Marsden thought Ruatara's father was Kaparu, the younger brother of Te Pahi, and that his mother was a sister of Hongi Hika but this is likely not the case.
[3] In 1805, he first attempted to travel abroad, and signed up as a sailor on a whaling ship, the Argo,[4] but was cheated and stranded in Sydney the following year by its captain.
In Sydney, he stayed with Marsden and studied British agricultural practices,[5] and had a small farm at Parramatta in 1811 where he was visited by Kawiti Tiitua, the son of the chief Tara of the southern Bay of Islands.
"[7] On 25 December 1814, Ruatara and Hongi Hika welcomed Marsden and missionaries John King, William Hall and Thomas Kendall on Ngāpuhi land, and hosted his Christian mission station, the first to be established in New Zealand.
Ruatara thus "secured a monopoly over the first permanent European settlement in New Zealand, a goose that would reliably lay eggs of iron, if not gold.