New Zealand Land Commission

The New Zealand Land Commission was a 19th-century government inquiry into the validity of claims to land purchases by European settlers from the New Zealand Māori people prior to 1840, when New Zealand was annexed to the Australian colony of New South Wales. The inquiry was designed to determine who owned what land, in order to formalise and regulate land ownership in the new colony. The commission carried out its work in two distinct sections—a three-man inquiry to examine purchases in general throughout New Zealand, and a one-man inquiry run by English lawyer William Spain to investigate just those purchases claimed by the New Zealand Company. The commissions were to advise the Governor of which claims were accepted, with the expectation that land owners would then be awarded a Crown grant to their property.

The first inquiry ran from January 1841 to September 1844 and investigated more than 1000 claims throughout the country, with the majority of them in the Bay of Islands, Auckland and Kaipara regions. It allowed just under half of those claims, although concerns remained that in many cases there were doubts that Maori who had sold land had the right to do so.

Spain conducted his hearings between May 1842 and August 1844 in the areas in which the New Zealand Company had bought land—Wellington and Porirua, Manawatu, Wanganui, Taranaki and Nelson. Spain initially encountered, but overcame, attempts by the New Zealand Company's principal agent, William Wakefield, to obstruct his work and finally concluded that the company had made valid purchases in only two of the areas it claimed—Manawatu and New Plymouth. Under instructions from London, Spain sought to identify lands that were in the "actual occupation and enjoyment" of Maori, believing that uncultivated lands were not truly owned by Maori. Subsequently, where it was found sales had not been conducted properly Spain opted to transfer the land to Crown ownership rather than return it to the original Maori owners. In September 1842, after just three months of hearings, Spain ceased his exhaustive investigation into the background and validity of sales and switched his efforts to arbitrating amounts of compensation that would be paid to Maori for the loss of their land. Maori had no input in the negotiations.

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