Maihi Te Poria and the Wairoa Road

It’s easy to assume, at this distance of time, that in the years after raupatu [1] land ownership was steadily and seamlessly transferred to pākehā settlers. Certainly the end result is confronting.

Wairoa Road, 2024

As well as the large parcels of land permanently and actually confiscated, there were, particularly in Tauranga Moana, areas returned (ie. initially confiscated and then given back) and reserved (ie. put aside from the start as allocations to support the local Māori population).  And yet, by the turn of the twenty-first century, of those returned or reserved areas of Māori land, 80 percent had been alienated [2].

Your writer makes absolutely no claim to any expertise in the field of Māori land law [3]. But I do know a bit about Te Puna. This is the story of how Maihi te Poria stood up for himself in, it has to be said, somewhat mysterious circumstances. How did he persuade the Tauranga County Council to pay him a levy of £2 a year for the use of his land for a road from 1907 until at least 1910?

I tell this from a pākehā perspective.  Although I have been in touch with some of Maihi te Poria’s whānau, and they have seen this account, my sources are confined to the public record, narrow, but authentic [4] except for one excursion into the unconfirmed space of FamilySearch, “a service provided by the Jesus Christ Church of Latter Day Saints”, all rights reserved.  Out of respect for the family as well as a careful reading of the website’s terms of use, I do not quote from its content.  I do however offer the link [5] in case my small contribution encourages others to explore the personal history of the Maihi, also known as Marsh, family.

There could be many others in the story. We were unable to identify any Māori ratepayer names at all in the 1909 rating records for Tauranga County. But it is clear that those Māori with interests in such land as was left to them after raupatu were not only wary of officialdom. They were also willing to take it on. At a Council meeting held on 5 April 1910 correspondence was tabled from (if I have read the handwriting correctly) one Riripete Piahana, “re road through Section 116A to 116B Judea”.  The response was, to say the least, testy:  “It was resolved that the Native be informed that the Council has no idea of taking the land referred to.”  The Council moved on to deal with (either) Tinii or Tinui Waata Ririnui’s letter “re rates” and resolved to refer the matter to the District Valuer [6].  Nevertheless, Messrs Piahana and Ririnui thought it at least worthwhile to try. Maihi te Poria, of the Ngāti Pango hapū, similarly tried. And he won.

Map of Ngati Pango lands, Figure 24, Kahotea, D

Ngati Pango, along with Ngai Te Rangi, “lands extend on the west side of the Wairoa River, to Poripori, Te Irihanga and Te Whakamarama with the Pirirakau [7]”. Under the Tauranga District Lands Act 1867, Commissioners determined Lot 182, on the bend of the river and including the mill pond, to be Ngati Pango (shown in the 1867 map as allocated to one Hori Ngatai [8]). But by 1919 a Maori Land Court notice in the New Zealand Gazette [9] records Maihi te Poria making “application for partition” of that lot, which has to be [10] the land that was traversed by an informal road (or track) used by the Wairoa settlers.

Presumably they had acquired their land on the presumption that there was access to it by way of the river, readily navigable as far inland as Ruahihi. But roads, as every colonial administration came to appreciate, were much more convenient than waterways. The Wairoa been bridged for decades by 1907. It’s not hard to imagine that the casual assumption [11] that trespass was permissible across Maori land, to use a modern idiom, ground Maihi’s gears. We know he became familiar with the law of trespass because of a 1909 notice placed in the Bay of Plenty Times [12], warning “any person trespassing upon my land at Poripori, with or without dog or gun will be prosecuted”.

So we know that Maihi te Poria was willing to tangle with the colony’s institutions of land tenure. The patient reader, having been served a hefty dose of context, surely now deserves to know the mystery at the heart of this essay.

At the County Councillors’ meeting held 1 October 1907 [13], almost straight after the vigilantly critical George Vesey Stewart had asked, with urgency, for a report on “the necessary repairs to be made on the Wairoa Bridge”…

“The Chairman reported that he had made arrangements with a native named Maihi te Poria agreeing to allow the Public to use the road through his property from the Wairoa Bridge to the road leading to Settlers properties on the Wairoa river for the sum of £2 per annum.”

We are not told how this was received. It’s easy to imagine some consternation in the Council Chamber. But this is yet another piece in the uneven jigsaw of Māori land appropriation post-raupatu. The political climate was just a bit more constrained at the time. For whatever reason – memories of the 1886 Barton inquiry, the current influence of the Stout-Ngata Commission [14] - there was a significant fall-off in Māori land alienation around Tauranga in the first decade of the twentieth century [15]. 

All we know is that Councillor McEwen proposed, incorporating a shrewd nod in the direction of Councillor Stewart, who seconded, “that the Chairman’s actions be approved and that the Engineer be requested to inspect the road with a view to its acquisition under the Public Works Act.” [16]

The approval lasted until 1910, when Maihi, for reasons undisclosed, advised the Council that he intended to close the road through his property. For reasons also undisclosed, the Council resolved to leave the matter “in the hands of the Chairman” [17].

The County Chairman, J.A.M. Davidson, must have known Maihi te Poria quite well. They were near-neighbours, Davidson holding an extensive property just over the hill, along the Hakao [18]. And, as my reading of the Minute Books made clear, there were many instances when the Council trusted his personal capabilities to smooth conflicts and find practical solutions. At any rate, the matter at this point fades from the record. I wish I knew if Maihi te Poria’s toll earned him more than £6, and how, eventually, the road connection between the bridge and “Mr Perston’s property[19]” was formalised.  Semi-acquiescent takings under the Public Works Act were, and indeed are still, not unknown to officialdom.

However it happened, the public road still winds up the hill from the bank of the Wairoa River. And Maihi te Poria had other, more extensive, land to make a go of, behind the Minden hill at Poripori. For a long time, the only way he could get to it was over the land on which he had once successfully charged a toll.

References

Belgrave, M., Young, Heinz and Belgrave, D., A: Report to the Waitangi Tribunal WAI 215 #T16a.  Tauranga Māori Land Alienation, A Quantitative Overview, 1886-2006, Final Report
https://forms.justice.govt.nz/search/Documents/WT/wt_DOC_93401142/Wai%20215%2C%20T016%20(a).pdf

Kahotea, Des Tatana: Report to the Waitangi Tribunal commissioned for Wai 42A, a claim lodged by Ngāti Kahu in 1986 (Wai 27)
https://forms.justice.govt.nz/search/Documents/WT/wt_DOC_94031141/Wai%20215%2C%20A037%20(a).pdf

O’Malley, V: The Aftermath of the Tauranga Raupatu, 1864-1981, an overview report commissioned by the Crown Forestry Rental Trust, June 1995
https://www.academia.edu/2993300/The_Aftermath_of_the_Tauranga_Raupatu_1864_1981_Crown_Forestry_Rental_Trust_June_1995_222pp

Notes

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[1] For these purposes, “raupatu” encompasses both the consequences of the Katikati and Te Puna purchase up to 1886, and the post-1886 acquisitions under a number of statutory measures including the Public Works Act in its various iterations.

[2] Belgrave et al, p 12

[3] In this blog I have relied on the far greater scholarship in the sources listed at the end of the essay.

[4] My thanks to Glenda McDell and the team at Western Bay of Plenty District Council for providing desk space and access to the Minute Books and rating records of the Tauranga County Council.

[5] https://ancestors.familysearch.org/en/L5RQ-18C/wiremu-henare-marsh-te-poria-1884-1958

[6] The correspondence is minuted at pages 357 and 358 of the Minute Book recording proceedings of the Tauranga County Council for 1907-1911.

[7] Kahotea, D., p. 9.  This detailed study of the three hapū of Ngāti Kahu, Ngāti Rangi and Ngāti Pango has been invaluable, as has the input from the Maihi Te Poria whanu, whose whakapapa is quite distinct from that of Maihi Haki.

[8] Hori Ngatai’s role in the Ngati Pango story is a compromised one, too complicated for a place in this story.  Readers are referred to Des Kahotea’s report for further particulars.

[9] http://www.nzlii.org/nz/other/nz_gazette/1919/47/71.pdf

[10] Based on the writer’s personal knowledge of the area.  For instance, I know just where the Perston property was (adjacent to the present Oliver Road).

[11] Or assumptions based on usual terms of  Court orders?  See O’Malley, p. 190: “The right to run roads through Maori lands was included in grants made pursuant to the decisions of the [Native Land] Court…”

[12] https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/BOPT19090319.2.50.3

[13] Page 240 of the Minute Book recording proceedings of the Tauranga County Council for 1907-1911.

[14] O’Malley, Part B, section 3; p94 and p.194, citing ‘Native Lands and Native -Land Tenure: Interim report of Native Land Commission, on Native Lands in the County of Tauranga, AJHR 1908, G-1K https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/parliamentary/AJHR1908-I.2.4.3.15   .

[15] Belgrave et al, p 30

[16] Page 240 of the Minute Book recording proceedings of the Tauranga County Council for 1907-1911.

[17] P. 351 of the Minute Book recording proceedings of the Tauranga County Council for 1907-1911.

[18] Readers may be interested in the essay on the Hakao, Friday 14 January 2022, https://taurangahistorical.blogspot.com/2022/01/te-punas-lost-watercourse.html

[19] https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/BOPT19071106.2.40

 

Bishop George Selwyn, Archdeacon Alfred Brown and the Flying Fish

Among the small missionary schooners like the Herald, Karere and Kukupa that sailed through Tauranga Harbour’s Maunganui entrance during the 1830s and 40s, was the 17 ton Flying Fish. Built at the Bay of Islands for use as an Anglican missionary vessel, it should not be confused with the Pacific Island’s trading schooner Flying Fish, 35 tons, which under Captain Webster, frequently arrived at, and departed Auckland during this decade).¹

Two men at work on Flying Fish at her berth at Orakei, Auckland, circa. 1844-1847

After Bishop Samuel Marsden’s death in 1838, the Church Missionary Society in New Zealand was led by the Rev. Henry Williams. A former Royal Navy Lieutenant, Williams who had built built the Flying Fish, wrote that the need for a Bishop was very great. George Augustus Selwyn was selected for the position in 1841, with responsibilities that included oversight of the Church of England’s work in New Zealand, as well as among the islands of Melanesia.² Selwyn’s first missionary vessel for use in New Zealand waters was the Flying Fish. A swift and most seaworthy vessel, from 1842 he often referred to it as ‘my yacht’, ‘my little schooner’, and greatly enjoyed taking a turn at the tiller.³ Later remodeled with a deck and cabin, the little schooner proved an ideal craft for visiting New Zealand’s North and South Island mission stations, accessible only by sea and often through challenging harbour entrances.

Bishop George Augustus Selwyn

Selwyn had a close relationship with Tauranga’s leading missionary Alfred Brown. In 1843 and 1844 Brown was encouraged in his arduous overland evangelising work when Selwyn trekked from Auckland to visit him at Matamata and Maungatautari, with an earlier visit to Brown at Te Papa in December 1842. He also showed his faith in Brown’s efforts by appointing him Archdeacon of Tauranga on 20th September 1844. Selwyn was to show his confidence in the new Archdeacon still further, as there is on record a letter written by Brown, on 29th February 1848, declining the appointment to a Bishopric which had been offered him by Selwyn.⁴  

On 9 March 1845, Selwyn recorded that the Flying Fish had made the quickest passage ever recorded for a vessel sailing between Wellington and Auckland. ⁵ Ably skippered by Captain Champion, the Flying Fish was also known as the ‘college schooner’, as it regularly transported missionaries and Maori ‘college boys’ to and from Thames, Tauranga and other Bay of Plenty mission stations to Selwyn’s St Johns College at Kohimarama, Auckland. During mid-1845, Brown was conveyed by the Flying Fish to Tauranga on an urgent visit to see his wife Charlotte and dying invalid son Marsh who had previously been cared for at St. John’s College.

Archdeacon Alfred Nesbitt Brown

Alfred Brown and William Williams, who arrived overland from the Turanga (Poverty Bay) mission station, sailed to Auckland on the Flying Fish for a meeting of Anglican archdeacons, held on 2 and 3 September 1847. Williams briefly recorded a swift overnight voyage to the College anchorage.

At once we set sail with a light wind & crossed the firth of the Thames. Passed the Island of Pakihi at daylight grounding for a short time on a sandspit. Beat up to Auckland with a strong westerly breeze and at four oclock we landed… ⁶

Captain Champion and the Flying Fish made additional voyages to Tauranga’s Te Papa mission station during the 1840s. On 26 September 1846, the schooner returned to St John’s College with flax, potatoes, maize and timber from Tauranga.⁷ In the same year, Selwyn sailed to Tauranga to conduct a confirmation service for some of Brown’s Māori converts at Te Papa^.8

Selwyn’s arduous, extended voyages to New Zealand’s scattered CMS coastal mission stations proved, at times, long and lonely experiences. At the Bay of Islands on 9 March 1845, he recorded:

 

I am sitting in my little cabin, in the schooner Flying Fish of seventeen tons burden; with no other companions than my sailing master, Champion, late boatswain of the Government brig Victoria, and my crew of three New Zealanders.⁹

Captain Champion at the tiller of the Flying Fish

Selwyn did not remain in his cabin for long. On 11 March the ‘rebel’ chiefs Hone Heke Pokai and Te Ruki Kawiti’s warriors attacked Kororareka (Russell) in the first battle of the Flagstaff War. Selwyn, Champion and their Māori crew took some of the terrified settler refugees aboard the Flying Fish, and joined the rescue fleet that transported them safely to Auckland. Initially offered a much larger vessel for his voyages that year, Selwyn, by now an accomplished sailor and commander, declined the offer. Replying by letter to his would-be benefactor he wrote:

In answer to your noble offer of a schooner similar to that given to the Bishop of Newfoundland, I must tell you, that any thing above twenty tons is considered large in our harbours, the greater number of our coasting vessels being about that size; and, if managed by steady men, they perform their voyages with great safety.¹⁰

Bishop George Selwyn continued to sail the sea-battered Flying Fish around his coastal diocese until 1848, when the schooner’s leaks began topping the cabin floor. The final straw it was reported, occurred when he stepped out of bed one morning ‘into a salt water bath’.¹¹  In July 1848, Selwyn took command of the larger 20-ton Undine, another Bay of Islands-built schooner. Whether this vessel also became a familiar sight on the waters of Tauranga Harbour during this era is currently under investigation.

References

¹ ‘Old Mission Ships’, New Zealand Herald, 27 July 1935: 15. 

² Selwyn, George Augustus, Te Ara, New Zealand biographies

https://teara.govt.nz › biographies › selwyn-george-aug...

³ Tucker, H. W; Memoir of the Life and Episcopate of George Augustus Selwyn. Bishop of New Zealand, William Wells Gardiner, London, 1879: 148.

Tucker, 1879: 148.

⁴ Waikato Independent, 11 May 1939: 3

⁵ Tucker, 1879: 187.

⁶ Porter, Francis, (ed.), The Turanga Journals 1840-1850” Letters and Journals of William and Jane Williams, Missionaries to Poverty Bay. Victoria University Press, 1Wellington, 1974: 442.

⁷ New Zealander, 26 September 1842: 2.

⁸ Williams, 1974: 370.

⁹ Tucker 1879: 187.

¹⁰ Ibid.

¹¹ Williams, 1974: 464.

Illustrations

1 Hutton, Thomas Biddulph, 1824-1886. (56) The Flying Fish. Hutton, Thomas Biddulph (Rev), 1824-1886: [Three sketchbooks of New Zealand scenes and people. 1844-1847]. Ref: E-111-1-071. Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand.

2 Mason & Co (Photographers). George Augustus Selwyn. Engraved by W. Hale, 1878-1879 from a photograph by Messrs Mason & Co. [London, 1889]. Curteis, George Herbert, 1824-1894: Bishop Selwyn of New Zealand and of Lichfield ... (London, Kegan Paul, 1889). Ref: PUBL-0148-front. Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand.

3 Hemus & Hanna (Firm). Hemus & Hanna (Auckland) fl 1879-1882: Portrait of Archdeacon A N Brown. Ref: PA3-0103. Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand.

4 Hutton, Thomas Biddulph, 1824-1886. (70) Champion at the tiller. Flying Fish. Hutton, Thomas Biddulph (Rev), 1824-1886: [Three sketchbooks of New Zealand scenes and people. 1844-1847]. Ref: E-111-1-085. Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand.