rights, provided they did not sell the land. Hauraki Maori did not reject the court outright but sought to pursue their own goals through it.⁶²

The Owharoa decision indicated the legal import of Mackay’s 1868 agreement with Ropata Te Arakai and others. McLean ordered that Theophilus Heale (district surveyor at Tauranga) bring it to the court’s attention, with the request that no certificate of title be issued without a restriction vesting in the Government the right to regulate the mining of gold. When the Owharoa award was made to Ngati Koi – parties to the 1868 agreement – a ‘restrictive clause maintaining the agreement’ was added. When Puckey asked for a similar addition to the Waihi award five months later, the court ruled that this would only be done if the grantees were party to the 1868 agreement.⁶³ This episode probably contributed to the Government’s subsequent decision to proclaim a pre-emptive right over any Hauraki land thought to be auriferous.

Mackay now reappeared in new roles: as a representative for Te Hira and others in the court, and then as a Land Purchase Agent for the Crown. The Crown had recommenced large-scale and systematic land purchasing from 1871, empowered by the Immigration and Public Works Amendment Act 1871 to issue proclamations debarring private transactions over lands for which it wished to negotiate. The entire Coromandel Peninsula and the Hauraki Plains southward to Te Aroha were brought under this provision in 1872 and 1874, although an amendment to the 1872 proclamation exempted the cultivable land on the east bank of the Waihou and the reserves within the goldfield cessions, lands deemed most suitable for close settlement.⁶⁴ In March 1872, Mackay was appointed by J D Ormond, Minister for Public Works, on commission of fourpence per acre, to purchase the Waikawau, Moehau, and Ohinemuri blocks.

10.1.7 Raihana and other advances against land

From his commissioning as Crown agent in 1872, and although the land had not yet gone through the land court, Mackay began to pay individuals he considered to be right-owners raihana (licences for store goods) or advances for their interests or both. This contentious issue impacted upon Ohinemuri probably more than on any other Hauraki block. The questions at issue are whether Mackay’s advances constituted reasonable and appropriate credit arrangements, or whether they amounted to ensnaring Maori in a debt trap.

Dr Battersby describes the ‘food and other items obtained by Maori from general storekeepers, which were drawn on pre-approved orders [licences or raihana] from the government’. He cites contemporary evidence that the term came to be extended to include ‘orders for goods given or satisfied by land purchase agents on security of land, or an advance in

62. Document o6, pp 204–209

63. Memorandum to Heale, 14 May 1870, 6 June 1870, AJHR, 1870, a-19, p 12 (doc o6, pp 210–211)

64. Document a8, pp 201–202