Beneath the modern suburb of Devonport lies another landscape – an area of Māori māra kai, gardens with low stone walls and alignments dividing up the coveted volcanic soil.
Using both archaeology and the historical record, David Veart explores what we know of this place from the arrival of the first East Polynesian migrants with their tropical crops up to the māra kai described by Pākehā in the 1850s.
Along the way, this presentation examines evidence of forest clearance, the new methods adopted to garden in a colder climate, the arrival of new crops with Pākehā and the Māori market gardening which helped feed the new city of Auckland. The talk ends with the departure of the gardeners in 1863 with the outbreak of war.