"The Native Lands Act 1865 enabled the shares of individual grantees to be alienated without the consent of the other grantees for that block or other customary right-holders whose names were not included on the title. The 1865 Act did not prevent some settlers using practices such as extending credit to grantees and subsequently acquiring Māori land after securing debt against land titles with mortgages. These practices caused considerable public controversy in Hawke's Bay at the time. There was some doubt that grantees fully understood the legal implications of the mortgages, leases, and sales that they agreed to.