Introduction

In the wake of negotiating the terms of a surrender with Tauranga Moana rangatira in August 1864, the Crown purchased two blocks of land – Katikati and Te Puna – which consisted of 88,500 acres.¹ The purchased area was located on the western side of the Tauranga Confiscated Lands District proclaimed by the Crown by Order-in-Council on 18 May 1865 (figure 1). By June 1866, over 50 reserves within the two blocks, covering an area of more than 6000-acres, had been set aside and allocated to individuals or vested in trust for specific hapu. By 1886, a number of additional reserves had also been allocated, yet of the total number, less than half of the reserves were still possessed by the original Maori grantees.

Aside from the fact that the cession of Katikati and Te Puna may not have been voluntary, the apparent ease with which the reserves changed hands warrants some attention. With this in mind, the intention of this report has been to consider the rapid change in the reserves’ ownership, particularly in the period between their allocation and the final return of lands neither confiscated nor purchased by the Crown, in 1886. It draws upon Evelyn Stokes’ research in this area which, in her words, set out ‘to document what lands were returned to Maori ownership in the Tauranga confiscation, to whom, where and under what conditions’ but also amplifies two aspects of Stokes’ findings.² Firstly, while Stokes found that the Crown, in its allocation of Tauranga Moana lands, did not fulfil its protective duty towards Maori, this report considers whether the method by which the Crown allocated and administered the reserves in the Katikati-Te Puna block had any bearing on their rate of alienation. The second question posed by this author is whether or not certain Crown policies and their implementation made the reserves more susceptible to alienation. In conjunction with these considerations, the impact of raupatu on the retention of the reserves, and the tenurial and socio-economic uncertainty it brought to the district, is also touched on in the report.

¹ The two blocks are referred to together as the ‘Katikati-Te Puna block’ throughout this report.

² Evelyn Stokes, The Allocation of Reserves for Maori in the Tauranga Confiscated Lands, Hamilton, 1997, vols 1-2, p. 86.