After the Waikato were defeated by musket-armed Ngāpuhi led by Hongi Hika in a battle at Matakitaki (Pirongia) in 1822, they retreated to Orongokoekoea Pā, in what is now the King Country, and lived there for several years. Tāwhiao was born at Orongokoekoea in about 1825 and was named Tūkāroto to commemorate, it is said, his father's stand at Matakitaki. Tūkāroto was later baptised Matutaera (Methuselah) by Anglican missionary Robert Burrows, but repudiated it in 1867. Te Ua Haumēne, the Hauhau prophet, gave him the name Tāwhiao in 1864. Tāwhiao was raised by his mother's parents.