Trouble at Tuamarina

Published: Aug. 30, 2011, 5 a.m.

Today a sleepy settlement between Picton and Blenheim, Tuamarina was the site of bloody conflict in June 1843. The New Zealand Company believed they had bought the Wairau plains - but Ngāti Toa chief Te Rauparaha considered that the area had not been purchased. He evicted surveyors from the Wairau, and when a party of settlers arrived to arrest him, conflict broke out.