Today marks the anniversary of the battle of Te Kōhia that took place at Waitara on 17 March 1860, marking the start of the first, year-long Taranaki War and a decade or more of repeated Crown invasions and attacks against Taranaki Māori. 

Surging settler numbers after 1840 placed pressure on authorities to find them lands. Nowhere were these tensions felt more acutely than in the province of Taranaki. There, yet another bungled New Zealand Company transaction saw Pākehā largely confined to a narrow strip of lands in and around the township of New Plymouth. From the 1840s onwards Crown officials had made repeated efforts to purchase additional lands in the Waitara area north of New Plymouth. But the Te Ātiawa owners and their senior rangatira Wiremi Kingi Te Rangitake had delivered an unambiguous message in response every time: Waitara was not for sale under any circumstances. Kingi and his people had defied Crown warnings against returning to Waitara after many years spent living in and around Waikanae, on the Kapiti Coast, telling Crown agent Donald McLean they would rather have their throats cut than part with the favoured lands of their ancestors. 

Following their return to Taranaki in 1848, Wiremu Kingi and his people found themselves immersed in a long-running feud over lands with rival hapū arising out of the Crown’s efforts to create and promote a land-selling faction. As firm pupuri whenua (non-sellers), Kingi and his people came to be viewed as ‘obstructive’ and unfriendly. 

Despite these provocations and challenges, Wiremu Kingi and his people remained firm in their determination not to part with Waitara, and in February 1859 the rangatira wrote to Governor Thomas Gore Browne to remind him of their resolve. But the Crown was not finished with its efforts to acquire the lands.