The Waitara purchase is disputed

Waitara, at the mouth of the Waitara River in north Taranaki, was the ancestral home of Wiremu Kīngi Te Rangitāke of Te Āti Awa, who was born at Manukorihi pā (fortified village) there. In the 1820s, after Waikato invaded Taranaki, his father led many Te Āti Awa south to Waikanae. New Zealand Company settlers then claimed the coast for New Plymouth under a deed signed by a small group at Ngāmotu, and in 1844 a land claims commissioner awarded the company 60,000 acres. Te Rangitāke wrote to the governor that 'Waitara shall not be given up', and in 1848 he led nearly 600 people home from Waikanae to the south bank of the river. New Plymouth was hemmed in, with just 3,500 acres in 1848 and some 32,000 more bought by 1853. Settlers wanted Waitara above all, and government purchase agents cultivated chiefs willing to sell. Te Āti Awa split between sellers and holders. In 1854 the land-seller Rāwiri Waiaua and four others were killed in what became known as the Puketapu feud, and in January 1858 Katatore, a leader of those resisting sales, was ambushed and killed in turn.

On 7 March 1859 the governor, Thomas Gore Browne, addressed Māori and settlers at New Plymouth (the Waitangi Tribunal dates the meeting to 8 March). He said he would buy no land with a disputed title and 'no man's land without his consent', but would let no one interfere in a sale unless he owned part of the land. Te Teira Mānuka, a lesser Te Āti Awa rangatira who lived at Waitara, then offered the 600-acre Pekapeka block on the south bank of the river. He laid a parawai (bordered mat) at the governor's feet, and Donald McLean, the chief land purchase commissioner, said the governor would buy, subject to proof of Te Teira's title. Te Rangitāke replied: 'Listen, Governor ... I will not permit the sale of Waitara to the Pākehā. Waitara is in my hands, I will not give it up.' Te Teira's motives are still debated. Missionaries of the time thought he wanted revenge over a young woman promised to one of his relatives, who instead married into Te Rangitāke's family. The Tribunal also suggests he may have hoped to take the leadership from the senior chief.

The government used the offer to try something new. Instead of buying whole blocks with the agreement of everyone who had rights in them, it would buy the 'pieces' of individuals willing to sell. A board Browne had appointed had advised in 1856 that only the tribe could dispose of land, but settlers urged him to break what they called the land league, and he agreed. He told London he had 'little fear that William King will venture to resort to violence', but had 'made every preparation to enforce obedience'. Te Rangitāke refused to mark out a share of his own, because that would accept that the land could be divided. 'It belongs to us all,' he wrote, 'to the orphan and to the widow.' On 29 November 1859 the purchase agent Robert Parris paid Te Teira a deposit of £100 (NZHistory dates it to early December). Parris recorded Te Rangitāke agreeing that the land was Te Teira's party's, 'but I will not let them sell it'. Officials took this as an admission that he had no claim; the Tribunal reads it as a rangatira speaking for everyone, Te Teira included.

In January 1860 the government ordered a survey. When surveyors arrived on 20 February, Te Rangitāke's people stopped them; NZHistory describes them as elderly, and the Tribunal as 60 to 80 people, unarmed and mostly women. Martial law was declared on 22 February, and on 24 February Te Teira's party signed a deed of sale. Te Ara's biography of Te Rangitāke counts 19 signatories and the Tribunal 20, all of Te Teira's family. About 400 troops landed at Waitara on 5 March, and the survey began unopposed on 13 March. On the night of 15 March Te Rangitāke's people built a small L-shaped pā at Te Kohia, on the edge of the block, and the next day they pulled up the survey pegs. On 17 March 1860 Colonel Charles Gold's troops opened fire on the pā, and the First Taranaki War began. The Tribunal suggests the pā was built to be abandoned, so that by Māori law the governor would be seen as the aggressor and allies would be free to join the fight.

The purchase was attacked at once. The missionary Octavius Hadfield and the former chief justice William Martin both published pamphlets against it in 1860. Browne never retracted his view, and his biographer argues that he had good reason to think the sellers had the right to sell, and that he had the backing of his ministers, the Assembly and the Colonial Office at every stage. In May 1863 Governor George Grey renounced the purchase, but fighting had already resumed, and the block was confiscated in 1865. A royal commission in 1927 found the government's prosecution of war in Taranaki to have been wrong. In 1996 the Waitangi Tribunal concluded that the land had been acquired unlawfully and that the governor started the war. The Crown told the Tribunal that it accepted the purchase and the wars were an injustice and a breach of the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi.