One of the most durable consequences of the development of plantation farming in the tropics was the establishment of varied systems of native land rights which allowed administering authorities, whether colonial or otherwise, to demarcate, alienate and sell land to investors. Without the codification of land rights, land could not have been bought, sold and leased as a commodity and security of tenure for the overseas investor would have been uncertain. The development of such land rights in British North Borneo, now known as Sabah, between 1880 and 1930 is the subject of this paper. It is argued that the elaboration of a Land Code which classified land with native title, state land, and land leased to investors was closely linked with the development of plantation farming for tobacco and rubber. The paper seeks to examine the economic, legal and social context within which native land rights were formulated.