The Native Land Court and Maori Land Alienation Patterns in the Whanganui District 1865-1900

199 Pages·2004·1.89 MB·English

OFFICIAL Wai 903, A58
The Native Land Court and Maori Land
Alienation Patterns in the Whanganui
District
1865-1900
September 2004
Dr James S Mitchell
Table of Contents
Introduction.........................................................................................................................1
The Author......................................................................................................................1
The Claims......................................................................................................................1
The Commission.............................................................................................................1
Structure..........................................................................................................................3
Parameters of the Study and Definitions of Terms.........................................................4
Chapter 1: Background to Maori Land Alienation in Whanganui 1865-1900...................9
1.1 Patterns of Maori Land Alienation in Whanganui 1865-1900..................................9
1.2 The Native Land Court Process 1865-1900............................................................12
1.2.1 Native Land Court Titles.................................................................................13
1.2.2 Protections for Maori in Nineteenth Century (cid:145)Native(cid:146) Land Legislation........18
1.3 Contemporary Criticisms of the Court System.......................................................20
1.4 The Role of Assessors.............................................................................................22
1.5 Evolving Policy and Practices of Land Purchasing................................................24
1.6 Conclusion.............................................................................................................25
Chapter 2: The Native Land Court in the Whanganui District.........................................26
2.1 The Operations of the Court in Whanganui............................................................26
2.2 Title Issues in Whanganui.......................................................................................29
2.2.1 The Ten Owner Rule........................................................................................29
2.2.2 Individualisation and Fragmentation of Maori Land Titles.............................35
2.2.3 The Difficulties of Keeping Land Outside of the Court System.....................41
2.3 Maori Responses to the Court.................................................................................44
2.3.1 Attempts to Settle Titles Out Of Court............................................................44
2.3.2 Criticisms of the Native Land Court(cid:146)s System of Title...................................51
2.3.3 Protests About Survey......................................................................................52
2.4 Costs of the Native Land Court..............................................................................55
2.4.1 Survey Costs....................................................................................................56
2.4.2 Court Fees and Direct Costs............................................................................64
2.4.3 Other Indirect Costs of the Court.....................................................................69
2.4.4 Other Costs.......................................................................................................74
2.4.5 Debt and Crown Land Purchasing...................................................................75
2.4.6 Land Sales as a Source of Capital for Land Development..............................78
2.5 Conclusion..............................................................................................................80
Chapter 3: Crown Purchase Tactics in Whanganui..........................................................82
3.1 Pre-Title Advances on Maori Lands.......................................................................82
3.1.1 Extent of Crown Advances..............................................................................84
3.1.2 Post Advances Period: Distribution of Payments in Rawhitiroa.....................89
3.1.3 The Risks for the Crown in Making Advances on Land to Which Title Had
Not Been Awarded....................................................................................................93
3.1.4 Refunding of Advances....................................................................................94
3.1.5 Advances and Land Prices...............................................................................96
3.2 Serial Partition and Alienation................................................................................98
3.2.2 Crown Attempts to Keep the Number of Grantees Low................................100
3.2.3 Payments for Assistance with Purchase.........................................................102
3.3 Conclusion............................................................................................................107
Chapter 4: The Crown and Private Purchasers in Whanganui 1865-1900.....................109
4.1 The Extent of Private Land Purchasing................................................................110
4.2 Tactics of Private Land Purchasers.......................................................................114
4.3 Crown Motivations in Restricting Private Purchasing..........................................117
4.4 The Crown and Private Purchasers.......................................................................118
4.4.1 The Native Land Purchases Act 1877............................................................118
4.4.2 The Native Land Alienation Restriction Act 1884 and the Railway Exclusion
Zone........................................................................................................................127
4.5 Conclusion............................................................................................................134
Chapter 5: Safeguards Protection Mechanisms and Rights of Appeal...........................136
5.1 Reserves and Restrictions Imposed by the Native Land Court.............................136
5.1.1 The Laws Governing Restrictions on Alienation...........................................137
5.1.2 Restrictions on Alienation in Whanganui......................................................139
5.1.3 Crown Powers to Purchase Land Subject to Restrictions..............................145
5.1.4 Confusion over the Nature of Restrictions on Alienation..............................145
5.2 Native Land Court Appeals and Rehearings.........................................................148
5.3 Trust Commissioners............................................................................................149
5.4 Petitions to the Government and Parliament........................................................156
5.4.1 The Rawhitiroa Case......................................................................................162
5.5 Conclusions...........................................................................................................165
Conclusions.....................................................................................................................168
Bibliography...................................................................................................................175
Published Sources.......................................................................................................175
Unpublished Sources..................................................................................................176
Archives......................................................................................................................179
Electronic Resources...................................................................................................179
Appendix A: Methodology for calculating the number of days on which the Maori Land
Court held hearings.........................................................................................................181
Appendix B: Table of Court Costs Estimated for Each Block in the Whanganui District
and Methodology............................................................................................................183
Acknowledgements.........................................................................................................193
Figures
Figure 1: Whanganui Inquiry District with Block Boundaries...........................................5
Figure 1a: Block Boundaries for Lower River Blocks.......................................................6
Figure 2: Maori Land Remaining in Whanganui District 1840-2000...............................10
Figure 3: Alienation of Maori Land by Decade 1840s-2000s..........................................11
Figure 4: Proportions of Land Alienated to Different Parties in Whanganui by Decade
1860s-1900s......................................................................................................................11
Figure 5: Number of Days of Native Land Court Sittings in Whanganui 1865-1900......27
Figure 6: Types of Cases Brought Before the Court.........................................................28
Figure 7: Blocks Which Passed through the Court During the 10 Owner Rule Period in
the Whanganui District.....................................................................................................34
Figure 8: Number of Blocks or Subdivisions Alienated through Private Purchasing per
Year.................................................................................................................................111
Figure 9: Area Alienated to Private Purchasers by Year (acres)....................................111
Figure 10: Stacked bar graph of Crown and Private Alienations by Decade.................112
Figure 11: Proportion of Land Alienated to Crown and Private Purchasers by Decade to
1900s...............................................................................................................................113
Figure 12: Blocks Where the Crown Purchased Land 1877-1900.................................124
Figure 13: Whanganui Land Remaining in Maori hands along the Main Trunk Railway
Line 1908........................................................................................................................129
Figure 14: Blocks Where the Crown Purchased Land 1865-84 and 1884-1900............131
Figure 15 : Blocks Where Private Purchasers Purchased Land 1865-83 and 1884-1900
Tables
Table 1: Blocks Passed through the Native Land Court During the ten owner Rule Period
(1865-73)...........................................................................................................................30
Table 2: Negotiated Out of Court Settlements..................................................................45
Table 3: Proportion of Survey Costs as a Proportion of Sale Price for Selected Blocks..57
Table 4: Raketapauma Subdivisions - Survey Costs as a Proportion of Sale Price..........59
Table 5: Raketapauma Subdivisions: Leasing Income Compared With Survey Costs....60
Table 6: Agriculture and Cropping in Wanganui and Waitotara Counties 1901..............79
Table 7: Blocks For Which Advances Were Made in Whanganui District Before Title
Investigation, 1866-1900..................................................................................................84
Table 8: Whanganui Blocks Gazetted Under the 1877 Native Land Purchases Act and its
Successors.......................................................................................................................119
Table 9: Blocks the Crown Started or Continued Purchasing 1877-93..........................122
Table 10: First Known Crown Alienation on Blocks the Crown Purchased 1895-1900 123
Table 11: Maori Land Remaining in Blocks Crossed by the Main Trunk Railway Line in
1908.................................................................................................................................130
Table 12: Blocks with Restrictions Placed on Alienation 1865-1900............................139
Table 13: Number of Years Between Imposition of Restrictions and First Alienation..143
Table 14: Results of Rehearings before the Native Land Court for Whanganui Blocks
Heard 1865-1900............................................................................................................149
Table 15: Known Trust Commissioner Examinations in Whanganui............................153
Table 16: Petitions Relating to Whanganui Lands and Their Results............................157
Introduction
The Author
Ko James Stuart Mitchell toku ingoa. Ko Pakeha ahau. No Te Wai Pounamu ahau. I have
a PhD in New Zealand history from the University of Otago and have been a Research
Officer at the Waitangi Tribunal since 2002. During that time I have worked principally
on the Wairarapa ki Tararua, Whanganui and National Park district inquiries. In 2002, I
prepared a report on Land Alienations in the Wairarapa District from 1880-1900.
The Claims
This report will contribute to the casebook for the combined record of inquiry of the
Whanganui claims, Wai 903.
The Commission
This report was commissioned on 11 December 2003. The commission for this report
directed that it address patterns of land alienation including the following issues;
a.) The effect on Maori land alienation of Crown pre-emption and restrictions
on private purchases.
b.) The costs associated with determining title to Maori land under the Native
Land Court system and the relationship between these costs and the rules
governing succession on Maori land.
c.) Crown purchase tactics in the Native Land Court period including
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the extent and the effect of advances paid by Crown agents on land before
it was brought to court and the extent and effect on Maori of the Crown(cid:146)s
tactic of buying individual interests and partitioning them out.
d.) The extent of protest over survey, ownership and alienation of the land
blocks within the Whanganui district and the Crown(cid:146)s responses.
The report is a gap filling exercise. On one level, the overview reports on Whanganui
Maori and the Crown from 1865-1880 and 1880-1900 which are being prepared by Dr
Robyn Anderson will provide a big-picture of land alienation in the district as well as the
political context of that alienation.1 On another level, there are several substantial
histories of blocks in the Whanganui inquiry including Waimarino, Ohura South,
Rangipo-Waiu, Murimotu, Taumatamahoe and Parikino which will provide detailed
illustrations of the workings of the system of the Native Land Court and Maori land
purchasing on a local level.2 A third level consists of several volumes of (cid:145)block
narratives(cid:146) completed in separate commissions by Paula Berghan and Craig Innes.3 These
are collections and summaries of key documents relating to Land Court sittings and
alienations for all of the original land blocks in the district arranged on a block-by-block
basis. Finally the quantitative study of land alienation in the Whanganui and Tongariro
National Park Districts, which I am currently writing with Craig Innes, will provide basic
figures and maps to illustrate land alienation patterns throughout the district.4

1 Robyn Anderson, (cid:145)Whanganui Maori and the Crown 1880-1900(cid:146), report commissioned by Crown
Forestry Rental Trust (CFRT) 1998. Robyn Anderson (cid:145)Whanganui Maori and the Crown 1865-1880(cid:146), draft,
commissioned report for CFRT, 1999.
2 Cathy Marr, (cid:145)Waimarino Block Report(cid:146), Waitangi Tribunal, draft, August 2004. Steven Oliver,
(cid:145)Taumatamahoe(cid:146), Waitangi Tribunal, 2003. Steven Oliver, Tim Shoebridge and Lecia Schuster, (cid:145)Ohura
South Block History(cid:146), draft, Waitangi Tribunal, 2004, Peter Clayworth, (cid:145)Located on Precipices and
Pinnacles: Waimarino Reserves and Non-Seller Blocks(cid:146), Waitangi Tribunal, 2004. Nicholas Bayley,
(cid:145)Murimotu and Rangipo-Waiu 1860-2000(cid:146), report commissioned for the Waitangi Tribunal, June 2004.
Tom Bennion, (cid:145)Research Report on the Parikino Claim(cid:146), Report Commissioned for the Waitangi Tribunal,
1995. Wai 903 A22.
3 Paula Berghan, (cid:145)Block Research Narratives of the Whanganui District: 1865-2000(cid:146), report commissioned
by CFRT, July 2003. Craig Innes, (cid:145)Whanganui Block Narrative Gap Filling(cid:146), report commissioned by
Waitangi Tribunal, 2004.
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The report is, in the second instance, an interpretative and analytical exercise. The block
narratives for the district by Berghan and Innes are a treasure-trove of data from which
patterns and trends of land alienation can be discerned. One of the most important aims of
this report is to analyse and identify these patterns across the district to examine how land
alienations related to the operations of the Native Land Court. Issues examined in this
way include court costs, the methods of purchase employed by the nineteenth century
Native Land Purchase Department, the degree of protest over land alienations, the scope
of Crown regulation of private purchasing and the degree to which court-imposed
restrictions affected its alienation.
One question that frequently occurs in Tribunal hearings is how representative the
examples given in case studies are of the overall workings of the Court and the processes
of land purchase in a district. My report attempts to place the Whanganui district case
studies in a broader context and to identify patterns and trends of alienation.
Structure
Chapter 1 provides the background of quantitative patterns of Maori land alienation in
Whanganui addressing the questions of how much land was alienated, when and to
whom. It also presents a general introduction to the issues relating to the workings of the
Native Land Court and the Native Land Purchase Department from 1865-1900 and
outlines the major changes in Maori land legislation and purchasing policy as a platform
to examining their specific impact on the alienation of land in the Whanganui district.
Chapter 2 examines the role of the Court in the alienation of Whanganui land from 1865-
1900. It focuses on questions of how the Court(cid:146)s method of determining and awarding
title to lands contributed to their alienation, issues relating to survey of lands and
alienation, and the costs to Maori of attending the Court.

4 Craig Innes and James Mitchell, (cid:145)Whanganui Land Alienation Quantitative Study(cid:146), draft, Waitangi
Tribunal, 2004.
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Chapter 3 explores the actions of Crown purchasing agents in alienating Maori land in the
Whanganui district. It will scrutinise some of the tactics employed by purchasing officers,
including advances, negotiation of prices, payment of influential Maori to encourage
other owners to sell, and the laws and regulations governing these activities.
Chapter 4 examines the interactions between the Crown and private land purchasers in
nineteenth century Whanganui and comments on how Crown regulation of these
purchasers affected land alienation patterns. A key question here is the issue of the effect
of competition between Crown and private purchasers, and how the Crown managed its
dual roles as regulator of private purchasing and as a land purchaser.
Chapter 5 looks at the protection mechanisms which existed under the Native Land Court
system, including the placing of restrictions on alienation of land and the Native Land
Fraud Prevention Acts. It also examines the various avenues open to Maori to appeal
decisions of the Court, Maori protests relating to land loss and how the Crown responded
to these.
Parameters of the Study and Definitions of Terms
Since the commissioning of this report, the area around Tongariro National Park which
was originally an overlap district between Whanganui and Taupo inquiries has been
constituted as a separate inquiry district. The report focuses on the Whanganui district,
including blocks which overlap with the National Park district. The area included in the
Whanganui inquiry, with the boundaries of the land blocks brought to the Native Land
Court in the district is shown in Figure 1. In one or two instances where issues relating to
land alienation involving Whanganui Maori involve lands which intersect or border on
the inquiry boundary and cannot easily be separated from related Whanganui issues,
these have been discussed in the report.
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