In a deal completed in late 1994, he won a package worth NZ$170m for his Tainui tribe for the seizure of 485,000 hectares of land in the North Island's Waikato region 131 years earlier.
Significantly for all Māori, the settlement included the first formal apology given by the Crown to the indigenous people for historical wrongs during colonisation.
[4] Robert Ormsby was adopted by King Korokī at four weeks old, and became the brother of Princess Piki, later the Māori Queen, Dame Te Atairangikaahu.
[1] For his services to the Māori people, he was appointed a Knight Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit in the 1996 Queen's Birthday Honours.
"Sir Robert's achievements are unsurpassed, irrespective of the troubles in recent times," said former Minister of Māori Affairs, Parekura Horomia.