Pukekohe

The traditional Māori name for Pukekohe Hill, Pukekohekohe ("Hill of Kohekohe") refers to Dysoxylum spectabile, also known as the New Zealand mahogany tree, which used to be a prominent part of the native bush on in the area.[4][5][6] The area was important to Waiohua tribes including Ngāti Tamaoho, Ngāti Te Ata and Te Ākitai, due to the strategic views from the hill and the high quality soil. The northern slopes of the hill were home to some of the largest croplands (māra kai) for the Tāmaki Māori people who settled here.[4]

Much of the population around Pukekohe migrated south during the Musket Wars in the 1820s due to the threat from Ngāpuhi and other northern tribes,[4] gradually returning from the mid-1830s.[7][8]

In modern times, the two main iwi of the area are Ngāti Tamaoho and Ngāti Te Ata. Waikato Tainui has a strong presence.

On 7 December 1843, the New Zealand Crown purchased sections of the Franklin District including Pukekohe from local Māori for the sum of £150 and several items including 181 blankets, two tea kettles, a horse brush, six silk handkerchiefs, a water pot, 13 axes, two saucepans, a box of pipes and 788 pounds of tobacco.[9] When European settlers arrived, Māori provided them with food supplies, and individual farmers purchased small blocks of land which they cleared by hand.

In 1853, the Crown established Te Awa nui o Taikehu, a reserve the Crown created for Te Ākitai Waiohua during land sales around modern-day Pukekohe.[4] By 1856, European settlements had been well established in the north and western reaches of Pukekohe.[6] On 9 July 1863, due to fears of the Māori King Movement, Governor George Grey proclaimed that all Māori living to the South of Auckland needed to swear loyalty to the Queen and give up their weapons. Most people refused due to strong links to Tainui, leaving for the south before the Government's Invasion of the Waikato. Small numbers of people remained, in order to tend to their farms and for ahi kā (land rights through continued occupation).[10]

A major battle of the Waikato War was fought at Pukekohe East on 14 September 1863. The battle involved 11 armed Pākehā (European New Zealanders) settlers, who were converting the Pukekohe East church into a redoubt and approximately 200–300 Māori, mainly from the Waikato area. Although surprised and severely outnumbered, the settlers held off the Kīngitanga fighters until troops from the 18th Royal Irish Regiment arrived. No settlers were killed or injured while 30 Māori were killed with an unknown number wounded. 6 bodies were found near the church and 24 were later found buried in the bush. The church still exists today and the bullet holes are still visible.[11][6][12] According to Te Huia Raureti, tribes that took part in the raid came from Ngāti Maniapoto, some other upper Waikato tribes, and Ngāti Pou of lower Waikato. On the even of the raid on Pukekohe East, a war council had ordered members of the taua (war party) to avoid looting the property of settlers. Despite this order, future Ngāti Maniapoto chief Wahanui Huatare and several other members raided a settler's house. This angered other members of the war party, who regarded it as a bad omen.[12] Nearly the entire Pukekohe area was abandoned apart from military outposts. Isolated attacks occurred as late as November 1863 after the Battle of Rangiriri.[13]

The New Zealand Government confiscated large tracts of land in the aftermath of the invasion in 1865, after which the town of Pukekohe was established, on the northern slopes of its namesake, Pukekohe Hill.[4][14] In January 1865, the New Zealand Government's Executive Council designated Pukekohe as one of the eight districts in the Waikato region to be confiscated, which amounted to a total of 577,590 acres.[15] On 26 April 1865, the Native Land Court awarded £5,444 in compensation to the Ngatipari tribe, a branch of the Ākitai people, for a block of land known as the "Pukekohe Reserve" or "Pukekohe bloc," which had been confiscated during the Waikato War. The Ngatipari claimants successfully argued that they had not opposed the Crown during the Waikato War and established their claim to the land on the basis of cultivation and ancestral burial grounds.[16] In late 1865, several chiefs sought to have various urupā (burial sites) at Pukekohe and other locations including Patumāhoe, Pōkeno, and Maketū returned to them. The New Zealand Government objected when it emerged that the total area might exceed 200 acres and insisted that the exact locations of graves should be identified and only smaller plots returned to Māori. This case was subsequently referred to the Land Compensation Court.[17]

Due to the clearing of dense bush in the Pukekohe area, large areas of fertile, volcanic land became available for growing crops.[6] While onions and potatoes were first grown in Pukekohe as early as the 1850s, large-scale market growing of vegetables did not begin until 1870 in nearby Patumahoe. After horticulturalist John Bilkey planted a successful crop of onions on Pukekohe Hill in 1892, local farmers began cultivating onion patches. The expansion of roads and railway infrastructure during the late 19th century led to the development of market gardens in Pukekohe and the nearby Bombay Hills. In addition to onions and potatoes, other vegetable produce included squash, tomatoes, silverbeet, lettuce, broccoli, cauliflowers, legumes and root vegetables.[18] By 1875, Pukekohe was connected to Auckland by rail with the extension of railway lines to Mercer.[6] People who had lived in Te Awa nui o Taikehu returned to the area in the 1870s, often working as labourers in the market gardens on the former lands of the reserve.[4]

On 10 June 1905, Pukekohe became a town district.[6] By 1907, Pukekohe's town centre consisted of one main street with numerous stores and workshops.[9] Following the completion of the North Island Main Trunk railway line in 1907, Pukekohe's market gardens became a major supplier of agricultural produce for several North Island major population centres including Auckland and Wellington.[19] Due to Auckland's growing population, Pukekohe became an important market gardening area for the Auckland Region.[6] On 1 April 1912, Pukekohe became a borough with its own elected local council.[9] Due to Auckland's growing population during the 19th and 20th centuries, Pukekohe became an important market gardening area for the Auckland Region.[6]

In response to the growing presence of Chinese and Indian market growers in Pukekohe, the White New Zealand League was founded in Pukekohe in December 1925 to advance the economic and social interests of European New Zealanders.[20][21] Its 15 founding members lived in Pukekohe and included Deputy Mayor George Parvin. As a White supremacist group, the League exploited local European growers' fear of economic competition with Asian immigrants and oppose Asian immigration. The League attracted the support of several New Zealand Members of Parliament, 160 local government bodies and newspaper editors including Franklin District MP Ewen McLennan, Thames MP Thomas William Rhodes, the Franklin County Council, the Pukekohe Borough Council, and the Pukekohe Chamber of Commerce. In January 1926, the Pukekohe Borough Council voted to support the League's goals. Mayor John Routly urged European residents not to lease land to Asians.[22] In 1932, 1,400 Pukekohe locals petitioned the New Zealand Parliament to repatriate local Chinese and Indians, whom they claimed were taking jobs from Europeans and Māori. Parliament dismissed the petition in 1934 on the grounds that the petition's allegations had not been proved.[23] The League dissolved in 1937 during the Great Depression.[24]

During the early 20th century, several landless Māori from the Waikato migrated to Pukekohe to work in the township's market gardens as itinerant agricultural workers. These Māori came from the Ngatipari, Ākitai, and Ngapuhi iwi (tribes). Since the Māori in Pukekohe had no ancestral ties to the land, they took the symbolic title of rootless Māori and became known as Nga Hau E Wha (People of the Four Winds).[25] Many of these Māori workers and their families lived in substandard accommodation including shacks and sheds with no sanitation or plumbing. These contributed to an array of health problems and diseases among Pukekohe's Māori community.[26][27] According to University of Auckland medical sociologist Robert Bartholomew, 73% (237) of all Māori deaths aged 14 years and under between 1925 and 1961 were caused by preventable conditions linked to poverty and poor housing such as bronchitis, diphtheria, dysentry, gastroenteritis, malnutrition, measles, pneumonia, tuberculosis, and whooping cough.[28][29][27]

Between the 1930s and early 1960s, the Pukekohe Borough Council, the Franklin District Council, the Pukekohe Growers Association, and local leaders such as Deputy Mayor Parvin and Mayor Max Grierson blocked attempts by the New Zealand Government and Māori community groups such as the Pukekohe Māori Women's Club to establish public housing for Māori residents. At the time, many European residents were unwilling to live with Māori neighbours while horticultural producers regarded their Māori tenants as a source of cheap labour. Following a measles outbreak in 1938 that ultimately killed 29 Māori children and infants, Māori tenants were temporarily moved into tents. During the Second World War, Māori tenants were housed in army huts as a temporary substitute for shacks and sheds. By the early 1950s, these army huts had deteriorated. In 1951, Māori Affairs Department secured a section of land known as the "Kennelly Block" in North Pukekohe to build houses for Māori tenants. By 1961, 65 Māori homes had been built in the Kennelly Block. In 1961, the Franklin District Council unsuccessfully attempted to restrict Māori housing to North Pukekohe but were blocked by the-then Minister of Māori Affairs Ralph Hanan.[30]

In addition to substandard housing, Pukekohe's Māori population experienced discrimination and segregation in accessing education, health services, public toilets, transportation, and local businesses between the 1920s and early 1960s. Several pubs, barbers, and restaurants either refused to serve Māori or maintained separate facilities for Europeans and non-Whites including Māori. Local businesses and banks were unwilling to loan to Māori patrons. Māori riding buses were expected to give up their seats for European customers.[31][32][33] The Strand cinema maintained separate seating areas for Māori patrons.[34][27]

During the 1940s and 1950s, Pukekohe Primary School maintained segregated toilets and sports teams for European and Māori students. Māori students were only allowed to use the school's swimming pool on Friday before the water was renewed. In 1952, a segregated Māori-only school called Pukekohe Māori School was established to cate for the Māori community. The school was later revamped in 1965 as the interracial Pukekohe Hill School.[35][32][33] According to Bartholomew, discrimination against Māori residents was done on the pretext of health and alleged poor behavior since New Zealand did not have legislation and local by-laws codifying racial segregation and discrimination. [36]

In 2009, several Pukekohe community leaders, school board members, and educators established a community group called "Te Huarahi" to help schools and families improve Māori educational outcomes in Pukekohe and improve knowledge of the Treaty of Waitangi.[37] In 2009, Te Huarahi launched a program to improve the teaching of the Māori language in Pukekohe and called for local leaders to acknowledge that Pukekohe Māori had experienced racism including corporal punishment for speaking their native language.[38]

In 2018, the New Zealand Government settled a treaty land claim with Ngāti Tamaoho, whose area includes Pukekohe. The Government also acknowledged that Ngāti Tamaoho had experienced social and economic marginalisation in New Zealand society including "discrimination and segregation at a state-run school in Pukekohe." That same year, Pukekohe Valley School proposed an action plan to gather local Māori history and stories while acknowledging local unease about the town's history of racism.[39]

Ngā Hau e Whā Marae is located in the Pukekohe area.[40] It is the tribal meeting grounds of Ngāti Tamaoho and the Waikato Tainui hapū of Ngāi Tai and Ngāti Tamaoho.[41]