Otara

Name	Ōtara
Settlement type	Neighbourhood
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Image map	NZ-Otara.png
Mapsize	200px
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Subdivision type	Country
Subdivision name	New Zealand
Subdivision type1	City
Subdivision name1	Manukau
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Ōtara is a suburb of Manukau City, one of the cities which make up the Greater Auckland metropolitan area in the North Island of New Zealand. Situated 18 kilometres to the southeast of Auckland city centre, Ōtara lies near the head of the Tāmaki River (actually an arm of the Hauraki Gulf), which extends south towards the Manukau Harbour. Contemporary Ōtara is surrounded by the suburbs of Ōtāhuhu, Middlemore, Papatoetoe, Flat Bush, and East Tāmaki. The suburb is noted for its proportion of Pacific Islander residents, who make up 68% of the Ōtara population, and its unusually low number of New Zealand European (Pākehā) residents (13%).

History

Māori origins

In the Māori language, Ō-Tara means ‘the place of Tara’ or ‘territory belonging to Tara’, who was a Rangatira (or Māori Chief) of the area. 'Ōtara' is in turn the shortened form of Te Puke Ō Tara (literally; ‘The Hill of Tara’); known also for a time as Smales Mount. Te Puke Ō Tara was one of Ōtara's prominent volcanic cones, and prior to European settlement in the area was the site of a scoria cone Pā. Like most of Auckland, the Ōtara landscape is volcanic in origin and forms a part of what is known as the East Tāmaki volcanic field, with Te Puke Ō Tara and Mātanginui (Greenmount) having been the dominant cones of Ōtara. Mātanginui was also a Pā site, and the areas surrounding both Pā are thought to represent the densest area of pre-European settlement in East Tāmaki, favoured for rich volcanic gardening soils and fresh water springs.

The tāngata whenua of Ōtara are the local iwi known as Ngāi Tai (also called Ngāti Tai). Ngāti Tai are said to have originated as a distinct iwi identity on the eastern coastline of Auckland shortly after the Tainui waka called there in about the mid-14th Century. According to Ngāi Tai tradition, Te Puke Ō Tara and Ōtara are named after the Ariki (Paramount Chief) of Ngāi Tai known as Tara Te Irirangi, who lived from the late 18th Century until 1852. An earlier name applied to the area was Ngā Kopi Ō Toi ('The Karaka Berries of Toi'), named for a Karaka grove said by tradition to have been brought to Tāmaki from the Chatham Islands and planted in the vicinity of Greenmount by Toi Te Huatahi.

Over time, with the emergence and expansion of later hapū and iwi identities, Ngāti Tai occupying the Ōtara area became closely interlinked by marriages with Te Akitai, Ngāti Tamaoho and Ngāti Kahu of the Tāmaki Makaurau confederation of tribes known collectively as Te Wai ō Hua, and with the Hauraki peoples of Ngāti Pāoa and Ngāti Tamaterā, among others. The Ngāti Pāoa chieftain Hauauru noted in 1851 that by the mid-1830s Ngāti Pāoa, Ngāti Tamaterā and Te Akitai had competing interests in Ōtara. While all of these groups hold ancestral relationships to the Ōtara area, Ngāi Tai continue to retain recognised mana whenua status.

European settlement

During the 1830s, Ōtara was among many present-day suburbs of Manukau & Auckland originally included within the boundaries of what became known as the "Tāmaki Block" or "Fairburn Purchase". Between 1836 and 1839, the newly arrived Church Mission Society (CMS) missionary William Thomas Fairburn began moves to establish a mission station at Maraetai while attempting to purchase a vast tract of land from various iwi of Auckland. Brokered as "an act of Christian peacemaking" between warring tribes on the Tāmaki isthmus, Fairburn obtained "signatures" to the deed of purchase from over 30 Rangatira; few, if any of whom could read or write. Fairburn originally estimated the total area to contain , but it was later surveyed as being around 83,000. When the purchase came under scrutiny from the CMS, in 1837 Fairburn signed a deed promising to return one third of the land to the original inhabitants (a transaction which never took place), and unsuccessfully attempted to offer another third to the Church. Following the Treaty of Waitangi establishing New Zealand as a British Colony in 1840, Fairburn came under investigation from the new Government's Land Claims Commission. Following a protracted investigation (during which time Fairburn resigned from the mission), in 1848 the Commission disallowed Fairburn's original claim, awarding him instead a much smaller grant of just under . The remainder of the land, including Ōtara, was retained by the Crown as "surplus land" to be onsold to European settlers. Following the protests of Hori Te Whetuki on behalf of Ngāi Tai, in 1854 the Commission granted a "Native Reservation" of just over at Umupuia to "the chiefs of the Ngatitai" and paid them £500 compensation, on the condition that they sign an agreement to vacate all other lands within the original purchase boundaries, and order all other iwi to do the same.

European settlement of Ōtara began in earnest from the 1850s onwards, with most settlers of the wider East Tāmaki area being Scottish and Irish Presbyterians. The most prominent settler of Ōtara during this period was the Wesleyan missionary Reverend Gideon Smales. Smales had arrived from England in 1840, and upon his retirement moved to settle at East Tāmaki, purchasing a block from the Government in 1855, which included Te Puke Ō Tara. Smales farmed the land at the foot of Te Puke Ō Tara and opened a quarry on the mountain; the entirety of which has since been destroyed. Mātanginui Pā was also largely destroyed by quarrying from 1870 onwards and is now the site of the Greenmount Landfill. from the Smales Mount/Puke Ō Tara estate on the remains of the original cone now form reserve known as Te Puke Ō Tara Hampton Park, which includes a stone church built in the 1860s and the remains of extensive stone walls from Smales' farm, both constructed from the quarried scoria.

Farming and rural industries remained the dominant characteristic of Ōtara throughout the late 19th and early 20th Centuries.

Urbanisation

Following World War II, Ōtara was developed by the Auckland Regional Authority as a State Housing area.

Contemporary culture

Ōtara is "The Heart of Manukau City" and the home of the "Ōtara Global Village" developing in the old relocated Baird's Intermediate school which was moved to the new site of the Sir Edmund Hillary Collegiate and renamed SEHC Middle School.

The suburb achieved a mild degree of worldwide fame with the one-off hit single How Bizarre, by hip-hop artists OMC. "OMC" stands for "Otara Millionaires' Club" - a tongue-in-cheek reference to the low socio-economic status of much of the suburb, Ōtara being one of the poorest parts of the Auckland region - Ōtara North being Auckland Region's suburb with the second lowest median income, at NZ$25,900 after Great Barrier Island at NZ$25,100, and compared to an average of NZ$37,300 and the highest value of NZ$60,000.

Ōtara is also known for its Saturday morning 'Flea market' held in the Ōtara shopping center car park next to Manukau Institute of Technology's South Campus.

In the 1970s Prime Minister Robert Muldoon's immigration policies led to dawn raids on some Ōtara residents by police in the search for illegal overstayers from the Pacific Islands.

Education

Ōtara has two main high schools, Tangaroa College and Sir Edmund Hillary Collegiate.

Sir Edmund Hillary Collegiate consists of three schools. The Junior School catering for Years 1 - 6; the Middle School, Years 7 and 8; and the Senior School catering for Years 9 - 13.

Ōtara is also home to Manukau Institute of Technology's two main campuses.

Ōtara has nine primary schools, Bairds Mainfreight Primary School, Dawson School, East Tāmaki Primary School, Flatbush School, Mayfield Primary School, Rongomai School, Saint John the Evangelist School, Wymondley School and Yendarra School. Ōtara also has one intermediate school, Ferguson. It is also home to Te Kura Kaupapa Maori o Piripono.

References

Category:Suburbs of Auckland