Wairau Affray
The Wairau Affray (called the Wairau Massacre in many older texts), on 17 June 1843, was the first serious clash of arms between Māori and the British settlers in New Zealand after the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi and the only one to take place on the South Island. The incident was sparked when a magistrate and a representative of the New Zealand Company, who held a possibly fraudulent deed to land in the Wairau Valley in the north of the South Island, led a group of European settlers to attempt to clear Māori off the land and arrest Ngāti Toa chiefs Te Rauparaha and Te Rangihaeata. Fighting broke out and 22 British settlers were killed, several after their surrender. Four Māori were killed, including the wife of Te Rangihaeata and the wife of Te Rauparaha.
The incident heightened fears among settlers of an armed Māori insurrection. It created the first major challenge for Governor Robert FitzRoy, who took up his posting in New Zealand six months later. FitzRoy investigated the incident and exonerated Te Rauparaha and Te Rangihaeata, for which he was strongly criticised by settlers and the New Zealand Company. In 1844 a land claims commission investigation determined that the Wairau Valley had not been legally sold. The government was to pay compensation to the Rangitane iwi, determined to be the original owners.
The New Zealand Company had built a settlement around Nelson in the north of the South Island in 1840. It had planned to occupy 200,000 acres (810 km2), but by the end of the year, even as allotments were being sold in England, the company's agents in New Zealand were having difficulty in identifying available land, let alone buying it from local Māori, to form the settlement. The settlers began to purchase large areas of land directly from Māori, without consulting the newly established colonial government and often without establishing vendors' rights to sell the land. The situation led to tension and caused disputes between the two parties.
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