The government was to pay compensation to the Rangitāne iwi, determined to be the original owners (until the early 1830s, when Te Rauparaha had driven them from the area).

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 to form the settlement, let alone buying it from local Māori.

[6][9] In January 1843, Nohorua, the older brother of Te Rauparaha, led a delegation of chiefs to Nelson to protest about British activity in the Wairau Plains.

Spain later wrote that during that visit, Arthur Wakefield "wished to make them a payment for the Wairau, but they positively refused to sell it, and told him they would never consent to part from it.

"[10] Arthur Wakefield rejected the request to wait for Spain's enquiry, informing Te Rauparaha that if local Māori interfered with company surveyors on the land, he would lead 300 constables to arrest him.

[citation needed] Te Rauparaha and Nohorua wrote to Spain on 12 May, urgently asking him to travel to the South Island to settle the company's claim to Wairau.

A month later, with still no sign of Spain, Te Rauparaha led a party to Wairau, where they destroyed all the surveyors' equipment and shelters that had been made with products of the land.

[citation needed] Thompson refused to shake hands with Te Rauparaha and said that he had come to arrest him, not over the land issue but for burning the huts.

Thompson insisted on arresting Te Rauparaha, produced a pair of handcuffs, and called out to the men on the far side of the stream, ordering them to fix bayonets and advance.

The Maori killed all the remaining captives, including Thompson, Samuel Cottrell, a member of the original survey team; interpreter John Brooks, and Captain Wakefield.

[3] Some survivors fled to Nelson to raise the alarm and a search party, including Wellington magistrates and a group of sailors, returned to Wairau and buried the bodies where they were found.

[14] Reverberations of a reported massacre were felt as far away as England, where the New Zealand Company was almost ruined by the news of "British citizens being murdered by barbarous natives".

One group sent a deputation to the Government complaining that those who had died had been discharging their "duty as magistrates and British subjects ... the persons by whom they were killed are murderers in the eyes of common sense and justice".

[7]: 93 In late January or early February 1844, a month after taking up his post, incoming Governor Robert FitzRoy visited Wellington and Nelson in a bid to quell the hostility between Māori and British, particularly in the wake of the Wairau Affray.

I was exceedingly angry ... My first thought was to revenge the deaths of my friends, and the other Pākehā who had been killed, and for that purpose to bring many ships of war ... with many soldiers; and had I done so, you would have been sacrificed and your pa destroyed.

FitzRoy knew it was highly improbable that troops would be despatched by the British Government to wage war on the Māori or defend the settlers.

[7]: 89, 94  FitzRoy's report was endorsed by Colonial Secretary Lord Stanley, who said the actions of the party led by Thompson and Wakefield had been "manifestly illegal, unjust and unwise", and that their deaths had occurred as a "natural and immediate sequence".

[7]: 85 The effect of the massacre and the passive reaction of FitzRoy set in train a chain of events that still rumble through the New Zealand courts today.

[5]: 118 After the massacre, Te Rauparaha was captured in 1846 for organising an uprising in the Hutt Valley and was imprisoned on HMS Calliope in Auckland without charges being brought.

[18] This rohe (area) has been the subject of a lengthy but successful land/compensation claim by the original Rangitane iwi, which had been displaced in the 1820s by Te Rauparaha's heke.

][citation needed] In 1869 the Nelson community erected a memorial at Tuamarina Cemetery to commemorate the European casualties of the incident, with their names and the occupations listed on the inscription.