matter of the one thousand pounds had been one by all the tribe, well – but it was the work of the men to Auckland’.²¹ There is no documentary evidence to suggest that the fulfilment of these promises and the payment to the ‘leading men’ was politically strategic. However, gaining the support of important chiefs was a policy not uncharacteristic of Grey and other Crown officials. Clarke, too, when writing on another matter to Civil Commissioner Smith in 1862 confided that:

we must be careful how we act … if we abandon those [chiefs] who [have] declared for the Government the consequences may be serious. It will [be] a point gained to have a party containing after all the principal men.²²

Certainly, as Stokes points out, many of the chiefs who went to Auckland were recipients of reserves awarded with individual titles in the confiscated block and the Katikati-Te Puna block. This issue receives closer scrutiny in Chapter 2. Several promises were also made to these ‘leading men’ after they received the deposit. The surveyor, Theophilus Heale, recalled that it was agreed that surveyors would return to Tauranga with the chiefs, work would commence on roads using Maori labour, European settlers ‘should speedily be sent’ and Crown Grants, as promised by Grey, would be issued to those who received land.²³

Gauging the character of the initial negotiations for Katikati and Te Puna and ascertaining exactly who took part in them is frustrated by a scarcity of sources. Furthermore, two reports about the purchase contain conflicting statements about what might have been motives or pressures that precipitated the sale. One account, written in 1867 by James Mackay, the Civil Commissioner for Thames, implied that Maori were amenable to the sale because of the security it would afford them in the future. According to Mackay, ‘the ex-rebel natives’ thought that the prospect of settlers on the land would provide them with ‘an insurmountable barrier’ between themselves and their ‘ancient enemies Taraia and the Thames people’." The Daily

²¹ AJHR 1867, A-20, p. 20.

²² H. T. Clark to T. H. Smith, 24 February 1862, Letters, 1861-1866 (typescript), TDL.

²³ Memorandum by Theophilus Heale, 27 June 1865, AJHR 1867, A-20, pp. 13-14.

²⁴ Mackay, ‘Report on the Katikati Purchase and other questions relating to the District of Tauranga, 1867’, Le 1 1867/114, National Archives, Wellington (NA), cited in Stokes, The Allocation of Reserves, vol. 1, p. 27. NB. A transcription of the entire report is in Stokes, Te Raupatu, vol. 2, pp. 105-16.