Approximately 50,000 years ago, an eruption created hot fluid pāhoehoe lava flows, that travelled up to 10 km/h (6.2 mph) from Māngere Mountain into the Manukau Harbour, which can still be seen along Kiwi Esplanade.

[4] Te Pane-o-Mataaho is one of the earliest names for the mountain, referring to Mataaho, an early Tāmaki Māori volcano god.

[15]: 63  Paramount chief Kiwi Tāmaki would stay at Māngere seasonally, when it was the time of year to hunt sharks in the Manukau Harbour.

Originally the iwi were based on Maungakiekie / One Tree Hill, but after the death of paramount chief Tūperiri (circa 1795), the Māngere Bridge area and Onehunga became permanent kāinga (settlements) for Ngāti Whātua.

[21]: 3 [22]: 39  Pōtatau Te Wherowhero and his Ngāti Mahuta relatives settled near to the land where his brother Kati Takiwaru lived, an area of 190 hectares (480 acres) around the base of Māngere Mountain.

[23]: 36 [24] During the invasion of the Waikato, the Ngāti Mahuta village land was seized under the New Zealand Settlements Act 1863, and the area around the mountain primarily became farmland for European settlers.

[21]: 6 In 1890, the New Zealand Government set aside Māngere Mountain as a public reserve, for mixed recreation, quarrying and as a water supply.

[21]: 24 [30] In 2014, the Tūpuna Maunga Authority was established as a Treaty of Waitangi settlement, which passed ownership of Māngere Mountain to the collective.