The earliest evidence for Māori settlement dates from the mid-14th century (roughly the same time as the believed landing of the "Tainui" migration canoe, which is commemorated by a stone memorial on the foreshore). A significant Māori settlement on North Head was ended by attacks from rival tribes in the 1790s. About 50 Māori were still living in Torpedo Bay, with their meeting house just east of Cambridge Terrace, until they fled to the Waikato when the colonial government launched war on Waikato Māori in 1863.