Waitara is a town in the northern part of the Taranaki region of the North Island of New Zealand. Waitara is located just off State Highway 3, northeast of New Plymouth. Waitara was the site of the outbreak of the Taranaki Wars in 1860 following the attempted purchase of land for British settlers from its Māori owners. Disputes over land that was subsequently confiscated by the Government continue to this day. The commonly accepted meaning of the name Waitara is "mountain stream", though Māori legend also states that it was originally Whai-tara—"path of the dart". In 1867 the settlement was named Raleigh, after Sir Walter Raleigh. It reverted to its former name with the establishment of the borough of Waitara in 1904. History and culture Early history Prior to European colonisation, Waitara lay on the main overland route between the Waikato and Taranaki districts. Vestiges of numerous pā on all strategic heights in the district indicate close settlement and closely contested possession, just before and in early European times, by various tribes. Whalers and sealers, who had come from the northern hemisphere, gained help from and formed relationships with local Māori in the early 19th-century, but the area was largely vacated in the 1820s and 1830s following warfare between the resident Te Āti Awa iwi (tribe) and those of iwi from north Auckland down to the Waikato. Some Te Āti Awa were taken to Waikato as prisoners and slaves, but most migrated to the Cook Strait area in pursuit of guns and goods from whalers and traders. Pākehā settlers who came to New Plymouth (founded in 1841) in the 1840s and 1850s viewed nearby Waitara as the most valuable of Taranaki's coastal lands because of its fertile soil and superior harbour. The New Zealand Company drew up plans for settlement from New Plymouth to beyond Waitara, and sold blocks to immigrants despite a lack of proof that the company's initial purchase of the land had been legitimate. The company claimed that Te Āti Awa had either abandoned the land or lost possession of it, owing to conquest by Waikato Māori. (The Land Claims Commission later upheld this view, but subsequently Governor Robert FitzRoy (in office 1843–1845) rejected it, as did the Waitangi Tribunal in 1996.) First Taranaki War Tensions between settlers and local Māori began as early as July 1842, when settlers who had taken up land north of the