Introduction: Chapter Summary

Purchase of Hauraki lands, 1840–1850

[pp. 40–45] Purchases made during the 1840s were little different in character from those which predated the declaration of sovereignty, still being characterised by a divergence in interpretation of their significance. Two transactions are discussed briefly: the acquisition of Mahurangi from Marutuahu chiefs which required several renegotiations over the next decade; and the Kohimaramara block from 24 Ngati Paoa chiefs for a price which poorly reflected the value of that area and without any thought for ensuring their participation in the future development of the capital of the colony.

During negotiations over the Treaty of Waitangi, Maori were told that the Crown would have the exclusive right of purchasing land from them. This measure was represented as intended for their protection and ultimate benefit. But, in practice, that benefit was cast in terms of encouraging 'industrious white men' to the colony by keeping the price of land low. Thus the Crown was prepared to waive its pre-emptive power in response to demands from settlers for direct access to purchase of Maori land, but without taking commensurable protective steps, and exposing tribes who held rights in the isthmus and the gulf islands to pressure and future dispute.

The impact of colonisation on Hauraki, 1840–1860

[pp. 72–75] The interpretation given to Hauraki's involvement in the early transactions—their 'sale' of interests in the gulf islands, their fishing stations at Mahurangi, and 'gifted' lands and cultivation sites on the isthmus—marked the first stage in a profound shift in their character, from being an expansive collection of tribes who gathered resources and cultivated sites within an extensive zone of influence, to individuals who by the 1880s were increasingly tied into a cash economy, and whose interests were confined to small blocks of lands on the peninsula, and to the floodplain of the Waihou and Piako Rivers. That result lay in the future, however. By 1850 there were signs of the developing strain in the relationship between Hauraki Maori and an incoming European population, backed by the Crown's power; but at this early stage, most Hauraki hapu were not reliant on land sales for participation in the new economy, engaging very actively, and apparently successfully, in the commercial opportunities presented by the expansion of settlement at Auckland.

Chapter II: Hauraki and the Crown, 1850–1865

The Coromandel Agreement, 1852

[pp. 77–88] A crucial element in the relationship of Hauraki to the Crown lies in the question of ownership of sub-surface resources of the land. That relationship was defined both by legislation and by negotiation. Although questions of the Crown's prerogative were in the back of the mind of officials in early development of mining policy, explicit assertions of the right to mine land for gold without consent of the Maori owners were not attempted until late in the century, by which time the victory of the common law was

5