Manawatū-Whanganui – the land purchase of 1840 and the town of Petre
In 1840 Jerningham Wakefield purchased 40,000 acres for the New Zealand Company, under circumstances later regarded as dubious, including the site of the town of Petre, which became Whanganui. It was a turning point for the region. Before 1769 about three per cent of Māori lived in the Whanganui Basin and eight per cent on the Taranaki coast, gardening and gathering on the coast and hunting further inland. Between 1820 and 1840 Ngāti Toa and Te Āti Awa displaced local iwi, a period that included the siege of Pūtiki Pā in 1830, remembered soberly today. European traders reached the Whanganui area in 1831. The region now has 261,100 residents. Share your stories and photographs.