The earliest record of a mixed Indo-Māori union is said to have occurred in 1810, when an Indian man from Bengal abandoned a shipping vessel to marry a Māori woman.
[2] Possibly the earliest non-Māori settlers of the Otago region of South Island were three Indian lascars who deserted ship to live among the Māori in 1813.
[3] There, they assisted the Ngāi Tahu by passing on new skills and technologies, including how to attack colonial European vessels in the rain when their guns could not be fired.
The late 1800s and early 1900s saw the first wave of migration of Indian men and later women arriving to the country.
[6] In this climate of racial hostility, a large number of Punjabi Sikhs, invested in dairy farms and market gardens in order to be self-sufficient.
Another notable family are the children of Bruce Stewart, who are half Indo-Fijian through their mother and grew up at Tapu Te Ranga Marae.
[12] Since 2022, the Auckland Tamil Association has also held an annual Maori-Tamil hui to forge stronger relationships between the Indian and Māori communities.