Dicky Barrett (trader)

Richard "Dicky" Barrett (1807–1847) was one of the first European traders to be based in New Zealand. He lent his translation skills to help negotiate the first land purchases from Maori in New Plymouth and Wellington and became a key figure in the establishment of the settlement of New Plymouth. He was described by Edward Jerningham Wakefield, son of New Zealand Company founder Edward Gibbon Wakefield, as short, stout and "perfectly round all over" and fond of relating "wild adventures and hairbreadth 'scapes".

Barrett was born and raised in the slums of either Durham or Bermondsey, England He spent six years as a sailor and arrived in Taranaki from Sydney as a mate on the trading vessel Adventure in March, 1828. He and captain John Agar "Jacky" Love established a trading post at Ngamotu (site of modern-day New Plymouth), trading muskets and trinkets for flax, maize, wheat and vegetables grown by local Te Atiawa Māori. The trading post attracted increasing numbers of passing ships.

Barrett picked up a rudimentary understanding of the Māori language, was given the name of Tiki Parete and married Rawinia, the daughter of a local chief.

In 1832 Barrett and his former crewmates (recalled as Akerau, probably Akers, Tamiriri, probably Wright, Kopiri probably Phillips, and Oliver in 1873) joined local Maori in the Otaka pā at Ngamotu to aid their defence in the face of an attack by heavily armed Waikato Māori, firing on the invaders with three cannon, using nails, iron scraps and stones for ammunition. The siege lasted more than three weeks before the Waikato withdrew, leaving a battle scene strewn with bodies, many of which had been cannibalised. In June Barrett and Love migrated south with as many as 3000 Atiawa Māori.

In late 1833 or early 1834 Barrett and Love established a whaling station at Queen Charlotte Sound.

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