Editorial: Evidence of first attempts at NZ colonisation makes for confronting yet important reading

A rare document showing early British colonisers buying land in the Hauraki Gulf has surfaced for auction in London.

Editorial

EDITORIAL

“One double barrel gun, eight muskets and one barrel of powder” was paid to Māori for islands in the Hauraki Gulf in what is the earliest organised attempt at the colonisation of Aotearoa.

The stark facts are laid bare in a tattered, water-stained document that has surfaced in London after being in the hands of one of the early British arrivals for nearly two centuries.

The original land deed, which dates back to September 23, 1826, is now up for auction next month and is expected to fetch tens of thousands of dollars.

Although it is well known how the early British in New Zealand used weapons and other trading items such as blankets and tobacco to entice iwi into selling them land for their attempts to settle in New Zealand, it makes for confronting reading.

The sheer brazenness of the first New Zealand Company, snapping up the prime islands of Pakatoa, Rotoroa, Ponui and Pakihi near modern-day Waiheke, and are part of the rohe (territory) of the Hauraki iwi, including Ngāi Tai, Ngāti Pāoa, Ngāti Whanaunga, Ngāti Tamaterā, Ngāti Te Ata and Ngāti Maru, is hard to swallow.

A controversial missionary who claims to have translated the wording of the agreement to Māori chiefs, who signed with their moko, wrote that they “fully understand the ... meaning of the contents”.

An early land transaction document has surfaced for sale by auction at Bonham's auction house in London. Photo / Supplied

But historian Vincent O’Malley, author of The Great War for New Zealand, raises doubts over the claims, saying land sales were a foreign concept and not part of tikanga.

“In the 1820s, the prospects that Māori might have understood that transaction in the same way that Europeans would, would be virtually nil,” he told the Herald.

The fact that the first New Zealand Company abandoned their purchase, apparently taking fright at the sight of tribal war and the reception they received from iwi, changes little.

Their actions paved the way for the second New Zealand Company, which, led by Edward Gibbon Wakefield, successfully snapped up swathes of land to establish settlements at Wellington, Nelson, Wanganui and Dunedin, and also became involved in the settling of New Plymouth and Christchurch.

Their mission, aimed at creating a new model English society Down Under, led to intervention by the British Government and the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi on February 6, 1840, which continues to have ripple effects across everyday life for all New Zealanders nearly two centuries on.

The crass, bumbling dealings of those first British arrivals, offering muskets for prime land, paved the way for the European takeover of New Zealand, impacting generations of Māori, and are bound to affect whanau in coming years.

Although such historical documents make for challenging and confronting reading, we should never forget that murky episode of history.