In the same way the King movement of 1857 only became rebellion when the Crown made it so. Two primary causes operated to call into existence this political power, the creation of Wiremu Tamihana's[192] genius, which for over fifty years was a potent influence in the Maori life of the Waikato. For upwards of fifteen years the colony had been following with more or less exactitude the terms of the treaty, and during this time the State had exercised its power of pre-emption in a manner which the more enlightened Maoris now began to regard with disfavour. When Lord Normanby despatched Captain Hobson to found the colony he anticipated no opposition to the practice of buying land from the natives at a low price and selling it again to the colonists at a large advance on what the Crown had paid. For a time these anticipations were confirmed by results, but now the fathers of the race, jealous of the rapid increase of the Europeans, and alarmed at the equally rapid diminution of their lands, began to adopt a different view. Rather than part for a few shillings with property which they knew would be sold for as many pounds, they determined to exercise their right under the treaty, and refuse any longer to sanction the large transactions in which they had been engaged with the Crown. Their eyes, too, had been opened by the Waitara war. Here a single individual had embroiled the whole of the Ngati-Awa tribe in a sanguinary conflict with the Government, by insisting upon selling land to which his title was contested. These unauthorised sales, said the chiefs, must cease, and no individual should, by his avarice, have the power to involve the people in war. To crystallise this determination into a practical act of statesmanship Wiremu Tamihana conceived the idea of a Maori King, who was to be, not antagonistic to, nor a substitute for the Queen, but the arbiter and judge in all internal disputes, as well as the mouthpiece as to land which the tribes as a whole were or were not prepared to sell. "I do not desire to cast the Queen from this Island, but from my piece of land. I am the person to overlook my piece" was how Wiremu Tamihana once publicly stated his attitude towards the Crown. The King movement was thus a Land League and not a rebellion, and as the Maoris had the right to withhold their land from sale if they so pleased, their adherence to this restrictive policy was no more illegal than the establishment of a Trades Union or a Political Association. The movement did not become militant until after the invasion of the Waitara by the British troops, when many of the Waikato natives rose in sympathy with Wiremu Kingi, and the battle followed them back to their gates. Then the authorities began to realise what a compelling truth there was in the maxim of Bishop Selwyn: "Nothing is easier than legally and peacefully to extinguish a native title; nothing is harder than to extinguish a native war."