‘Vague Native Rights to Land’: Constitutionalism, Native Title, and Pursuing Settling Spaces, 1844–1853

‘Vague Native Rights to Land’: British Imperial Policy on Native Title and Custom in New Zealand, 1837–53

“…This single instance did not, however, signal the end of arguments regarding native title founded on the Treaty of Waitangi, as the treaty-based approach remained resilient throughout the nineteenth century. 125 Chapman was the major innovator within colonial New Zealand in deploying United States' juridical sources on the law of nations with a view to bringing the crown's relations with Māori tenure into that orbit. 126 His personal library in Karori near Wellington contained, or he had access to, not only Kent's Commentaries (whether the 1844 version, the fourth edition published in 1840 or perhaps that of 1836 is not apparent) 127 but also Vattel's text on the law of nations.…”