The deal sounded straightforward enough. In partial return for agreeing to sell land to new British settlers to the Nelson region, local iwi would have 10 per cent of the land reserved for the betterment of those who sold it. The 1839 deal went sour almost immediately, leading to 182 years of iwi and hapū groups taking every available option, from government petitions to, more recently, court proceedings to try to recover what was owed. The full ten per cent was never reserved, and from what little was set aside, more was whittled away. A 2017 Supreme Court decision said the Crown did need to honour the agreement, and return a substantive amount of land to Wakatū Inc.