rangatira with the huge cumulative debt from the hundreds of individual advances. The freehold of Waikawau and Moehau was not considered by the Crown to be of sufficient value to redeem the debt, and £16,000 was charged against Ohinemuri. Te Hira then reluctantly accepted a mining cession agreement in order to save the freehold of the land. But within three years the Crown had resumed the purchase of the freehold. The Native Land Court awarded it some 66,000 acres of Ohinemuri in 1882 and the Crown purchased over 20,000 acres more by 1900.

In light of these events, we consider the Crown’s concession regarding Ohinemuri to be grudging and inadequate. The Crown behaved deviously, manipulatively and in very bad faith over Ohinemuri, with little or no regard to its protective obligations towards a people who had virtually no experience in the management of debt. In particular, we consider that:

► The practice of making advances to individuals charged against land still in customary tribal title was divisive and destructive of the traditional relationship between rangatira and their communities.

► Although Mackay did make some effort to stop storekeepers and Maori from charging store orders against the land, he also specifically indicated to his superiors that he considered the advances for tangi expenses and raihana to be a way of overcoming the resistance of Te Hira and others. This contradicts the Crown’s claim that it did not deliberately foster debt.

► Not until late 1874 did Crown officials begin to discuss with Maori a price per acre for the land against which the advances were accumulating. Consequently, none of the right-owners had any idea of the vast amount of land the debt represented, in the Crown’s view.

► The Ohinemuri mining cession agreement of February 1875, charged the £16,000 debt not only against anticipated gold-mining revenue but also against all minerals, kauri gum, residence and business site rentals, and agricultural leases. The Crown made reasonable efforts to explain the terms, in Maori, to those actually attending the relevant meetings but did not provide a written translation of the deed in Maori nor circulate the document in advance. Consequently, many right-owners, including the many who had never received advances, belatedly discovered they had lost virtually all control of the district and its resources as well as any entitlement to revenues from them.

► Arguably, this might have been justified if it meant that the debt against Ohinemuri was all the more quickly redeemed and Maori retained the freehold. But the Crown did not wait for that outcome. Instead, it began buying the freehold again in 1877 and eventually waived about half the debt. The basic agreement between the Crown and Te Hira in December 1874, expressed in Mackay’s words ‘You are to have the land and I am to have the gold’, was repudiated by the Crown.