Wakatu Incorporation, based in Nelson, New Zealand, has 3,200 share-holders who are descendants of the chiefs and families of four tribes – Ngati Koata, Ngati Rarua, Ngati Tama and Te Atiawa. 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.

Ngati Koata was based at Rangitoto (D'Urville Island) and Croisilles, Ngati Tama at Wakapuaka and Golden Bay, and Ngati Rarua and Te Atiawa 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 Maori 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