Ruthless government officials left South Island Maori impoverished and almost landless after a series of unfair transactions between 1844 and 1860, says the Waitangi Tribunal.
In a preliminary report, the tribunal said all eight iwi of the northern South Island - Ngati Apa, Rangitane, Ngati Kuia, Ngati ToaRangatira, Ngati Rarua, Ngati Tama, Te Atiawa and Ngati Koata - had valid customary rights when the Treaty of Waitangi was signed in 1840. Those rights were protected and guaranteed by the Treaty, which the British Government acknowledged.
"Despite this acknowledgement, the Crown acquired the great bulk of Te Tau Ihu lands and resources very quickly, without finding out the correct right-holders or obtaining their full and free consent," the tribunal said. "Partly as a result, the Crown's massive purchases of millions of acres were invalid in both British and Maori law."
The first major land loss occurred in 1844 when the Government failed to inquire properly into the New Zealand Company's claim to own land in Tasman Bay and Golden Bay. The Crown granted that land to settlers a year later even though Maori title had not been extinguished.
In 1847 the Government bought the Wairau block (around 1.21 million hectares) from just three Porirua chiefs, disenfranchising all the other Ngati Toa, Ngati Rarua and Rangitane people.
"Then in 1853, the Government extorted a cession of all Ngati Toa's interest in the South Island by an unfair manipulation. From 1854 to 1856 it used this cession [the Waipounamu purchase] to obtain the interests of all the other tribes without their free and full consent."
The Crown admitted "its governors and officials had acted with a ruthless pragmatism that sidelined the Treaty and deliberately advantaged settlers over Maori [and] that its purchases left Te Tau Ihu Maori in poverty".
Thirty-one Treaty claims in the northern South Island are in negotiation. Claimants asked for early findings on customary rights to assist the negotiations.
