Wiremu Te Kakakura Parata

Wiremu Te Kakakura Parata, of Ngati Toa and Te Ati Awa, was born on Kapiti Island in the 1830s. He grew up in a time of great social and political change. During the 1860s he became involved in politics, and was elected to Parliament as the member for Western Maori in 1871.

He was an astute politician and a skilled orator and debater. He often urged the assembly, dominated by European settlers, to pass laws that took account of Maori needs and aspirations. But many Maori were highly critical when, after being promoted to the Executive Council in 1872, he stopped speaking out for them.

After leaving Parliament Parata took part in court claims over Maori land. His most notable case, in 1877, was Wi Parata v the Bishop of Wellington. This concerned the gift of Ngati Toa land to the Anglican Bishop for a Maori school at Porirua. The Church had received a Crown grant of land in 1850, but no school was built.

Parata sought a return of the land. In his judgment Chief Justice Prendergast famously declared that Maori were a primitive tribal society possessing no laws capable of recognition or protection by the Courts. The Treaty of Waitangi, moreover, could not call into being a native title that did not exist. As such he held that the Treaty, in a legal sense, was no more than a 'simple nullity'. Parata died in 1906.

• Find out more: biography of Wiremu Parata on the DNZB website