People involved in the incident- the Wakefield brothers.
Edward was involved in the New Zealand Company. This was a company set up to sell land to new settlers moving to New Zealand. He recruited his brother Arthur (who had just left the British Navy) to select a group of settlers and travel with them from England to a new settlement at the top of the South Island that would be named Nelson. Arthur sailed from London on a ship called the Whitby and arrived in Nelson in February 1842.
In the next two years- 18 ships brought more than 3000 new settlers to Nelson.
There was soon a big problem- there was not enough arable land. That is- land that can be used for farming.
Edward Wakefield and the New Zealand Company had promised each settler either 1 acre of urban land, 50 acres of suburban land or 150 acres of rural land. The New Zealand Company wanted to buy land from local Maori- but they did not want to sell. Edward faced a problem- he had promised land to the new settlers- and there wasn't any more land to expand the new colony.
The new Nelson settlement would need 221, 000 acres of land- but they soon found out that they would be 70,000 acres short.
Edward Wakefield decided to survey the land in the Wairau area despite both Te Rauparaha and Te Rangihaeata visiting Nelson and telling Wakefield and the chief magistrate Henry Augustus Thompson that the land was not for sale.
William wrote to his brother in England and told him of the land dispute- Edward replied that he didn't think it was a good idea and that the Maori iwi (Te Rauparaha) would take it badly.
After the surveyors were led off the land by Te Rauparaha and his men- Magistrate Thompson decided to send a party of men to arrest Te Rauparaha and Te Rangihaeata at Tuamarina. Arthur Wakefield, Henry Thompson and a party of local men set off by ship to arrest the two Maori chiefs for 'arson' for burning down the surveyors huts.
What followed is....history.
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