Tama-i-whakanehua-i-te-rangi signed the East Coast sheet of the Treaty of Waitangi on 9 June 1840 at Tokomaru Bay. He was a rangatira (chief) of the Te Whānau-a-Ruataupare and Te Whānau-a-Te-Ao hapū (subtribes) of Ngāti Porou. He was married to Mereana Tongia and they had a daughter called Herewaka Porourangi Potae (Te Rangi-i-paea). Their granddaughter was the singer Fanny Rose Porter, known by her stage name Te Rangi Pai. Tama-i-whakanehua-i-te-rangi was also the uncle of Hēnare Pōtae.
In 1828, when Rongowhakaata and Te Aitanga a Hauiti took Tuatini pā (fortified village), Tama-i-whakanehua-i-te-rangi and others of Te Whānau-a-Te-Ao escaped by slipping out at night. However, Rāpata Wahawaha was captured and became the slave of Rāpata Whakapuhia of Rongowhakaata. Tama-i-whakanehua-i-te-rangi paid for the release of Rāpata Wahawaha and his relatives before 1839.
On Wahawaha’s return to Tokomaru, he stopped at the Whāngārā village and was shown the hands of Te Rerehorua hanging on a cross-bar over their kits of food. Wahawaha described this scene to Tama-i-whakanehua-i-te-rangi in Tokomaru with anger, as Te Rerehorua was his cousin. A taua (war party) was quickly organised to take revenge on Rongowhakaata.
See also Tama-i-whakanehua-i-te-rangi, who had escaped Tuatini: “Kei te ora nei hoki, me tō tātou whenua”, Monty Soutar, PhD thesis in Māori Studies, Massey, Palmerston North, 2000, pp. 88–9