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Crown Purchase Deeds

2020

Crown Purchase Deeds document the original alienation of Māori land and customary title by the Crown, which by the mid-1860s included two-thirds of Aotearoa New Zealand and virtually the whole of Te Waipounamu, the South Island.

Filled with te reo Māori, maps and traditional sites of significance, and the names and tohu of ancestors that often spilled across pages of parchment, those that signed early Deeds often believed they were forging enduring relationships of mutual benefit with the Crown. When promises were not kept, the Deeds became evidence of Crown breaches of the Treaty of Waitangi and a significant source for redress.

Tied as they are to the land and the social and environmental change that followed, Crown Purchase Deeds are powerful examples of Māori rangatiratanga and subsequent British settlement. They often represent the beginning of a formal Crown-Māori relationship and are an irreplaceable source for understanding the historical and cultural impact of the Crown on Māori iwi and hapū. As such, Crown Purchase Deeds are of unique and irreplaceable local and national local significance.

Archive Location

Archives New Zealand

Page from the 1853 ‘Castlepoint – Wairarapa’ Deed with detailed map and te reo Māori headings. ABWN 8102 W5279 Box 42/ WGN 188, Archives New Zealand Te Rua Mahara o te Kāwanatanga.

Documents that make up the 1853 ‘Castlepoint – Wairarapa’ Deed. ABWN 8102 W5279 Box 42/ WGN 188, Archives New Zealand Te Rua Mahara o te Kāwanatanga.

Map from the 1853 ‘Murihiku – Southland’ Deed. ABWN 8102 W5279 Box 40/ OTG 1, Archives New Zealand Te Rua Mahara o te Kāwanatanga.

Page from the 1853 ‘Murihiku – Southland’ Deed showing signatories and remnants wax seal. ABWN 8102 W5279 Box 40/ OTG 1, Archives New Zealand Te Rua Mahara o te Kāwanatanga.