Conflict erupted between the Māori and the New Zealand colonial government over the sale of land at Waitara, driven by settler desire to expand farmland and access resources like timber and coal. The war marked the beginning of the New Zealand Wars, as Māori (the 'Kingitanga' movement) resisted colonial encroachment. The underlying driver was the demand for land to support an export economy, which included the extraction of gold and timber.

This war and the broader resource conflicts are central to Māori protest poetry (waiata) and the later 'Maori Renaissance' of the 20th century. Poets like Hone Tuwhare, a master of English verse, frequently invoked the extraction of the land's 'bones' (minerals) as a violation of the sacred pact with Pākehā (European settlers). His poem 'No Ordinary Sun' uses rain as a corrosive force, akin to industrial pollution, lamenting a land 'bled' of its resources by foreign mining and forestry, giving voice to a post-colonial critique of the resource boom.