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Offshore whaling had been commonplace in New Zealand waters since 1791. However, it was not until 1827 that the first shore whaling stations emerged. Operating from April to October each year, they processed whales for oil and whalebone. Primarily financed by Australian merchants, there were approximately 30 stations around New Zealand by the end of the 1830s, sited mainly on the North Island's East Coast and in the lower South Island. The size of operations varied. For example, the large Weller station in Otago boasted at its peak approximately 80 cottages and 120 men, a quarter of whom were Māori. It was common for the Pākehā workers to be welcomed into local tribes and to marry Māori women.

Lawlessness by sailors, escaped convicts and adventurers from New South Wales began to increase and there were growing fears of French annexation of New Zealand. Therefore, at the suggestion of New South Wales Governor Darling, missionary William Yate assisted 13 northern chiefs to prepare a letter to King William IV, asking for his protection and signed with their moko. The fear of unscrupulous sailors had increased after the Elizabeth affair, when her captain allowed the vessel to be used in a Ngāti Toa raid from Kapiti on Ngāi Tahu in Akaroa. The British Crown acknowledged the petition and promised protection.

In order to protect Māori, the growing number of British settlers and its own trade interest, the British Government appointed James Busby as its official Resident (a sort of junior consular representative, without effective powers because New Zealand was not within British jurisdiction). He arrived in May 1833 and built a house on land he bought at Waitangi. Described as a 'man-o'-war [naval warship] without guns', he was unable to exert much control over British subjects beyond mere persuasion or much influence over Māori.

In 1830 a New Zealand-built ship, the Sir George Murray, was seized by Customs in Sydney for breaking British navigation laws by sailing without a flag or register. As New Zealand was not yet a British colony its ships could not sail under a British flag, without which trading ships and their valuable cargoes would continue to be seized. On 20 March 1834 Busby met with some 25 northern chiefs and British naval officers to agree on a flag for the growing number of New Zealand-built ships. The chiefs chose from three designs devised by Busby and CMS missionary Henry Williams. The preferred design was one already used by the Church Missionary Society and it remained in use until the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi six years later.

In response to a perceived threat of French annexation, Busby drew up, without authorisation from his superiors, a Declaration of Independence, which was signed by 34 northern chiefs. Additional signatures, including some from further south, were added over the next four years. This group referred to themselves in the Declaration as the Confederation of Chiefs of the United Tribes of New Zealand, although there is no evidence that the confederation was ever convened again, except at the time of the signing of the Treaty in 1840. It received a puzzled and rather lukewarm reception at the Colonial Office in England, which was well aware that New Zealand was not a British possession and did not want to take responsibility for it. The Colonial Office, advised by the missionary societies, was by no means convinced that there was a viable political authority in New Zealand with which it could form diplomatic relations. The Declaration was, however, acknowledged by the British Government. Some historians suggest it was not taken seriously until it proved to be an impediment to the annexation of New Zealand. It is thought that for this reason the document was used for calling up chiefs to sign the Treaty of Waitangi on 6 February 1840. Other experts view the Declaration as an embryonic expression of Māori nationhood, which, in conjunction with other events in the 1820s and 1830s, shows that the Treaty of Waitangi was part of a negotiated relationship and not the beginning of European power and the end of Māori sovereignty.

In the late 1830s, following on from the report of the Select Committee on Aborigines (1836–1837) and the House of Lords inquiry into the 'present state of the islands of New Zealand' (1838), many humanitarians became concerned about the harmful effects on Māori of exposure to the various types of Europeans that arrived here. Missionaries intervened to discourage land sales, sometimes buying land themselves, at least partly in the role of trustees, to enable Māori to continue to retain access. They and others from New Zealand, Australia and England pressured the British Government to prevent the spread of immoral behaviour as well as the introduced diseases that were causing the population to markedly decline. Given Busby's inability to act, the preference was eventually for annexation and direct government.

From its experience in other parts of the world, the British Government had found that colonies involved great expense and difficulty. As a result it had initially tried to avoid assuming responsibility in New Zealand. Instead it had tried to influence the interaction of Māori and British settlers through the missionaries and by sending Busby to try to work with the rangatira (chiefs) in the north. Busby reported pessimistically on his efforts and on the increasing number of land transactions that British settlers and New South Wales speculators were making with local chiefs. British settlers at Kororareka (now called Russell) petitioned King William IV in March 1837 for protection and expressed their disapproval of Busby's proceedings. Officials at the Colonial Office agreed that 'the state of New Zealand is shewn (sic) to be lamentably bad, and Mr Busby has long been regarded as unfit for office'. In December 1837, understanding that colonisation 'to no small extent' was already happening in New Zealand, the British Government, led by Lord Melbourne and Lord Glenelg, decided that it had to intervene to ensure that colonisation was regulated and that land transactions that defrauded Māori were stopped. By mid-1839, the British Government had decided to annex at least part of New Zealand to New South Wales.

Purchasers raced to buy as much land as they could. Apart from the few who wanted relatively small areas for their own settlement, large-scale speculators were putting pressure on Māori all over the country to enter into the flimsiest of deals, often for huge areas. Missionaries petitioned London to intervene to protect Māori. Some of the largest alleged purchases included: W.B. Rhodes, who claimed to have bought Kapiti, Banks Peninsula, Wellington and most of Hawke's Bay, the last for £150; Daniel Cooper, who claimed to have purchased 133,000 hectares of the Hawke's Bay, Cape Turnagain and Table Cape districts for £383; and especially the New Zealand Company, which claimed to have bought some 20 million acres, effectively the middle third of New Zealand from New Plymouth to Banks Peninsula, within only a few months.

With the New Zealand Company in the process of despatching colonists from London, the British Government decided to appoint naval officer Captain William Hobson as Consul. Hobson left England shortly after the New Zealand Company's first ship, the Tory. He was instructed to obtain sovereignty over all or part of New Zealand with the consent of a sufficient number of chiefs. New Zealand would come under the authority of Sir George Gipps, Governor of New South Wales, and Hobson himself would become Gipps's Lieutenant-Governor. Land-buying agents continued swarming over New Zealand in anticipation of purchasing opportunities being cut off by Hobson. It was later calculated that their combined claims amounted to more than New Zealand's total land area.

Samuel Revans was a trained and experienced printer working with the New Zealand Company's London operations. When he decided to move to Wellington, he raised a loan from merchants backing the Company to buy the equipment and supplies for a printing establishment. The first issue of his newspaper, the New Zealand Gazette (August 1839), was actually published from the Company's London address before the New Zealand Company's first ships left for Petone. It folded in 1844.