1840: Purchase of Auckland

October 20, 2023

By AHNZ

Today in New Zealand history, 20 October, 1840, the final deed of sale for the purchase of the site of Auckland was signed with Apihai Te Kawau and other Ngati Whatua chiefs. The process had taken a couple of days to finalise. Until 2018 there had been a monument at Quay St that stated the following: “Here on Point Britomart on 18 September 1840 the British flag was raised in token of the purchase of the site of Auckland from the Ngati Whatua“.

Since then, history has been re-written. That metal plate has been pried off and another attached! Keeping the old stone and lichen helps make a new story seem as though it had continuity with antiquity rather than having been cooked up in the late 2010s as it actually was.

Revised history’s 2018 monument now reads: “This mauri stone acknowledges the agreement made on 18 September 1840 between Apihai Te Kawau of Ngati Whatua, and the British Crown. Te Kawau gifted 3000 acres to establish the City of Auckland.”

Who is telling the truth about the founding of Auckland? And what is to be gained from lying about it?

Professor Emeritus Russell Stone turned 100 years old in 2023. It was during his time that the Historic Places Trust laid that first monument stone to Auckland’s founding near the waterfront. And, he is the author of From Tamaki-Makau-Rau to Auckland (2001.) The Aotearoa New Zealand History narrative strides on oblivious to the past and wishing that people like Stone would have died a generation ago and taken his facts with him! Stone has this to say on the matter…

“There’s no doubt that that was a sale; it wasn’t a gift,” and “I think the word ‘purchase’ should remain.” – Stuff (2018)

There is absolutely no evidence the land was a gift but much signed evidence that the few Maoris who lived in Auckland accepted huge compensations to sell a land they barely possessed.

The Auckland isthmus had been a wasteland for over a generation because nobody had the force of arms to hold it. A “sea of fern stretching away as far as the eye could reach.¹” In the Maori way it wasn’t owned by anyone since nobody could defend the land in the next post-musket context. It would take an Empire to do that. Chief Apihai Te Kawau, therefore, solicited Lieutenant Governor William Hobson to buy the land and move his Start Up Government to Tamaki Makau Rau.

Te Kawau’s people had been in exile for some 15 years but were the most recent tribesmen to have slaughtered and enslaved people on this patch of ground. The land Te Kawau was born on and had known was Onehunga and Ihumatao, very far to the south of the land sold to Hobson. But, both parties were motivated so that was close enough! With Hobson’s help the tribe could reverse its diaspora and rise again. They did.

“Reverend Samuel Marsden and Captain Richard Cruise, separately observed how few people were living at Tamaki and how many hill pa were uninhabited, with terraces and cultivations reverting to bracken and manuka.”- Mt Albert Then and Now, Dunsford (2016)

“Auckland, after the Musket Wars, was as as vacant as an SJW. As uninhabited as a Statist’s skull hole. Another two generations would pass before anyone would come along with the might to hold this ground again. Even they, the British Empire, would have to fight to hold it more than once.” – 1821: Musket Wars Auckland, AHNZ

“The original deed of purchase of the site of Auckland relates to an area of land approximately 3,000 acres in extent, bounded roughly by Brighton Road, Remuera, Mount Eden and Cox’s Creek. The price was £50, 50 blankets, 20 pairs of trousers, 20 skirts, 10 waistcoats, 10 caps, 100 yards of gown pieces, four casks of tobacco, one box of pipes, 10 iron pots, one bag of sugar and one of flour, and 20 hatchets.” – Deed of Sale quoted by Horowhenua Chronicle (1937,) Papers Past

“On Tuesday 20 October, the deed of sale for the purchase of Auckland was executed. Proceedings began with the governor leading the official party up the foot-track that had been cleared through the fern from the tidal shoreline of Store Bay to the whare occupied by Captain Symonds.” – Stone (2001)

The land the Maoris sold would go on to be the most valuable bit of real estate in all New Zealand- the Auckland CBD. The translated deed reads: “Listen all people to this Book written by Kawau, Tinano, Reweti Taranaki and other Chiefs of the Ngatiwhatua…they have consented to give up to sell a portion of land to the Queen of England for ever and ever for whatever purposes Her Majesty may deem right…” Ref. Stone (2001)

Not only did Ngati Whatua get their lives and territory back after such a long time, they were paid richly for it in goods. But the greatest gift was the security and economy bestowed on these natives by soliciting Hobson’s people to re-locate his capital.

Our Auckland history is exciting and wonderful so it is a shame we now must lie about it to ourselves, to tourists, in our media, and to children at school. Since the mid-2010s a new Aotearoa New Zealand culture has risen up and redacted and cancelled and deleted the facts about our history in the service of a Woke agenda. It’s been going on nearly 10 years now. The pages of history have had to be changed to serve a new story that attributes virtues to old Maoris we barely know and denigrates New Zealand’s founders despite all evidence being to the contrary. This even leads to attempts to change the name of the city, to change the date of its founding, and to change the identity of its founders. It is supposed that we, so far away in time, are less ignorant to make these determinations than the people who lived in those times.

“…the generosity of my tūpuna and his invitation for Hobson…this beautiful gift that was from him.” – Marama Royal, Stuff (2023)

“The land…was not meant as a gift or sale of land, but an enduring bond between Ngāti Whātua and the Crown, an obligation and responsibility to support and embrace each other as partners and friends.” – Happy Birthday Auckland – you can thank Ngāti Whātua for your gifts, Spinoff (2022)

“Auckland is a city built on a gift.” – NZ business needs to remember the gift Auckland was built on, Stuff (2020)

“Sir John Logan Campbell should be pushed off his pedestal as the Father of Auckland and replaced by the chief who invited the British to settle in the area,.. said historian Dr Vincent O’Malley.” – Stuff (2018)

“Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei leaders congregated..to commemorate 183 years since their ancestor Apihai Te Kawau gifted 3000 acres of land along the Auckland isthmus to establish the city’s original settlement.” – Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei commemorate 183 years since Auckland land gifting, 1News (2023)

Why are they doing this?

As a direct result of ‘Aotearoa’ Revisionism there is power and money involved in the new made-up concept of ‘mana whenua.’

Naturally this awakens an urge for Maori tribes to fight among themselves over who these Cultural Carbon Credits should be attributed to. For example, Maori Elites recently dressed up in expensive Steam Punk suits and eye-makeup to fight each other over who had the right to benefit from and ransom White Guilt…

Stuff reports that “mana whenua status over certain areas has come into question, has seen two iwi, Tainui and Ngāti Whātua Ōrakei, not only meet to battle this question in the tapu court of Tū on the marae ātea, they have also paid lawyers to hurl words at each other in the Western judicial system.”

Masses of power and wealth is there to be extracted from New Zealand’s richest city by grifters who can convince people they have been ancestrally wounded (somehow) and ought to be compensated for it. The pay-off is so great and potentially ever-lasting that Maori Elites such as Te Kurataiaho Kapea and Tukoroirangi Morgan are willing to fight each other for it. “Waikato Tainui chairperson Tukoroirangi Morgan took umbrage and, when it was his turn to whaikōrero, he declared Tainui was, in fact, mana whenua.” Ref. Stuff (2023)

This sort of tribal gang fight will only escalate and history be bent out of shape all the more so long as New Zealander’s misdirected shame can be exploited as a payable resource. It’s Feelings not Reality that leads us to think that Auckland was a “gift” rather than bought and paid for once and for all a long time ago.

—
1 Poenamo, John Logan Campbell (1881)

Image ref. Redacted monument. Ports of Auckland, Stuff (2018)

Image ref. Lt. Gov. William Hobson was looking for a new place to base his Crown Colony Start-Up

Image ref. Ngati Whatua Orakei in costume and makeup perform a tantrum dance-off to decide who gets to extort Aucklanders. TE RAWHITIROA BOSCH/Stuff (2023)

Ref.  p259 Tamaki-Makau-Rau to Auckland, Russell Stone (2001)

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