Auckland's 'Founding Father'
I was asked recently, during the course of an interview with the New Zealand Herald on the fortieth anniversary of the end of the Bastion Point/Takaparawhā occupation, about who Auckland’s ‘founding father’ was. My first response was that I don’t like the term ‘founding father’ as for one thing ‘it’s very patriarchal’ . (Where are the ‘founding mothers’?). But if we had to name one, I added, then the Ngāti Whātua rangatira Āpihai Te Kawau had stronger claims than John Logan Campbell , who is usually described as the founding father of Auckland. Āpihai Te Kawau (source: https://nzhistory.govt.nz/people/apihai-te-kawau ) It was Āpihai Te Kawau who invited Lieutenant-Governor William Hobson to found a new settlement on the shores of Waitematā Harbour in 1840. Ngāti Whātua subsequently gifted the Crown over 100,000 acres in the area. They did so, I suggested, in the expectation of an ongoing reciprocal relationship of mutual benefit to both Māori and Pāk...