Te Tiriti o Waitangi and the consequent land sales in Dunedin

In 1836, the ship, ‘the Sydney Packet’ arrived at Ōtākou with a few influenza cases on board. Immediately the disease attacked the Māori and the people died in the hundreds reducing the population to an alarming degree. Following the demise of the Ōtākou Māori population came the loss of land. This began with Te Tiriti o Waitangi that was led by Major Bunbury in the Kāi Tahu tribal region to obtain the Southern Māori signatures. The Treaty had been signed by many iwi (tribes) in the North Island and on the 13th June 1840 Korako and Karetai signed the Treaty at Taiaroa Heads. They were amongst the seven signatures for Southern Māori. The premise in their hearts and minds was that they accepted that under the Treaty they would retain their lands and have equal protection and rights as British citizens. The ongoing political struggle over the total disregard to the promises agreed to in Te Tiriti o Waitangi would continue for over one hundred and fifty years. After the signing of the Treaty came the most significant contractual breach for Māori on the Otago Peninsula.

The British Crown eventually came under pressure from the New Zealand Company. It waived its right of pre-emption as stated in Te Tiriti o Waitangi, allowing the New Zealand Company to negotiate with the local chiefs for the purchase of land in the south. The New Zealand Company and the Free Church of Scotland selected the area at the head of the harbour, on the mainland for a permanent site, to be called New Edinburgh. Frederick Tuckett, a surveyor for the New Zealand Company, was assigned to oversee the purchase of the site. George Clarke wrote an account of the proceedings in Otago that included Tuckett, surveyors and local Māori in 1844. They had come to survey the land for a ‘New Edinborough, the Dunedin of the future’.

Kāi Tahu wanted to keep 21,250 acres of Otago Peninsula with ancestral sites for themselves. However, the Europeans did not agree and would not proceed with the sale unless the peninsula was included. The Māori conceded to accept only the land at the northern end of the Peninsula, and a few other areas outside of that including 9,612 acres total. On July 31, 1844 at Koputai (opposite the Peninsula – Port Chalmers today) 25 chiefs signed the Otago deed (around 400,000 acres) for £2,400. Of the 400,000 acres, 150,000 acres would be chosen for the New Edinburgh site. In addition to this land, verbal agreements were made to reserve 10% of all land sold, known as ‘the tenths’, in trust for the benefit of Kāi Tahu. The agreement was not honoured and the work on New Edinburgh on the mainland began in 1846. The organised settlement of the suburban and rural areas of the peninsula began in 1848 and focused on Anderson’s Bay and Portobello. The peninsula was divided into farms of about 50 acres which were gradually occupied and supplied a growing Dunedin with food. West states that ‘the sale of the Otago Block to the New Zealand Company in 1844 was by far the most significant event that shifted control over the Peninsula…the Ōtākou Māori were stranded on the northern tip of the Otago Peninsula, confined to meagre portions of their once vast property. The way was thereby opened to the European settlement and the making of a new environment on the Otago Peninsula.