Arthur Wakefield - New Zealand Company

New Zealand Company

Immediately after leaving the Navy in 1841, Wakefield was recruited by his brother, Edward Gibbon Wakefield, to join the New Zealand Company. His task was to select settlers for a new settlement at Nelson, escort the party to New Zealand, and supervise the growth of the new town. They sailed on the Whitby and arrived in Nelson in February, 1842.

The settlement of Nelson got off to a good start. In the first two years, 18 ships had transported more than 3,000 colonists. Captain Wakefield actively worked to promote the orderly development of the colony. Although he seems to have been rather paternal in his attitude to the settlers, he also seems to have been respected and admired.

However, the new colony was in serious difficulties a few years later. The biggest problem was the lack of arable land. The New Zealand Company, and particularly Wakefield's brother, had made extravagant promises to the settlers about the availability of land. Each settler family had been offered 1 acre (4,000 m²) of urban land, 50 acres (200,000 m²) of suburban land, and 150 acres (600,000 m²) of rural land. However, the company had nothing like that amount of land available and the existing owners – the native Māori – were very reluctant to sell their land and not inclined to trust the New Zealand Company's promises.

Furthermore, the new government of William Hobson in Auckland was not at all sympathetic to their problems. One of the basic tenets of the Treaty of Waitangi (1840), between the British Crown and various Māori chiefs, was the understanding that the Crown would protect the Māori from attempts to defraud them of their land.

On the other hand, some members of the New Zealand Company and many of the settlers saw the Māori as ignorant savages who had no right to stand in the way of honest British colonists. This was a period when the growing British Empire was very aware of what it saw as its manifest destiny, to rule the native peoples of the world. The British colonists believed they were owed the land, and resented the fact that their survival was dependent on the goodwill of the Māori, who held all the power.

In summary, Arthur Wakefield found he had far more settlers than he had land for and they were not happy. For once, Edward Gibbon Wakefield urged caution, but he was in Wellington and his brother Arthur was the man on the spot.