Treaty Settlement Summary

From an early time the people of Te Roroa occupied lands stretching from the Kaipara harbour north to the Hokianga harbour, including the kauri forest at Waipoua. Wesleyan missionaries established missions in the Hokianga from the mid-1830s and there were early Pakeha residents who lived with Mäori communities from this time.

In 1842 the Crown required some chiefs of the northern Kaipara to cede between 2,200 and 3,000 acres of land as punishment for plunder of a store, whose owner was believed by local Mäori to have desecrated an urupä and removed human remains. No payment was made for the land and the Crown failed to consult with, or consider the interests of, Te Roroa groups that had significant interests at Te Kopuru.

Te Roroa offered to sell the Crown some lands in the vicinity of Waimamaku and Waipoua in 1874. During the series of negotiations that followed, the Crown failed to instigate and follow clear procedures to identify and exclude from its purchase all the lands Te Roroa indicated to surveyors they wished to retain. This led to the alienation of Te Roroa from some of their most treasured sites, particularly at Kaharau, Manuwhetai, and Whangaiariki. Shortly after the sales were concluded in 1876 Te Roroa began protesting the Crown’s failure to provide reserves they believed had been agreed to.

The lands retained by Te Roroa were awarded by the Native Land Court to individuals,rather than to the iwi or hapü. Individualisation made those lands susceptible to partition, fragmentation and alienation. The Crown continued to purchase land from Te Roroa until the iwi was effectively landless. Sacred burial sites of Te Roroa, such as those at Aratapu and Kohekohe were desecrated and looted while koiwi (human remains) as well as taonga (artefacts) were sold or added to Museum collections.

The separation of Te Roroa from their wähi tapu and taonga has been a source of great spiritual and emotional pain for Te Roroa. The Crown acknowledges ‘ngä aureretanga o Te Roroa’ (the continuous crying of Te Roroa) as a result of this separation. Te Roroa have sought redress on a wide range of issues since 1861 and the Crown has failed to appropriately deal with the grievances of Te Roroa prior to this settlement.