The Story Of The West Coast Purchase

Auckland Star, Volume LXXI, Issue 237, 5 October 1940, Page 2 (Supplement)

The Story Of The West Coast Purchase

TX our history bookr. there is the story, familiar by repetition, of how the Xew Zealand Government's greatest land bar-gain-hunter bought the western part of the South Island for £300. This has usually been applauded as a famous feat of that brave explorer and shrewd and diplomatic intermediary with the Maoris. James Mackay. There is another side to the wonderful deal, and it » only within the last few weeks that I have unearthed the hitherto imprinted additional facts from a set of papers in the manuscript journals and letters of Sir Donald Maclean, who was chief Commissioner of Maori Affairs in the 'fifties of la»t century. In the days of the past I was well acquainted with James. Mackay in the Waikato and Auckland, a most notable colonist and fearless frontiersman in his day. He bought for the Government many ipillioits of acres of land for settlement in the South Island. He could have been a very wealthy man had lie possessed the acquisitive gifts of others. He died poor, at Paeroa; the strong man, who was pathfinder, ruler of gold fields, master of Hauhau Maoris, died on a tiny pension. He had mighty little for bread in hi& paralysed old age, but a fine stone set tip years after his well-grown grave »as rediscovered will, no doubt, make up for that! • • • • The new data now turned up in my fifty or more MS. books of Maclean papers of' a letter offering the West Coast to the Government for £2500 and a letter from James Mackay forwarding and discussing the offer. It show* that the original price asked was eight times that which the Xgai-Tahu finally received. The following is a translation of the Poutini or West Coast Maoris' letter to the Commissioner, under date March 1-i, 1857:— "Priend llarlean. salutation* to you. "We have beard from the white man. Mackay. that the land we inhabit ha* been sold by the Ngmti Toa tribe. TTiey are thieves: their feet have "never trodden on this ground. They are just like r»t*. which, when men are sleeping. climb up to the storehouse*, and steal the food. •I>t the money which Kawiri Puaha ku received be placed agmfpst Onepaka. and Matini (Aupouri) against Moetoa. * "We do not wish white people to come here, unless they pay for the land, as It I* our property. We are 'quite" wtlliiiir to sell to the Government, the whole of the land alone the coast from West Wancanui (Nelson Province) to Piopiotahi (MUford Sound). From the latter place the boundary proceeds inland " to the Mountains (Southern Alps). Tioclpatea. Tara-o-tama. Katmata. Marula. M*takjta*l. re Ikahapuku. Te Rotoroa. Wlianimpeka. Aorakl (Mount Arthur). Onetoki.JUngidra (snowy ranges between Takaka and Attmt: Whakaoumna (ranet' R the

west of Aorea Valley). Te Hapua (about six miles south pi the entrance to Wtst * Wanfanui River, Nelson). "We desire the sum of two thousand five j hundred pounds (£2500) for this block of landl We are living in poverty, as we have never received any money. It will also complete the purchase of all land in this island. We will make arrangements with you when you come to purchase the land, about reserves for our§elves. This is all we have to say." This letter was signed by Tarapuhi. W Piti Paturi. Makarini Tonl. Inia Pikiwara. Po-Arama Hofa and Hakiaha. The«H! men were 1 chiefs of the Xgai-Tahu tribe, of whom Tarapuhi was a locally famous old warrior, and the principal conqueror of the original tribes, lietore white men came to the coast. Hukialta was a chief of Hokitika; he was a noted canoeinak(V and he assisted the early surveyor, young Arthur Dudley Dubsoii, in hi* exploration.* of the rivers and coast of West land in the early 'sixties. The Alpine Botuidaries. The place and boundaries mentioned by the chiefs in tlie above letter defined the vast extent of the western part of the. South Inland. Beginning at the edge of the mighty w'hjernpgs i»«>v called Fiordland, it strikes along the summit of the SStithern Alps and thence northward. Tiori-patea mentioned is the ancient cut across to Otago; its-"modern name is the Haast Pass. Mount Aspiring, near the Pass, is the greatest peak in that part of the Alps. From there the places mentioned are on or near the dividing range northward to Rutpfoa and , the Wqnganui inlet in the northwest part of Nelson Province, i Tliir. enormous area, estimated . roughly at seven and 4 half million acre*, comprised the whole , western watershed of the South island. At that period the existence of gold was not knpw'n, except in t}ie extreme northerly ]K)rts of the island. Mackay Describes the Country. The following letter from James Mackay to Donald Maclean, dated Jtine 18, 1857. accompanied the foregoing Maori letter, per mail in the steamer Wonga-Wonga to Auckland:— "Nelson. June 18. 1857. "Sir, —I have the honour to enclose a letter from the natives resident at the Mawherm. or Grey River, requesting you. on the part of the Government. to purchase the whole of tjit West Coast of the ! Island, with the exception pt West 1 Wapganui.

Mackay's Swag Of Gold j

J A Footnote To History 1 g

"When at the Grey River, they infarmed me that they would npt allow e Europeans to settle on the land there, and were for not allowing me to' proceed t up the liawhera Valley; but. I made f friends with the chief, Tarapuhi, and accomplished all I wanted to' see. II "Having formerly understood from you o that the land in question had been purchased by the Government. I Informed them so. They, however, will not allow the right of the Ngati-Toa »nd Ngattrua 1 to the purchase money, as you will learn 1 by the enclosed letter. " ' "I consider the country in questipn, as 1 far as I have seen it. extending about S five or six miles south of the Grey, mqst eligible for a number of European settle- s ments: u.s there is a large quantity of p avuilable land, estimated by me j»*. no less than 465.500 acres, in the Nelson 1 Province alone; very little of this is ppeii ; country, but is covered with some of the finest timber I hsive seen in the Island. 1 "The Mawhera (Grey), Kawatiri (Buller). Karamea (Mackay) and Whakapoai (Heaphy) Rivers all offer fine sites for towns—especially the first, which has 24ft of water over the bar at spring tides; the , ofhers. taking them in order. 18ft Kilt and 12ft. with several others varying ( from 13ft to 16ft In depth. . "There are very few natives on the We"' Soast. I got them enumerated, and found < that there are only #7 frqm West Wanga- , nui to Foveaux Straits. They are. however, promised art accession in number from 1 Port Cooper (afterwards named Lyttelton) downlhe'cMit , their dialect. They «Jrop the "ng" and use "k" instead. For instance, tfiev s:»" ' "te raki" in ptyce of "te rangi": and "Wakanui" instead of Wanganul. "I aip. etc., "James Mackay. Jup." 1

James Mackav was even more eauny than hit? economical chief Maclean in his doings with the Maoris for their lands. The two pakelia officers were (perfectly fair and did not rush tjie clijefs into hasty and unfair bargains, ■> as tlie Government's representative Kemp did with the Kijet Coast people at Akaroa in 1818. The fears about Rauparaha having sold the West Coast were groundless. The Economical Buyers. X«jt even Maclean surpassed his fellow Spot in the delicate task of buying nipch land for little lpqpey. We are left to' cpnjecture what arguments were put before the innocent West Coasters to cheapen the price of that vast wilderness of the West. It was a pity, for tlie Maoris' sakes, that tliev did noit vvajt 10 years longer. By that time, the great goldfields havinsr been discovered, the value of the'.Coast would have bgen enhanced enormously. As it wsjs, Mackay set that £2500 proposal afii<le "for a while in 1857. Tlie

Government finally dispatched Mr. M§eksy frftpi Npteoij with £400 in gold sovereigns in his swag to treat with that sum for the territory originally offered. Mackay travelled through all those arduous mountains and <Jsngeroue rivers to tlie far south, the limit of population; and collected every living soul in'the lai}d from the Mawhera, or Grey River, as far as the remote Maintain river, nearly two hundred miles south of Hokjtika. Bringing hie primitive flqpk, many pf them clad in flax garments, up to the Mawhera settlement, he arranged the gate for thp sum of £300. Thus lie actually saved a hundred sovereigns to carry hack to Nelson. The gathering of sellers now numbered 110 instead of 87, liis original reckoning. £300 for Million Acres. The poor ignorant Maoris received what may be called a "'raw dejil" in this lpp-sided bargain. Yi:t therp were who thought even £31)0 to<> much. Why, they all the land could have been taken for nothing! Reserves of land at the mouths of the Mawhera and Arahura and cither rivers were made for thpse wlio spld the rest' of the country, and remnants of the Ngai-Ts}iu owners live there to-day.

BY JAMES COWAN.....

But Mi|oi j reserves have a way of dwindling, or disappearing altogether, in a perfectly maimer. With the law-abiding pakeha all things are possible. The early-days land buyer for ithe' Government, or fqr anyqnp else, usually Jia<f the assistance of a lawyer; though it is true Donald Mapipan did not require one. But there was an entire lack (>f protection tpr the Maqri spller in such a transaction as this Wegt Coast bargain. T)ie shrewd pifkeha very probably bad an idea tljat there wijs gokl in apn aI°PS that gloomy slipre wopp .by torrent and stpnp. Mackay had already dug for gold ip the ijelfini country; and when he screwed Tarapuhi an<i Tainuj aid their kin down to that £3PO he may well have had a vision of a roaring treasure-hnnt|||g life on the shpre of the West Coast, \y|iicb chiefly concerned the pakeha. fTe really mig)>t have spared that odd ** £100 in sqvereigns for tl|e Ngu'i-Tahu. The whole lot would scarcely have given them £3 apiece.