SOLD FOR A MESS OF POTTAGE

Government officials had little difficulty purchasing the land needed for European settlers. In October 1840 George Clarke purchased the block fronting the Waitemata needed for the township. This was a triangular block, of about 3,000 acres, extending along the foreshore from Hobson Bay to Cox's Creek and inland to Maungawhau (Mt. Eden). The land was sold by Ngatiwhatua—the deed was actually signed by Apihai te Kawau,

Tinana, Rewiti Tamaki and Horo. Clarke paid the chiefs £66 in cash^* and goods worth £215. The goods were listed in the deed—50 blankets, 20 pairs of trousers, 20 shirts, 10 waistcoats, 10 caps, 4 casks of tobacco, 1 box of pipes, 100 yards of gown pieces, 10 iron pots, 1 bag of sugar, 1 bag of flour and 20 hatchets. The whole block had cost less than 2/- an acre. Yet within six months the Government had made a handsome profit by selling a small portion of it. In April 1841 at the first Crown land sale 44 acres of town lots were sold for £24,275—over £550 per acre. The Europeans who had paid the high prices also made money out of it, some of them immediately, by sub-dividing and reselling parts of their lots.

Hobson was jubilant over his success as a landbroker and hastened to obtain more Maori land. In May 1841 the Government purchased the Kohimarama block—about 6,000 acres—from Ngatipaoa. This included all the waterfront land from Kohimarama to the Tamaki estuary. The tribe was paid £100 in cash and goods worth £258. A month later Ngatiwhatua sold another block of land, about 13,000 acres, inland from the Waitemata block and bounded by Maungakiekie (One Tree Hill) in the south-west and the Whau estuary in the north-west. The payment was £225 in cash plus goods valued at £164. Money was also paid on some more distant blocks at the head of the Waitemata, North Shore and Papakura but these transactions were not completed for some years.

By the end of 1842 all the land fronting the Waitemata from the Tamaki estuary to the head of the harbour, except the Orakei block, had been purchased. The Maoris still owned a valuable strip of land running from Orakei, through Remuera, to the Manukau and most of the land around this harbour.

European settlers were soon agitating for the purchase of this land. They were anxious to purchase it directly from the Maori owners, hoping to avoid paying the minimum of £1 per acre that they had to pay for Crown land. In March 1844 Governor Fitzroy gave in, waived the Crown's right of pre-emption, and allowed Europeans to purchase directly from the Maoris on condition that they paid a Government fee of 10/- per acre. Few were satisfied with the concession and only a little over 2,000 acres were purchased. Agitation was renewed, this time aimed at a reduction of the government fee. Fitzroy was disturbed by Heke's revolt in the north and after a Maori demonstration had been staged at Remuera in May (mainly by the Waikato tribes) was apprehensive that the trouble would spread to the south. He too readily accepted European suggestions that a reduction in the 10/- fee would quieten the Maoris and in October reduced it to 1d. per acre.

This was the signal for a burst of purchasing by Europeans who, in the remainder of 1844 and 1845, claimed to have acquired an estate of 100,000 acres from the Maoris. Most of this land was in the neighbourhood of Auckland, some of it along the boundaries of the earlier Government purchases.^† But the purchasers were sorely disappointed when the new Governor, Captain George Grey, arrived at the end of 1845. He immediately restored the Crown's right of pre-emption and later held an enquiry into the European claims. The fraudulent claims were cancelled and the exaggerated ones reduced. Less than 20,000 acres were finally awarded to the claimants. But the surplus of these claims was not returned to the Maoris; instead the Crown retained it, after making some pittance payments to them.

By 1850 the Orakei reserve was the only substantial block of land left in Maori hands in the whole of the Tamaki isthmus. The remainder of the land had been sold cheaply and the proceeds squandered. The cheap prices were excused on the grounds that European settlement would increase the value of Maori reserves and that Maoris by cultivating their land and making contact with Europeans would acquire the arts of civilisation. A comfortable view—for the Europeans—but it did not work out in practice.

The trouble was that the Ngatiwhatua tribe could not retain their Orakei reserve, even though the chiefs had wanted it kept for the children. From time to time they were tempted to sell portions of the reserve and nearly all of the land dwindled away. Today there is hardly enough left for a marae.

The Government started nibbling at Orakei in 1850 when H. T. Clarke bought 700 acres of the Remuera end. Clarke admitted the chiefs had set the land aside “as a nest-egg for their children”. The chiefs then agreed to accept £12,000 for the 700 acres but after “prolonged and wearisome interviews”, Clarke beat them down to £5,000. Certainly this was more than the Government had paid for Maori land in the ‘forties; but it still made exhorbitant profit on re-sale. One-third of the block was sold immediately for £32,000 and, according to Clarke, the whole block realised just on £100,000. Another 470 acres were purchased from the Maori owners in 1855 for £2,000—not a high price, the Southern Cross noted, because the Government had been selling adjoining land (probably Clark's purchase) for £100 an acre.

Approximately 700 acres of Maori land were left around Okahu Bay. Could the Maori owners keep this as a nest-egg for their children? For many years it seemed that they could. The Government left them alone. The Europeans who were anxious to obtain the land when direct purchase

was introduced again in 1862 were frustrated when Fenton's Native Land Court judgment of 1868 made the land inalienable. In 1882 an Act of Parliament unconditionally reserved the block for its Maori owners. The Maori hold on Orakei seemed secure. In 1908, however, an act was passed to consolidate Maori land legislation and it was found that this had the effect of repealing the section of the 1882 Act bearing on Orakei. A syndicate of European speculators then tried to buy the land and at the urgent request of the City Council the Government stepped in. Instead of passing legislation to make Orakei inalienable once more the Government started to purchase it. The individual Maori interests were gradually purchased over the next 30 years and virtually all the 700 acres was acquired by the Crown. Much of the land was sold off to Europeans and the portions overlooking the harbour have become Auckland's most fashionable suburb.

The transactions on Maori land should not be considered abnormal. Europeans regarded land as a commodity to be bought at the cheapest price and sold at the dearest. It was to be expected that the Government and European settlers would treat Maori land in this fashiion. To speculate with it was good business and a way of making money. And land speculation, plus the expansion of commerce helped European settlers to get established. European merchants offered Maoris an opportunity to trade and European farmers were willing to employ Maori labour. Maoris still had a chance to adapt themselves to European civilisation.

LEARNING THE ARTS OF
CAPITALISM

Maoris were quick to take advantage of trading opportunities after 1840. It was some years before European farming got established around Auckland and there was an eager demand for Maori-grown produce. There was a gradual influx of tribal groups into surrounding districts. By 1843 Orakei and Remuera land was being cultivated by Ngatipaoa as well as Ngatiwhatua. Groups of the Waikato tribes moved north to cultivate at Mangere, and the land given to them by Apihai te Kawau at Onehunga and Remuera. A Maori mart was established on the waterfront at Commercial

Bay where Maori vendors, quickly adopting European practices, auctioned their produce to Europeans.

By the beginning of the ‘fifties this trade was starting to blossom out. Shrewd Auckland merchants pioneered an export trade with the Californian and Victorian goldfields. Maori agriculturalists supplied most of the produce, much of it from the Waikato, Bay of Plenty and Poverty Bay. Auckland became an important market town. The Waitemata and Manukau harbours were regularly cluttered with Maori vessels which brought the produce to market and returned laden with European wares. The town was flooded periodically with Maoris who displayed rare talents at bargaining, selling their produce to the highest bidder and buying their requirements at the cheapest prices.

Waikato, with its fertile pockets of land, became the granary of the Province. In 1855 the Waikato tribes produced 203,120 bushels of wheat, 1,515 of oats and 600 tons of potatoes. This was valued at £105,472. Ingenious and often laborious methods were adopted to get the produce to Auckland. Fully-laden canoes shipped it down the Waipa and Waikato to the Awaroa and then up this tributary to the portage near Waiuku. The canoes were dragged across the portage to the Manukau, re-loaded and then paddled across to Onehunga. The last stage of the journey was made on foot—long lines of men and women, burdened with the kits, trekked their produce along the Manukau road to Auckland. Then after the produce had been sold and the European goods purchased—and perhaps an overnight stay at Orakei—the long journey home was commenced. Other tribes were just as industrious and frequently made visits to deal in Auckland's markets.

Many individuals stayed on in Auckland to work for the Government or Europeans. Maori labour was used on the construction of the Albert Barracks and other public works. They were regularly employed as farm hands by the European gentlemen farmers. Groups of Maoris were temporarily employed during harvesting operations Some acquired knowledge of more skilled occupations like printing and shipbuilding. The more prosperous tribes even went to the extent of employing European artisans, usually by contract, to erect flour mills. Indeed, it seemed that the Maoris were rapidly adapting themselves to the European economy. The relationship appeared to be mutually beneficial and hopeful souls, Governor Gray included, considered that the problems of amalgamation (they really meant Europeanisation) were being solved peacefully. It was only wishful thinking.

ECONOMIC CONFLICT AND
RACIAL TENSION

The racial conflict which led to the wars of the 'sixties was mainly economic in origin. Economic conflict, in the northern part of the island, was a direct result of the expansion of the European economy—mercantile and agricultural—centred on Auckland. It was aggravated by the success of Maori agricultural production. Auckland merchants wanted to invest profits from the Maori trade in land; and the Maoris, now that they were successfully cultivating their land, did not want to give it up. Increased immigration increased the European demand for land. Auckland farmers resented Maori competition because Maoris were undercutting them in the market. The Maori tribes, while growing European crops and using European equipment, retained their traditional group methods of organised work. They did not farm as individuals. This was the secret of their success, enabling them to produce crops at lower costs than the European farmers. Some European farmers could compete by employing cheap Maori labour; but this embittered unemployed European labourers.

The fact that the bottom fell out of the agricultural export market in 1856 did not lessen economic conflict. European farmers changed over to pastoralism, which needed more land, and made incessant demands for the fertile Waikato. The Maoris stuck to agriculture and were annoyed when the merchants reduced prices for wheat and potatoes. Moreover the growth of two different styles of farming led to numerous petty squabbles. Maori pigs rooted in European pastures and their dogs worried European sheep; European cattle destroyed Maori crops. European merchants went in for trading arms, ammunition and liquor and Maoris in their eagerness to buy these got into debt. The merchants wanted land to pay the debts. Maori opposition to land selling was increasing. The various Waikato tribes, having seen Ngatiwhatua swamped by selling their land in the ‘forties, were determined to halt European expansion into their own district. They had already sold land at Mangere and Waiuku but in the early ‘fifties they agreed to ban land sales south of the Mangatawhiri.

In Auckland itself suspicion and racial antipathy were growing It was found that contact with Europeans was not an unmixed blessing. Restrictions against selling liquor had become a dead letter. European publicans sold the deadly waipiro openly in the town and out-settlements; even in the Waikato where they held “bush licences.” Drunken Maoris became a regular sight in the streets of Auckland

There was no proper accommodation in town for Maori visitors from the country. If they did not camp at Orakei they had to put up with one miserable hovel in the town, described as no better than a pig sty. Europeans ignorant of Maori customs failed to treat chiefs with courtesy. Often there were drunken brawls; sometimes inter-racial fights, as at Otahuhu in 1857 when a group of military pensioners and some Waikato Maoris came to blows. In this, according to one newspaper which admitted it did not have all the facts, the Maoris got “a well-merited thrashing.”

Such episodes aggravated racial friction. The King Movement developed in the Waikato. It was primarily an attempt to save the land, but it was spurred on by the treatment Maoris received in Auckland. Speakers at King party meetings frequently referred to the evils of liquor, the prostitution of their women and ill-treatment in Auckland. Wiremu Tamihana Tarapipi became the leading promoter of the movement after being badly treated by a Government official in Auckland. Potatau Te Whero Whero, who had lived for some years at Mangere as a reliable friend of the Government and Europeans, withdrew to Ngaruawahia in 1858 to accept the Kingship. Many of his kinsmen went with him.

WAR

When the Taranaki war broke out in 1860 matters started to come to a head. A large conference of chiefs friendly to the Government was held at Kohimarama later in the year but failed to arrest the drift to war. Both sides were arming, drilling and preparing for battle. In July, 1863, war started when General Cameron invaded the Waikato.

Although most of the fighting was confined to the Waikato and beyond, the war did have an important effect on the Maoris in and around Auckland. Most of these people were still friendly to the Government but were in a precarious position. Those in the out-settlements like Papakura were given the option of taking an oath of allegiance to the Queen or retiring to the Waikato. The oath-taking was not always properly carried out and some Maoris were driven off at the point of the bayonet. Their property was looted.^* Most of the young men joined the King party and the older men, the women and children put themselves under the care of Bishop Selwyn—they were later put under Government custody. In Auckland the faithful—they were mainly Ngatiwhatua—had to abide by a curfew and wear coloured arm-bands if venturing into the streets during the day. Most found it advisable to remain at the Orakei settlement. The hatreds engendered by war meant that even friendly Maoris were not safe in town.

AFTERMATH OF THE WARS

The wars were a dividing line in Maori-European relations. The Europeans, backed by British troops won the struggle for mastery and land was confiscated with impunity. The Maori bitterness which followed took generations to heal. The Maoris who had not fought were soon enmeshed in land transactions with European settlers and litigation in the Native Land Court under the Native Land Act of 1865. A wave of alcoholism, partly associated with land dealings, swept the country and the Maori population declined. Maori agricultural production declined too and their trade with Auckland was no longer important.

Auckland was now a Europeans' town. Certainly its merchants, by losing the Maori trade and commissariat contracts after the war, had a difficult time for some years. But ultimately they found new wealth in European farm production, much of it grown on the confiscated Waikato and exported through Auckland.

Few Maoris returned to former settlements near Auckland. Those who returned to reserves in the Mangere-Waiuku district found most of their land had been confiscated; and that left was soon

snapped up by Europeans under the Act of 1865. Even the Ngatiwhatua reserve at Orakei was deserted by the bulk of the tribe who lived at Kaipara. The few who stayed at Orakei took little part in city life and spent much of their time gum-digging in the country. Their principal chief, Paul Tuhaere, who had formerly gone tophatted to Government House parties, began to prefer the company of his compatriots. In the 'sixties and early 'seventies he led several schooner expeditions to Raratonga. He became a regular attender at meetings of the King party. Here he exhorted the King party to retain their land, bitterly recollecting his own experience as a landseller; “Look at me, a man who knows how to suffer.” He urged them not to admit the Native Land Court, to keep out the European surveyors and purchase agents.

Many thought a reconciliation was coming when Tawhiao, the Maori King, visited Auckland in 1882. He was feted all round because, as Maning pointed out, “it is land and railways the pakehas want, don't they wish they may get either one or the other, without paying well for them.” Tawhiao was unimpressed and four years later bitterly but unsuccessfully opposed the opening of the King Country. Although Tawhiao and the bulk of the Waikatos returned to small reserves at Ngaruawahia there was no reconciliation for many years. It was a far cry from 1844 when the proud Waikatos demonstrated before an apprehensive Governor at Remuera.

The idea grew up that the city and city life was not for Maoris—they should stay in the country at their settlements. As late as 1935 the Auckland Mayor Mr (later Sir) Ernest Davis was stating the “Maori is a child of nature, and it is better both for him and the pakeha that he should live in the country and not in the town.” The Maori was being considered as a museum piece of the countryside, little of which he now owned. It was good for tourism to show him off to visitors. Rotorua, not Auckland, was the best place for this. After the turn of the century there had been half-hearted attempts to set up a model Maori village at Orakei, as a tourist attraction, but nothing was achieved. The later Government purchase of the Maori land and disposal of some of it to Europeans meant that considerable opposition arose to the scheme. The City Council, in its report of 1935, came out in opposition, fearing that a model village would soon degenerate into a slum; and added that it was not in the interests of the European residents to have Maoris living in the midst of a fashionable European suburb.

It was not until the war years that Maoris began to return to Auckland in significant numbers. Like their predecessors, 100 years earlier, they came in search of employment, European skills and knowledge. Like their predecessors too they have their problems of adjustment to what is in some respects an alien way of life. Fortunately the experiences of the past can be of some help—if both races will heed them. Maoris of to-day realise the need to retain an interest in their own culture, as well as to learn the occupational skills of the European. There is virtually no land left now; but it will be a help if enough land can be found for a marae and community centre. Because of its historical associations these should be at Orakei.