assist the new land purchase officer of the district to bring Crown dealings to fruition. The major object of Government policy in Hauraki, in the late 187os, was to complete Mackay's purchases, the log-jam being finally broken by the Native Land Court award of most of Waikawau, Moehau, and Te Aroha to the Crown, in 1879. These events are discussed in some detail at pp. 236-40.
Strong opposition continued in the upper Thames valley to the Government's public works programme and to the land purchase system. Government officers identified two sources of this resistance to the county road and the railway which was drawing near the `trouble spots' in the interior, and rejection of the activities of the land purchase officer, the Native Land Court, and the surveyor: Ngati Hako based at Paeroa who had supported Ngati Tamatera in their efforts to retain Ohinemuri; and the rangatira Tukukino, whose ability to control the fate of the tribal estate at Komata had been undercut by the land court. Although the Crown continued to demonise these groups as law-breakers and kingites, support for their concerns within the Hauraki was wider than it was politic for the Government to acknowledge.
Conflict at Waihou
[pp. 253-260] Frustration exploded at Pukehange in 1879 when members of Ngati Hako shot at a surveyor after years of persistent intrusion on their lands. Sheehan warned that the Government's patience was exhausted, quite illegally threatened the Hauraki people with the confiscation of the land of the 'guilty' parties, and demanded a demonstration of their law-abidingness by allowing public works through without further opposition. He told the gathered tribes: 'Now that they had gone beyond the law he intended to see the matter through. He should take the road, the railway, and the wire through their land, and that was the satisfaction he intended to get from them. The only way that they could show him that they had nothing to do with the matter was to assist him to get this satisfaction from the Natives who had thus committed themselves.'
Maori had a quite different perspective on the incident. Unable to effect an arrest, the Minister of the day (Sheehan) agreed that a runanga might consider the matter but warned that the Government would accept no decision other than one which handed over the culprits. The runanga, however, condemned the land purchase system rather than the men who had pulled the trigger. Although the shooting transgressed the law of Hauraki—of 'Pe Pai o Hauraki'—as well as that of the Pakeha, the runanga decided that there had been 'a reason for shooting the European' in the persistence of Government sponsored survey onto Ngati Hako land. In effect, the runanga found the Government's land purchase system rather than Ngati Hako to be 'guilty'.
In the early 1880s Tukukino's resistance to the road was overcome by a mixture of negotiation and threat. Early assurances that no land would be taken without his consent lasted only so long as the Government was not seriously inconvenienced. Officials engaged in 'consultation' but pushed ahead regardless, when negotiations did not result in Tukukino's immediate submission. He was placed under increasing pressure once construction reached Komata, threatened by the consequences of the Pukehange
29