Richard Barrett
Date of birth / Date established
1807
Date of death / Date closed
23 Feb 1847
Place of death / Place closed
Person/Corporate type
Individual
Biography
Richard (Dicky) Barrett worked as a seaman on trading vessels off the Taranaki coast in the late 1820s. Iwi trusted him and he later married Rawinia the daughter of Eruera Te Puke ki Mahurangi, a leading Ngāti Te Whiti chief. Using his ship’s small cannon he helped Te Ātiawa defend Ōtaka pā at Ngāmotu against tribes from the Waikato region. Barrett was the translator for the Māori who signed a deed of sale surrendering lands to the New Zealand Company on 15 February 1840.
