New Zealand Land Commission

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 Māori 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 Māori for the loss of their land.The legislation was passed on 4 August 1840 and in late September Gipps appointed three commissioners—a lawyer, Francis Fisher, and two New South Wales military officers, retired colonel Edward Godfrey and Captain Mathew Richmond, who was a former British Resident of the Ionian Islands.[3][4] Their public hearings inquiry began in January 1841 at Russell in the Bay of Islands, with the commissioners assisted by an interpreter, a surveyor and the Protector of Aborigines, who acted as an advocate and counsel for Māori witnesses.They continued through to September 1844, holding a total of 1049 inquiries into land sales, most of them in the Bay of Islands, Auckland and Kaipara regions, as well as Waikato and North Taranaki.[8] By early 1842 it was apparent to the commissioners that Māori who had accepted payment in money or goods had had no intention of total alienation of all the land within the vast general boundaries outlined in some of the deeds.[11][12][13] George Clarke Jnr, a clerk in the Native Department who served as a translator during the land claim commission hearings, described him as "a man of solid intelligence, but with a good deal of legal pedantry about him.Spain was given a fixed annual salary of £2000, which equalled that of the Chief Justice and made the pair the second-highest paid public officials in New Zealand, behind the Governor.Stanley, who succeeded Russell in August 1841, explained: "The excess is vested in the sovereign as representing and protecting the interest of society at large ... for the purposes of sale and settlement.As Wakefield continued to stall the process, Māori frustration grew and in August they sent a deputation to Spain—who had by then opted to suspend hearings and move on to investigate the Taranaki claims—accusing him of colluding with the company to delay payments.Acting governor Shortland demanded that Wakefield state definitively if the company would pay or not, and Wakefield—possibly spurred into action by the shock of the explosion of violence in the Wairau Affray in June, sparked by a land claim there—relented and agreed to continue negotiations.Knowing a proper resolution was impossible, Spain closed correspondence and in late August returned to Auckland, where he prepared a report for new Governor Robert FitzRoy on his work to date.Wakefield agreed to pay £1500 to the Port Nicholson area Māori, although their chiefs, led by those of Te Aro pā, rejected that amount—which had been calculated by Clarke alone—as inadequate.Although rebuffed, Spain and Clarke would not accept the Māoris' refusal, deciding that the Port Nicholson area had to be completely ceded and that compensation money would simply be banked for later use by Ngāti Toa.By April 1844 most of the Māori titles in the Port Nicholson district were settled and the vital town site and most of the country area were secured for European occupation.[29] Spain returned to Manawatu and Wanganui, but discovered chiefs now refused to sell regardless of the level of compensation, ignoring William Wakefield's attempt to distribute £1000 in gold and silver coins.[30][31] Spain's most problematic inquiry was the one he conducted over the company's claims in Taranaki where, since 1842, Te Āti Awa Māori had been returning home in increasing numbers, after lengthy periods of captivity by Waikato and Ngāti Maniapoto iwi.Waikato raids had also forced other Taranaki Māori to migrate southwards between the mid-1820s and early 1830s to live as exiles, and almost all had been absent when their land had been "sold" to the New Zealand Company.By 31 May 1844, when Spain opened his Taranaki hearings in New Plymouth, about 900 Māori had returned to settlements spread along the coastal strip between Paritutu and Waitara, heightening tensions with settlers who attempted to clear and cultivate land for which they had paid the company.He told a crowd of 300 the next day that he did not agree with Spain's dismissal of the absentees' claims, and expressed his empathy for those whose land had been sold after they had been carried off by a war party as a slave.FitzRoy, who arrived in New Zealand about two months later, conducted his own inquiry into the affray and ruled that the Europeans were at fault for pressing ahead with efforts to survey the land rather than wait for Spain's investigation and adjudication.In February 1846 Grey visited the Hutt Valley and pressured Ngāti Tama chief Te Kaeaea (also known as Taringa Kuri) to abandon the land they were occupying there as well as extensive potato cultivations.