The Port Nicholson purchase

Port Nicholson

In September 1839 William Wakefield, the principal agent for the New Zealand Company, met Te Ati Awa chiefs Te Puni and Te Wharepouri at Pito-one (Petone), on the northern shore of Port Nicholson (Wellington Harbour). A deed for the purchase of Port Nicholson was signed. The goods that formed the basis of this sale were divided into six lots and distributed by Te Puni to the main Port Nicholson pa. Te Puni understood this action to be an acknowledgement of Te Ati Awa's prominence within the harbour area.

The Company believed it now possessed all the land between the south coast and  the Tararua Range, the islands in the harbour and part of inland Porirua. When Wakefield crossed Cook Strait to secure more land he was informed by Ngati Toa at Cloudy Bay that Te Ati Awa had had no right to negotiate with him. Ngati Toa, led by Te Rauparaha and Te Rangihaeata were the real power in this region and any deals had to be with them. An agreement with Te Rauparaha was reached on 18 October 1839 at Kapiti Island. Following a second agreement with Te Ati Awa in Queen Charlotte Sound in November, Wakefield was confident that the New Zealand Company had secured its purchases in the Cook Strait region.

This confidence was misplaced. Important chiefs from the south-western side of the harbour at Te Aro, Pipitea and Kumu-toto had taken little or no part in the original discussions. Some Maori had accepted the goods distributed by Te Puni simply because they didn't want to miss out; others regarded the goods as no more than a gift. Exactly what the company had purchased remained unclear.

To make matters worse, when the first settlers arrived in January 1840 they found that the survey of the land for the new settlement had not been completed. The original site for the town of Britannia proved unsuitable when in early March floodwaters from the swollen Hutt (Heretaunga) River swept through the makeshift community.

The decision was made to relocate the settlement across the harbour to Thorndon and Te Aro. But the Maori living there refused to part with their land. They maintained that no deal had been made with them. Nevertheless, company surveyors began to subdivide the land into town acres. Maori disrupted their work by pulling up survey pegs. Wakefield, believing that the problem was the unequal distribution of goods from the original purchase, sent 20 blankets in an attempt to settle the matter. Maori interpreted this merely as a payment to stop pulling up the survey pegs. Tension and frustration grew in the settler population. Several settlers made additional payments in a bid to settle the dispute. Maori were increasingly seen as meddlesome and a hindrance to European settlement.

Eventually European numbers overwhelmed Maori in Port Nicholson. By 1841 there were 2500 Europeans living around the harbour; by 1843 there were 4000. One local chief commented that had he known the ‘whole tribe’ intended to come here, he would never have agreed to any deal.