His father Tūtawake died soon after his son's birth and Te Ua was captured, along with his mother Paihaka, during a 1826 raid mounted by the Waikato iwi.

[1] Soon after John Whiteley, a Wesleyan missionary, established a mission station in Kāwhia, Te Ua was baptised as Horopāpera, a transliteration of the name Zerubbabel.

[1] By 1861, Te Ua was in charge of a rūnanga (council) at Matakaha, tasked with protection of the boundary of land under the domain of Tāwhiao, the Māori King.

The grounding on 1 September 1862 of the mail steamer Lord Worsley at Te Namu, which was Kingite land, was considered to be trespass, an act that warranted death.

He claimed that the archangel Gabriel proclaimed the last days as foretold in the Book of Revelation was at hand and that he, Te Ua, had been selected as a prophet of God.

[1][4] Te Ua began setting up a church and writing prayers and doctrines for his faith, which he called Pai Mārire and considered to be Christianity untainted by the teaching of missionaries.

[1] Although he appears to have been considered an eccentric for some time prior to establishing his faith, particularly among the colonists, Te Ua found a receptive audience in the local Māori and was soon attributed to having performed miracles.

[1][5] In the meantime, Te Ua, living at Pākaraka, near the Waitōtara River, advocated for peace and sought reconciliation, corresponding with government officials as well as colonists.

[7] At the end of the year, a key leader of the Hauhau, Kereopa Te Rau was sent to the East Cape to gain support for the Pai Mārire among the Ngāti Porou iwi of Tūranga.

[1] In February 1866, Te Ua surrendered to Major General Trevor Chute, leading a government expedition to the Taranaki for the purpose of suppressing the Māori dissidents in the area.

[1] Pai Mārire continued to influence the Kīngitana movement and Tāwhiao, who had been baptised by Te Ua in 1864, ensured its teachings were spread throughout the King Country.