Russell, New Zealand

Before the arrival of the Europeans, the area now known as Russell was inhabited by Māori because of its pleasant climate and the abundance of food, fish and fertile soil. The settlement was known as Kororāreka, and was located on the coast. The name translates to 'sweet kororā' (kororā meaning blue penguin and reka meaning sweet), after an ailing chief who had eaten a penguin broth remarked ka reka te kororā or 'the kororā is sweet'.[4][5][6] Early European explorers James Cook and Marc-Joseph Marion du Fresne remarked that the area was quite prosperous.[7]

When European and American ships began visiting New Zealand in the early 1800s, the indigenous Māori quickly recognised there were great advantages in trading with these strangers, whom they called tauiwi.[8] The Bay of Islands offered a safe anchorage and had a large Māori population. To attract ships, Māori began to supply food, timber, and prostitution. What the Māori population wanted was respect, firearms, alcohol, and other goods of European manufacture.

Kororāreka developed as a result of this trade but soon earned a very bad reputation as a community without laws and full of prostitution. It became known as the "Hell Hole of the Pacific";[9] European law had no influence and Māori law was seldom enforced within the town's area. Fighting on the beach at Kororāreka in March 1830, between northern and southern hapū within the Ngāpuhi iwi, became known as the Girls' War.

On 30 January 1840 at Christ Church, Governor William Hobson read his proclamations (which were the beginnings of the Treaty of Waitangi) in the presence of a number of settlers and the Māori chief Moka Te Kainga-mataa. A document confirming what had happened was signed at this time by around forty witnesses, including Moka, the only Māori signatory. The following week, the treaty proceedings moved across to the western side of the bay to Waitangi.[10]

By this time, Kororāreka was an important mercantile centre and served as a vital resupply port for whaling and sealing operations. When the Colony of New Zealand was founded in that year, Hobson was reluctant to choose Kororāreka as his capital, due to its bad reputation. Instead he purchased land at Okiato, situated five kilometres to the south, and renamed it Russell in honour of the Secretary of State for the Colonies, Lord John Russell. Hobson soon decided that the move to the Okiato site was a mistake, and Auckland was selected as the new capital not long after.[11]

Kororāreka was part of the Port of Russell, and after Russell (Okiato) became virtually deserted, Kororāreka gradually came to be known as Russell as well. In January 1844, Governor Robert FitzRoy officially designated Kororāreka as part of the township of Russell. Today, the name Russell applies only to Kororāreka, while the former capital is known either by its original name of Okiato or as Old Russell.

In 1841–42, Jean Baptiste Pompallier established a Roman Catholic mission in Russell, which contained a printing press for the production of Māori-language religious texts. His building, known as Pompallier Mission, remains in the care of Heritage New Zealand.

On 18 November 1844, while at anchor in the Bay of Islands, Mary Davis Wallis described Kororarika [sic] as a town "which appears small, consisting of a few houses along the shore, and cottages scattered here and there on the slope of the hills behind. Nothing is to be seen back of the town but lofty hills not particularly verdant."[12]

At the beginning of the Flagstaff War in 1845 (touched off by the repeated felling and re-erection of the symbol of British sovereignty on Flagstaff Hill above the town), the town was sacked by Hōne Heke, after diversionary raids drew away the British defenders. The flagstaff was felled for the fourth time at the commencement of the Battle of Kororāreka, and the inhabitants fled aboard British ships, which then shelled and destroyed most of the houses.[13]

Hōne Heke directed his warriors not to interfere with Christ Church and the Pompallier Mission.

The local Kororāreka Marae is a traditional meeting ground of Te Kapotai, a hapū of Ngāpuhi.[14][15]