he was never again on terms of cordiality with the pakeha, Kingi had business relations with them, and never interfered with the settlers. Parris recommended in 1869 that his people should receive grants of land. Kingi's wife and grandson emerged from their seclusion in that year to visit New Plymouth, and three years later the chief himself met the Native Minister (McLean) and was received in friendly fashion by the whites (16 Feb 1872). In his later years, preferring seclusion when he found his influence failing through the spread of European customs, he lived a purely native life. For some time he resided at Manutangihia, and later he moved to Kaingaru, where he died on 13 Jan 1882. He left one son (Emera) and a daughter (Georgiana). His grandson Emera Kingi afterwards became chief.

Rangitake was tall and in later years stout, with a forbidding countenance and blustering manner. M. S. Grace describes him as a subtle council chief, a white man's Maori with imagination and a turn for affairs. Having lived long with pakeha of high intellectual order like Hadfield, he was enthusiastically in favour of the English constitution and was 'forced into war by Governor Gore Browne's pragmatic incapacity.' The Government's treatment of him over the Waitara block is a controversial incident in New Zealand history. Grey was anxious to remedy what he considered an injustice, and both Sir William Martin and Bishop Selwyn warmly championed the chief whose arms in early days had so often protected the pakeha.

Information from Bishop H. W. Williams; App. H.R., 1863, E2, E2A, 1867, A18; Cowan (p); Ward; M. S. Grace (p); Buller; Wells; Gorst; Saunders (notably ii, 296); Martin, The Taranaki Question; H. T. Kemp in N.Z. Herald, 23 Mar 1901; Rusden; Taranaki Herald, 18 Jan 1882.

Reference: Volume 2, page 101

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