The New Zealand Land Commission was a 19th-century government inquiry into the validity of claims to land purchases by European settlers from the New Zealand Māori people prior to 1840, when New Zealand was annexed to the Australian colony of New South Wales. The inquiry was designed to determine who owned what land, in order to formalise and regulate land ownership in the new colony. The commission carried out its work in two distinct sections—a three-man inquiry to examine purchases in general throughout New Zealand, and a one-man inquiry run by English lawyer William Spain to investigate just those purchases claimed by the New Zealand Company. The commissions were to advise the Governor of which claims were accepted, with the expectation that land owners would then be awarded a Crown gr