Pākaraka, previously known as Okehu, Maxwelltown, and most recently Maxwell,[1][2][3] is a farming and lifestyle community 20 kilometres (12 mi) west of Whanganui, on the North Island of New Zealand.

[2] Europeans first settled the area in the mid-1800s;[4] they named the settlement "Maxwelltown", after Sergeant George Maxwell.

[5] Maxwell's actions in this location during Tītokowaru's War were described by Colonel George Stoddart Whitmore as follows:[6] I wish particularly to mention the extreme gallantry of Sergt G. Maxwell of the Kai Iwi Cavalry, who himself sabred two and shot one of the enemy...This report omitted that the party that was attacked was made up of children aged between six and twelve who were out pig hunting.

[5] In 1883, George William Rusden published a three-volume History of New Zealand, with many passages which distressed colonialists.

[7] One such passage asserted that Lieutenant John Bryce and Sergeant G. Maxwell had dashed upon women and children at Nukumara and had ‘cut them down gleefully and with ease’.

[11] The area in the 1960s offered good pig hunting sites due to the local heavy scrub.