Te Waaka Māngere signed the East Coast sheet of the Treaty of Waitangi between 5 and 12 May 1840 at Tūranga (now Gisborne). He was a rangatira (chief) of the Ngāti Kaipoho hapū (subtribe) of the Rongowhakaata iwi (tribe). Māngere was the older brother of Raharuhi Rukupō, Paora Kate and Pera Tawhiti. They were from the Karaua lands on the Karaua Stream. Rukupō moved the hapū to the nearby Pakirikiri pā (fortified village) after Te Hau ki Tūranga was taken by Ōrākaiapu, Waerengahika, Ngātapa and Raupatu (also of Rongowhakaata).
The Karua Block was sold by Matenga Tamaioreao to Captain W. B. Rhodes and the merchants Daniel Cooper and James Holt in February 1840. When Rukupō and Māngere opposed this sale, Tamaioreao admitted that he had been foolish (pohepohe) because he had not received his payment for another block of land.
Māngere invited Reverend William Williams to live at the mission station they had established at Orakai-a-Pu pā in 1840.
Māngere must have died soon after signing the Treaty of Waitangi, because in 1842–3 Rukupō built a carved meeting house called Te Hau-ki-Tauranga (The Spirit of Tauranga) at the Orakai-a-Pu pā in his memory. In 1867 this house was moved to Wellington by Resident Magistrate Reginald Biggs without proper permission being obtained.