Wakatū Incorporation, based in Nelson, New Zealand, has 3,000+ share-holders who are descendants of the chiefs and families of four tribes – Ngāti Koata, Ngāti Rārua, Ngāti Tama and Te Ātiawa. These ancestors held authority over the Nelson-Motueka-Golden Bay lands at the time of European settlement in 1841. They had travelled from Kawhia and North Taranaki to conquer the region between 1828 and 1834, and had settled their people on the lands in the Nelson region.

Ngāti Koata was based at Rangitoto (D'Urville Island) and Croisilles, Ngāti Tama at Wakapuaka and Golden Bay, and Ngāti Rārua and Te Ātiawa were both at Motueka and Golden Bay. The tribes had large cultivations from which they supplied the whaling industry in Marlborough which was in its heyday in the 1830s.

Nelson Māori generally welcomed European settlement as an opportunity to expand their trade, although it is unlikely that they realised just how many new-comers would pour into their lives and they would not have foreseen a time when they would become a minority in their own country