Tauranga Apology
In 2018 the Anglican Church made a formal apology to the iwi of Tauranga Moana for yielding to pressure from the Crown to sell the Te Papa block (stretching from the modern Tauranga central business district to Gate Pa), which the Church Missionary Society held in trust for Ngati Tapu and Ngai Tamarawaho.
“A basic moral error”
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The Waitangi Tribunal found that the Crown alienated the mission block and the Te Papa block out of Maori control when it gave a Crown Deed to the CMS following the Old Land Claims commission.
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The Waitangi Tribunal found that the military took possession of the mission land in 1864. The government planned a military township on the Te Papa block and the Militia began to survey it without the agreement of the CMS.
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At times it was assumed that the CMS lands were being confiscated for being within the raupatu line.
The Waitangi Tribunal found that although the CMS understood it held that land in solemn trust for tangata whenua, it perceived that voluntary sale would achieve a better outcome than to apply for compensation if the land were taken under the New Zealand Settlements Act.
Legally, the land was not subject to confiscation as title was held by Crown Deed. Taking the land might require an act of parliament. A parliamentary bill was either feared, anticipated, threatened or drafted, but no legislation was ever enacted to validate the transfer of land out of trust to the Crown.
The CMS trustees executed a deed of conveyance to the Crown in September 1867, retaining the mission station and 1/5 of the town blocks for their future use.
The Waitangi Tribunal found that the Crown breached the Treaty of Waitangi in acquiring the Te Papa block as it was aware that the CMS maintained it held the land in trust.
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In Church Missionary Society discussions, Archdeacon Brown and Bishop William Williams alluded to the Te Papa block as “Naboth’s Vineyard” (the story in 2 Kings 21: 1-16, where Naboth suffered death rather than illegally sell his ancestral land).
Communication with the Solicitor-General vacillated between refusing to part with the land except under compulsion, and preferring negotiation over any legalised confiscation & compensation.
In the end, the CMS gave up the land without a fight.
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The Church Missionary Society wound up and transferred the remnants of the mission station and Te Papa block to the New Zealand Mission Trust Board.
In 1998 the Board resigned as trustees of the remaining land in Tauranga. They were replaced with new trustees from Ngati Tapu and Ngaitamarawaho.
The New Zealand Mission Trust Board (Otamataha) Empowering Act 2014 placed the land under a new trust deed.
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In 2018 the Archbishop of the New Zealand Dioceses and the Bishop of Waiapu delivered an apology “for the yielding and loss of the Te Papa mission lands”.
In authorising the apology, General Synod resolved that the “undue and inapproprate” pressure placed by the colonial government on the Church Missionary Society Central Lands Board was:
“a breach of the Treaty of Waitangi … in terms of the Crown’s obligations regarding partnership, protection and participation of Maori gifted/sold land for particular purposes, as well as a breach of local Maori rangatiratanga of Maori land sold in good faith for a particular purpose, and held in trust by a recipient body for that purpose only ….”
Military Plan for Confiscation: The Te Papa block is cross-hatched at the north-east end of Tauranga Harbour.
“Otane Wamuku to Te Aroha mountain, Wairoa River, Katikati, Tauranga town and Harbour, redoubt, bush, Gate Pā”. Scale 6 miles:1 inch. Date: 1865. Archives reference: AAFV 997 Box 6 /[b] A52
Naboth’s stoning after refusing to sell illegally his ancestral vinyard
Dirck Volckertszoon Coornhert, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
