Proclamations under the act were issued on 30 January 1865 for the seizure of the East Wairoa and West Pukekohe blocks for settlement and colonisation, followed by the Central Waikato district and the Mangere, Pukaki, Ihumata and Kerikeri blocks (16 May 1865). As the occupants were evicted from their land, their belongings were looted by colonial forces and neighbouring settlers, with houses ransacked, cattle seized and horses transported for sale in Auckland. The war and confiscation of land caused heavy economic, social and cultural damage to Waikato-Tainui. King Tāwhiao and his people were forced to retreat into the heartland of Ngāti Maniapoto. The Maniapoto, by contrast, had been more zealous for war than the Waikato, yet suffered no loss of land because its territory was too remote to be of use to white settlers. The 1927 Royal Commission on Confiscated Land, chaired by senior Supreme Court judge Sir William Sim, concluded that although the government restored a quarter of the 1,202,172 acres (486,500 hectares) originally seized and paid almost £23,000 compensation, the Waikato confiscations had been "excessive". The Waitangi Tribunal in 1985 declared the Tainui people of the Waikato had never rebelled, but had been forced into a defensive war. In the early 1990s Tainui opted to bypass the Waitangi Tribunal and concluded a Treaty claims settlement with the Crown through direct negotiation. In May 1995 the Crown signed a Deed of Settlement with Waikato-Tainui that included cash and land valued at $170 million. The settlement included an admission by the Crown that it had "unjustly confiscated" the land. Bay of Plenty On 17 January 1866, the Governor confiscated most Ngāti Awa land in the Bay of Plenty on the grounds of war and rebellion. The Waitangi Tribunal noted there was a "popular belief" the confiscations were punishment for the murder of James Te Mautaranui Fulloon, an officer of the Crown, at Whakatane in July 1865, but said the Settlements Act could not be used as a punishment for the crime of murder. In addition, only two or three of 30 Ngāti Awa hapu (sub-tribes) were involved in the murder, the individuals responsible for the murder were already on trial at the time of the confiscation and all resistance was at an end in the area, with local rangatira (chiefs) having taken an oath of allegiance. The most unconscionable of the many ironies in the confiscation was that the main