Matiu Tauhara signed the Treaty of Waitangi on 28 April 1840 at Kaitāia.
He spoke at the signing, ‘Will a man be taken up if he walk in the night? … That is all I am afraid of. If a man steal it is right to punish him. This is all I have to say: Let all the Governors and Pakehas be like the Missionaries, that we be good. We have not been hurt by them.’ [1]
In 1876 Matiu Tauhara was one of a number of chiefs presented to the governor, Lord Normanby.
[1] T. Lindsay Buick, The Treaty of Waitangi: or, how New Zealand became a British colony, Mackay, Wellington, 1914, p. 149