Born in 1773 in a village near the upper Thames, he owed his life, when two years old, to a spasm of pity in the heart of a victorious chief from the Hot Lakes.

This warrior and his tribe sacked the _pa_ of Te Waharoa's father, and killed nearly all therein.

The conqueror saw a pretty boy crying among the ashes of his mother's hut, and struck with the child's face, took him up and carried him on his back home to Lake Rotorua.

"Oh! that I had not saved him!" groaned the old chief, when, nearly two generations later, Te Waharoa exacted ample vengeance from the Rotorua people.

After twenty years of a slave's life, Te Waharoa was allowed to go back to his people.