[4] Ngāti Pāoa established a foothold along the western side of the Tamaki River and at Mokoia (present day Panmure) in around 1780.

Extensive settlement and agriculture by Ngāti Pāoa in the Mokoia area was recorded by the missionaries John Butler and Samuel Marsden around 1820.

When Butler climbed what was Maungarei / Mount Wellington he saw twenty villages in the valley below and "with a single glance, beheld the greatest portion of cultivated land I had ever met within one place in New Zealand.

Their stores were full of potatoes containing some thousands of baskets and they had some very fine hogs.”[8] Further evidence of active settlement in the area was noted by Captain D'Urville in 1827, on his second visit to New Zealand, when he engaged with Ngāti Paoa chiefs Tawhiti and Te Rangui at the entrance to the Tāmaki River.

On his return, he witnessed that “crowds of natives were looking for shellfish in the mud and the rocks at the entrance were covered with men fishing.” [9] Between 1836 and 1839, Ngāti Paoa was among five iwi negotiating transactions with a missionary for a large block in Tamaki which allowed Maori to occupy the land without conflict.

Sixteen Ngāti Paoa rangatira signed the Treaty of Waitangi at Karaka Bay at the entrance of the Tamaki River on 4 March 1840.

[10] In the 1920s, Point England was under consideration as the site of an air base but this initiative was eventually abandoned due to the cost of the land.

[12] At a meeting of Auckland metropolitan local authorities in May 1938, a decision was to abandon the Point England site for one at Manukau harbour.

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