Native Rights Act

The Natives Rights Act was passed on this day in 1865.

The Act deemed all Maori to be natural-born subjects of the Crown, confirming in law the Treaty promise that Maori were to be accorded the same rights and privileges as other British subjects.

Under Article Three of the Treaty of Waitangi Maori gained ‘all the Rights and Privileges of British Subjects’. When the position of Maori was challenged because of their ‘non-British’ (communal) form of land tenure, their status as British subjects was confirmed by the Native Rights Act 1865.

The name may seem patronising today and not everything that happened subsequently kept to the letter and the spirit of the Act. But it was enlightened legislation for the times.