Chapter I: Hauraki and the Crown, 1800–1850

other Ngati Paoa chiefs for various sites on Waiheke; with Horeta for lands at Great Barrier Island; and with Koenaki and Wareponga at Piako.38

Europeans saw these deeds as constituting the conveyance of property but knew that they were there on Maori sufferance. While commercial venture and land transactions seemed relatively secure at Coromandel, the tenure of European settlers remained particularly precarious on many other parts of the peninsula. Not only were relations at the Thames strained with the neighbouring Waikato tribes, interfering with commercial operations reliant on Hauraki co-operation and labour, but Browne acknowledged that his transactions at Mercury Bay would enable him to establish an uncertain ownership only:

I recommended to you [Dacre] the purchase of Mercury Bay, & I still advise it as the only means of securing the masts. I have a written offer of it from the chiefs, but any one stepping in would take away the greater part. They are all so extremely jealous of one another that they will not be satisfied with one Pakeha amongst them however liberal he may be & whatever influence he may have over them in other respects. I could only get admission to one creek, until this present summer as they were in constant expectation of some newcomer. Now I have their written admission to the whole—but the tenure is very precarious.39

Subsequently, however, the transactions which underwrote the formation of nodes of white settlement and commercial enterprise at the northern bays and near the coast at Thames appeared relatively uncontentious, and gave rise to little complaint from Maori in following years. Questions of boundary or completion of payment might be disputed, but not the fact that a transaction had taken place.40 The question of what Maori had intended by such transactions was not, however, considered by investigating authorities; shortcomings in the conveyance might be exposed but the intention of sale was largely assumed. It seems likely that Maori held their own set of assumptions; that their own tikanga still applied. In the opinion of the Waitangi Tribunal: 'There is no compelling evidence that Maori had bowed to an alternative power when the transactions were entered into'—a point discussed more fully with reference to Hauraki, in the following section. Rather, the 'general principle was that persons were allocated the right to use a particular resource.' In customary terms, the maintenance of that use right over land was contingent on a continuing contribution to the community which expected ongoing benefits to accrue to it from the allocation of such privilege.41 In the prosperous years of the early 1840s, when hapu based around the harbours reaped the benefits of their proximity to Auckland and the presence of local trading stations, that bargain seemed to be fulfilled, and there was little reason for Maori to perceive, feel anxiety at, or challenge the assumptions of 'sale'. Later, the belief that absolute sales had occurred was fully entrenched, and presumed on the basis of the signature of Maori on the deeds, and the endorsement of the first Land Claims Commission.42

38 See J. Salmond, Webster's Claims, Wellington, 1912. Micro 499. ATL.

39 Browne to Dacre, 14 December 1845, attached to 61/62. OLC 1 978–981.

41 Waitangi Tribunal, Muriwhenua Land Report, p. 106.

42 See discussion, pp. 46–52.

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