THE CROWN, THE TREATY, AND THE HAURAKI TRIBES, 1800–1885
The "Thames", however, is an exception to these remarks; there are many indications of a progressive civilization amongst the Ngati Paoa tribe, who are building better houses and increasing their cultivations, and they being some distance from Auckland, are out of the immediate influence of the contaminating example of low Europeans. ...
Not until the early 1850s, when the Government implemented a new policy of 'tenths' in the Auckland area, was any provision attempted for Ngati Paoa, ironically, in the context of Piako lands, where Government acceptance of offers of sale from chiefs such as Ngatai and Hoete, was raising the ire of other Hauraki tribes.76
The participation in land transactions by other Hauraki tribes whose residence was concentrated on the western shores of the Firth and in the interior, was more marginal at this early stage; the land concerned often of a more 'outlying' character. They had participated, in the person of Katikati of Ngati Tamatera, in the arrangements concerning the 'Fairburn' block between the Wairoa River and Papakura (discussed in a following section), and subsequently asserted their interests with vigour when they grew impatient with the Government's failure to follow through on promises of the return of land, and to properly acknowledge their rights. They signed deeds covering Mahurangi and the gulf islands where they competed strongly both amongst themselves and with other tribal groups (Kawerau, Ngati Wai, and Ngati Whatua). Hauraki continued to assert rights in such lands even after 'sales', on occasion, protecting their ground from intrusion by other tribes, or by Europeans (on-buyers and licensees) with whom they had not entered any contract, and demanding further payments from the Crown and from the original 'purchasers' in recognition of their interests.
Europeans were also accorded rights on the peninsula where they established important enclaves at Coromandel, in the Mercury—Kennedy Bay area, and at the mouth of the Thames. Resident Maori welcomed that presence, and were themselves drawn to these centres of entrepreneurial activity. There was little reason for Maori rangatira such as Taniwha, growing prosperous on trade, to challenge the legitimacy of the original transactions by which such settlers had been incorporated into their community and accorded rights in timber milling and port areas. It will be seen later, however, that European efforts to settle the upper valley areas where customary patterns of land use were particularly intricate, and which more directly threatened Hauraki control of the region, were more hotly contested.
Old Land Claims Commission
(a) Introduction
While Hauraki Maori quickly exploited the economic opportunities offered by the development of the capital in Auckland, there was immediate uneasiness about the
75Clarke to Colonial Secretary, 4January 1843. Appendix to Report from Select Committee on New Zealand. GBPP, vol. 2, 1844, p. 122.
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