James Busby was born in Scotland in 1802. When he was 22, his family moved to Australia, where he started a grape-growing business and then worked for the Government. After a while, he went back to England and the British Government was impressed with all he seemed to know about what was happening in Aotearoa. Even though he had never been there, they chose him as the person to go and solve the problems.

Busby had a difficult time trying to make everybody behave. There were no police and nobody took much notice of him. So he decided that one solution would be for Māori rangatira to take responsibility for law and order.