EARLY LAND SALES

Manawatu Standard, Volume IV, Issue 280, 27 October 1931, Page 5

EARLY LAND SALES

REVEALED BY DOCUMENTS. SYSTEM OF BARTER. WELLINGTON, Oct. 26. Preparations for the demolition of the Government Life Insurance building have brought to light a number of interesting old documents, mostly relating. to the purchase of extensive areas of land from Native chiefs by settlers and merchants in 1839 and the early ’forties. Gold and silver . were not the media of exchange in New Zealand in those days, when areas of anything from 10 to 25 square miles were bartered by the chiefs of various tribes for merchandise, tools, guns and ammunition, tobacco, clothing, and occasionally spirits. Many of . the documents are in the possession of a firm of barristers and solicitors, who are carrying on the first legal business founded in Wellington in 1842. The business has been carried on in the Government Life building since its erection, and it is the firm’s intention to return when the new edifice is completed.

The documents were discovered when the books and deed boxes were being overhauled prior to being transferred to tho present temporary offices. The original document called Deed of Feoffment and the copy were made on one parchment, which was then cut into two with irregular edges, so that the copy could always be identified with the original by the way in which tho edges fitted together. This gave rise to tho use of the name “indenture.” LARGE AREAS SOLD.

The earliest of tho deeds relate to the sale of a largo area on “Capito or Entry Island, known by the name of Ilangitara, or Rouppora’s Point, bounded by a deep valley north of the point, and on the east and west by Cook’s Straits.” The parties to the sale were Rouppora and Rangeietta, “chiefs of the tribe of Carfier, and Frederick Peterson, of Sydney, in the colony of New South Wales, merchant, a subject of Great Britain and a denizen of New Zealand,” and John Stillwell, attorney. The consideration for the land was two casks of tobacco, one cask of spirits, nnd two blankets. The two chiefs appear to have tried to copy tho English spoiling of their names, but Rangeietta went further and added a section of a design, evidently one belonging to the tribe, or perhaps in lieu of his mark had his tattoo marks copied on the deed. Two similar sales were recorded on January 2, 1840, the first when Te Tnri Pataki, Aro Raki, E Kiwi and Teßuta, chiefs of the tribe of the “Wycatta,” sold 5000 acres bounded bv the rivers Kouri, Operau, and Kawhia for two manilla hats, five pairs blankets, 30 spades, 20 axes, two kegs tobacco, eight cartouch boxes, 20 hats, nine caps, five comforters, 12 shirts, two coats, one double-barrelled gun, eight large iron pots, two bars soap, ten frocks, seven pairs fustian trousers, two pieces print, two pieces handkerchiefs, 30 tinder boxes, 250 pipes, one black hat, two pairs shoes, one cask powder, siz razors, three knives and one chest. Similar consideration was paid.to Ko Hopi, Ko Pai Tini, and Ko Nga Gu, also chiefs of the tribe of “Wycatta, for 3000 acres bounded by the rivers Kawhai and Awarrau, by Messrs Jones and Leathart, the former of Sydney, and the latter the commander of the ship Magnet, of Port Jackson. These two men secured another area on January 23, 1840, eight square miles, for a considerable amount of goods, including beads, earrings, muskets, gunpowder, from E Kiwi and Po Rima, chiefs of the tribe of the “Wai Katto.” This land was fronting Kawhai harbour. Tho irregularities in spelling the Maori names may be due to tho fact that the deeds were all drawn in Sydney. . - A parchment about IS inches by 14 inches, with the seal of the British Government attached —the seal being a full figure of Queen Victoria surrounded by her advisors—is an ordinance given by Robert Fitzßoy. .Esq., Governor and Commander-in-Chief of the colony of New Zealand and its dependencies, and Vice-Admiral of the same, on Juno 24, 1844, entitled “jin ordinance to establish Courts of Requests for the more easy and speedy recovery of small debts,” and appointing Richard Davies Hanson as commissioner for such a court for the southern district or division of New Zealand. There are also several powers of attomoy given in 1839 to Richard Davies Hanson and others to “select one town acre and 100 country acres in the first and principal settlement of New Zealand,” these purchases having been made in England from the New Zealand Land Compiyiy. An-

other document set out the manner in which the land was to be opened up and disposed of at “a sufficient profit” to the purchasers, who probably never saw New Zealand at any time.