DRAFT DRAFT
NOT ONE MORE ACRE of MAORI LAND
Chapters
1) Colonialism Overview
2) Pre Treaty
3) Treaty of Waitangi
4) Beginning of the End
5) Land Wars
6) Maori Land Loss
7) The Fightback
8) The Solution
Why is there still racism against Maori, the first inhabitants of Aotearoa now called NZ. Why do Maori feature today in high statistics in poverty, unemployment, crime family violence, prison incarceration, suicide, poor health, poor education, etc. This talk sets out to show that it was intentional by the ruling class first through imperialist colonisation and then capitalism.
1) Colonialism Overview
Many places, states and countries changed names over time and I have used their modern names except were specified for ease.
From the middle ages European colonisation occurred. Colonists came from European kingdoms that had highly developed military, naval, governmental, and entrepreneurial capabilities. Different types of colonisation happened depending on climate, ecology, resources, indigenous numbers, indigenous social organisation, ability to resist and coloniser resources.
Imperialism is control of another area or territory. The state policy, practice, of extending power and dominion, especially by direct territorial acquisition or by gaining political and economic control of other areas. Because it always involves the use of power, whether military or economic or some subtler form, imperialism now considered morally reprehensible, Britannica , wiki . Colonise meant to settle/live in another area or territory, but the two meanings merged under European colonisation and colonisation took on new meaning and came to be known not only as settling in a country/state and taking it over in part or completely but could be just controlling it through military directly, or threats, or other means like finance or “protection” or even alliances with kings or chiefs etc primarily for profit and financial gain. It could mean all of these methods at once or just some in a colonised countries.
In Aotearoa all of these happened.
At the time the world known to Europeans was Europe, Asia and Africa, mostly by eastern and southern overland travel. Better sailing ships and navigation enabled more exploration. When Columbus sailed west (instead of traditional eastward) in 1492 trying to find India he landed in the Caribbean thinking he was at India, he mistakenly called the indigenous peoples Indians. Once Amerigo Vespucci realised that it was a separate continent (from top of Canada to bottom of South America) it became first known as the New World, then Americas (named after him).
Portugal initially led the European colonisation of the world in 1415 into Africa. With Spain leading the second wave into the New World/Americas (south, central and western half of north Americas) from 1492, through until 1832. With the objectives of obtaining gold by any means; trading for spices, gold, agricultural products; where forced natives then African slave labour was used to grow agricultural cash crops like sugar, tobacco, cotton, coffee, and others. The Spanish Crown was interested in the spread of the Spanish Empire, and viewed the spread of the Catholic Church as a primary means to colonize the land and the indigenous people on it. The Catholic Church as an institution was interested in redeeming the souls of the indigenous Americans. They believed that they were given the divine right and responsibility of Christianizing as many parts of the world as possible. By 1832 Spain had lost control of South and Central America including Mexico, Texas and California and other north western territories it had held, to indigenous American Indian rebellions.
Spain was followed then by Britain and France who contested the east half of North America before Britain won it through war, but then lost her 13 colonies to the colonist’s rebellion/revolution which became the United States of America (USA) in 1787. Spain lost all its colonial territories through indigenous revolution by 1832. In North America the USA and Britain (in what became Canada) continued their westward march of colonisation and settlement. This settlement required the taking of land and evicting, killing or enslaving the indigenous Americans pushing them further west. European diseases wiped out many more. Where indigenous resistance was strong they could extract treaties from the colonisers. These were mostly broken with the continued colonial immigration and need for land. Most significant treaties and reservations are in the central and western half of USA. Legislation was written by governments and crown to benefit colonial immigrants. Sometime legislation was written to protect indigenous Americans but was ignored. Today indigenous Americans are about 1% of the population and hold less than 3% (Canada) and 2% (USA) of the land.
Private shareholding companies were first created in 1600 under charter from the British and Dutch Crown and were often used in founding colony’s or colonisation of countries, alongside military and settlements. European empires especially Britain ran a mercantilism system from about 1600s till early 1800s. Where through crown and government protection they monopolised trade to build wealth at home. Early desires were for gold and food and cotton etc.
Capitalism, the current economic system we live under doesn’t have an official start date but we can say it swung into force from the 1800s with the industrial revolution which began in England in the mid-late 1700s. When agricultural societies became more industrialised and urban. When the transcontinental railroad, the cotton gin, electricity and other inventions permanently changed society.
During the 18th and 19th centuries capitalism spread beyond the European countries it was born in. “It was developing into a global system spanning many continents and absorbing the peoples and cultures of the territories the European cultures colonised. These European states, the first capitalist powers, were driven to do this by the unfolding of capitalism as a system. They used their industrial and financial strength and the armies and navies which that strength allowed them to build, to invade, subdue and colonise less developed countries. These colonies then provided them with riches in natural resources and with markets to which they could export their goods. Because each state was in fierce competition with its rivals it could not just sit back and watch for fear that it would quickly be eclipsed by its capitalist competitors”. [1]
From 1830s Britain ran a freer market economy and this coincided with the ending of slavery (ownership -not just the trading) through the British empire. This period continued as long as the Industrial Revolution enabled England to dominate world trade. Up until the late 1800s colonialism had only existed in Africa and Asia as small coastal satellite colonies in mostly forts/cities and trading posts mostly without much control over countries they were in.
After 1875, however, the industrialisation of the United States, Germany and Japan intensified the competitiveness of international trade and threatened to destroy British domination of world markets. These developments caused a resurgence of the new imperialism and motivated the British government to participate in the partition of Africa and to impose British hegemony (dominance) over Asia. Where new country boundaries were made up to suit Europeans, that had no relation to geography or tribes. This new imperialism ran its bloody course of military aggression before it self-destructed at the end of the Second World War. [9] This colonisation for new resources, new markets plus market and empire protection needed for new industries happened in a very short space of time, 50 years or less.
New introduced European diseases killed many indigenous in Americas and NZ. In Caribbean and South America, disease is said to have killed 90% of the indigenous population. But not so much in Africa or Asia.
Australia, USA, and Canada like Aotearoa were settler colonies where the whole island or continent was taken over and settled. The new colonial immigrant’s population far exceeded the indigenous population and indigenous never had a chance of regaining land or self-rule. Britain took South Africa from the Dutch in 1795 and it became the biggest settled colony in Africa but colonial immigrants were still in the minority there (20%) and is probably a major factor in it being eventually reclaimed. India was never settled but controlled by military and trading alliances with Raja’s and eventually also reclaimed its self-rule. While Australia never had a treaty and was considered empty.
Colonisation in settler colonies occurred at first through corporations or private settlers and imperial military all under the crown forming separate colonies/states which eventually formed their own governance then formed confederates then federal governments (state overriding decision making bodies) and gradually grew into dominions and then self-government. It seemed to make no difference for the Indigenous.
By 1919 only 5 countries were not affected by European colonisation, ultimately of which Japan was the only one not colonised by another new empire from European contact until after WWII.
It was inevitable Aotearoa and Maori would be effected in some way by the European expansion and it couldn’t be avoided. It was just a matter of when and how.
As Europe colonised the world 2 new empires where born, USA and Japan. Ironically it was USA which dragged Japan out of isolation and drove Japan to war with it in WWII. WWI and the follow up WWII are referred to as empire wars. Since WWII the European empires fell except Russia (thou diminished) as colonised states/counties became independent. The only expanding empire has been USA which benefited and remained untouched by both world wars and rose in power and wealth where it rules or controls many countries through aid or coercion by financial leveraging or gunboat diplomacy, supports regime change with coups or straight out invasion to direct political policy for economic reasons but it doesn’t stay and settle, excluding the 1000 army bases it has around the world. This may be in part due to its past where USA was born in rebellion against its British home world. USA imperialism is also sometimes called neo-colonialism.
Racism
Many of these places considered colonised under Europeans had been civilisations and empires themselves once in Asia or the Middle East including ones considered uncivilised and barbaric especially Africa and Central South America were or had had very prosperous and fairly large contiguous empires by standards of that day. The richest man to ever live, Mansa Musa I early 1300s was head of a Mali empire in West Africa. Mansa means sultan or emporer in mandinka.
In Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies (1997 book) by Jared Diamond, he argued that Eurasia (Europe. Middle East & Far East/Asia) and North Africa, were equally advanced societies prior to the industrial revolution and that Eurasia and North Africa survived and conquered other countries and continents through guns and germs and not by intellect and genes but because of the happenstance of geography and environment which allowed ideas to spread east west to east easy and vice versa but not north south so Africa and the Americas, and places like the pacific, missed out.
The English philosopher Francis Bacon wrote in 1620 that the three inventions that forever changed the world were gunpowder, the nautical compass and the printing press. Karl Marx echoed this. Ironically all these plus a 4th invention of paper where not invented by Europeans but by Chinese. Printing was further refined by the development of the Gutenberg printing press in 1440 in Germany which began a project for wealthy elites and the church printing bibles becoming more widespread distributing printed bibles from Venice and was soon putting bibles and other textbooks in the hands of the common man spreading the written language . This lead to hastening the enlightenment period and faster and more accurate data transfer advancing science
Initially many early European colonists were living with and learning culture and trading with indigenous of discovered lands. While some sociology is based around racism developing from a tribal ‘us and them’ culture, or represented by social Darwinism (or evolution by survival of the fittest mutation as postulated 1859), imperialism and slave owning have been around for thousands of years since the Egyptians, without racism. Both Chris Harman and Lance Selfa [31].argue that racism arose from the magnitude of slavery being perpetrated on the Africans going to the new world. Where initially slavery was white indentured servants as they were cheap labour, but as slave demand rose and they surpassed black slaves price in 1700, demand for African slaves rose too and racism arose.
But a better or at least strong coincidental argument of racism origins is that; originally slavery was with the authority of the king who got his authority through GOD. This all changed as the feudal system fell from late 1700s through revolutions and semi democracies were installed (semi as only landowners and rich could vote). The ability to colonise and rape and plunder at will needed more consent. To get money for ships, stores and men to invade, plunder and enslave other countries, colonisers needed a reason. To do this they convinced the sponsors, backers, public back home and the ship’s personnel, army etc that these aboriginals were inferior savages, less than human. That taking their land and enslaving and giving them christianity was even good for them because it civilised them and gave them a much better god. Thus forming the basis of racism which continues to the present today.
Even USA which was born out of colonisation went on to colonise and build an empire near the end of European colonisation and believed it to had a duty to civilise other parts of the world. Convinced of the superiority of people of Anglo-Saxon descent, these Americans saw it as the "white man's burden" (from a poem by imperialist supporter Rudyard Kipling) to govern and somehow uplift the people of Latin America and the Pacific—whether they wanted it or not.
Racist ideas are not natural to humans; they have no factual or scientific base but they come from European colonisation. They were well entrenched in European culture by the time of the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi.
Lastly for anyone who feels indigenous needed colonising to bring them modern western development, and they benefited from it, only needs to look at Ethiopia - one of the 5 countries not colonised - as an example of that myth. Ethiopia under Emperor Menelik II united many tribes forming one nation into modern Ethiopia in 1889. Modernised it with roads, bridges, railway, electricity, telephone, modern schools, post and banks, obtaining guns and defending it from Italy and colonisation and eventually ending slavery. Although it was occupied in 1936 for 5years after the peak of colonialism until WWII.
2) Aotearoa First Encounters- Pre Treaty
Aotearoa was first visited by Able Tasman in 1642 while working for the Dutch East India Company. Naming it Nieuw Zeeland. Thou it wasn’t until after Captain Cooks visit of 1769 others immigrated here, at first whalers and sealers then traders.
Māori were receptive to many of the new ideas that came with contact. Maori hapu who encountered the first Europeans were often willing and able participants in the trade that quickly developed. Early European settlers relied on Maori protection and Maori wanted European goods and trade. Reverend Samuel Marsden landed at Rangihoua Bay in 1814, gave the first sermon and established the first Christian mission there. Christianity had a major impact on Maori, pacifying many, by preaching peace and turning the other cheek possibly to their detriment.
Kororāreka in 1835/6 showing European houses, Māori houses, gardens, waka
There is no evidence of mistreatment of wives and children (of their own tribes) by Maori pre-colonisation, this came with colonisation, notwithstanding they still held slaves of conquered tribes.
Europeans had 2 unintentional but important consequences on Maori before the treaty and colonisation began. It’s been estimated about 120,000 Maori died in total in the period 1810s, 1820s and 1830s from diseases and normal causes [35] While a fraction, about 20,000 were killed during their inter-tribal Musket Wars. [36] Aotearoa like most indigenous places comprised of lots of un-united tribes. Maori society was organised and maintained by a number of core beliefs and practices, including mana (status), tapu (controls on behaviour) and utu (revenge to maintain societal balance). A few tribes traded to obtain guns. Nga Puhi obtained guns early and lots of them. This enabled them to rage utu and other expeditionary wars on the rest of the upper North Island Maori with ease until other tribes got guns. Ngati Toa did similarly in the bottom of the North Island. Many Maori were displaced from traditional lands. By the time most tribes had guns, many were tired and weary of war, making it easy for Christians to preach peace.
Evidence also suggests that Māori life expectancy at the time of Captain James Cook’s visits to New Zealand was similar to that in some of the most privileged 18th-century societies. Māori may have had a life expectancy at birth of about 30. After European contact, however, there was a major decline in Māori life expectancy. By 1891 the estimated life expectancy of Māori men was 25 and that of women was just 23. [35]
By 1840, its estimated Nga Puhi made up 40% of the Maori population, yet only held land north of Auckland, showing how depopulated Aotearoa had become.
This depopulation helped set the scene for the coming colonisation of Aotearoa making it easier than it should have been with the British having introduced two things that managed to halve the Maori population prior to the treaty-ie new diseases and guns.
In 1830 the Hokianga built trading ship sailed without a flag or register was seized by customs officials. New South Wales was subject to British navigation laws under which every ship had to carry an official certificate of nationality. As Aotearoa was not a British colony. Without a flag, trading ships and their valuable cargoes would continue to be subject to seizure.
In the early 1830s the missionaries said their work was being hindered by chaos, violence and lawlessness. They pressured the Colonial Office to take action.
Other reasons given are protection from the French, whom northern Maori disliked. Its considered that Māori generally respected the British, partially due to encouragement from missionaries and also due to British status as a major maritime power, which had been made apparent to Māori travelling outside New Zealand. The Māori were still deeply distrustful of the French, due to a massacre of a village that had occurred in 1772, when French retaliated for the killing of Captain Marion du Fresne and 26 crew.
This led to 13 Nga Puhi chiefs sending a letter to King William IV of Great Britain in 1831 asking for protection. A number of Northern chiefs chose a flag to represent Nu Tireni (1834) and signed He Whakaputanga o te Rangatiratanga o Nu Tireni or in English, The Declaration of Independence of Nu Tireni (1835). Independence also means sovereignty or self-determination. The 34 chiefs who initially , 52 later, signed the declaration called upon King William IV of Great Britain to become their ‘father and protector’, which he accepted in May 1836. It's unclear if Nu Tireni means Aotearoa or New Zealand or both. But if it means New Zealand, then Maori had already accepted the future colonisers name version of Able Tasman’s (the explorers) name for Aotearoa.
The original NZ company was formed in 1925 by John Lambton (lord Durnham) and sailed to Aotearoa in 1927 , made some land purchases but decided exporting flax and timber was not profitable, giving up.
In 1830 William Wakefield and others formed the National Colonization Society with a view to colonising Australia . Then formed the NZ Association and merged with his brother Edwards New Zealand Company 1839. The ambitious settlement plans of the NZ Company were to buy land and on sell to settlers at a profit. The profit would pay for schools , roads hospitals etc . The business model focused on the systematic colonisation of New Zealand by Edward Gibbon Wakefield, who envisaged the creation of a new-model English society in the southern hemisphere. Under Wakefield's model, the colony would attract capitalists who would then have a ready supply of labour to work the land — the land would be expensive so migrant labourers could not initially afford to be property owners, thereby having to labour, but who would have the expectation of one-day buying land with their savings. He believed this model would syphon off Britains surplus capital and labour restoring balance in capitalist Britain, here. Wakefield worked under UK politician Lord Durhham in Canada who wrote the Durnham Report investigating causes of the 1837-38 rebellion in colonies of upper and lower Canada.
Mr. Dandeson Coates, the secretary of the Church Missionary Society and Mr. John Beecham, secretary of the Wesleyan Missionary Society both wrote 2 phamplets each against the NZ Association colonisation of Aotearoa. From these pamphlets it seemed the missionaries were anxious the islands should be left in their hands, and they characterised the arrival of colonists as an enemy pouring in like a flood. That colonists would obtain the lands of the natives for mere baubles; that wherever savages and civilised men have come in contact the story has been written in blood [38].
It appears many UK MPs were against colonisation of NZ and NZ Association declared its intentions to illegally colonisation and create a republic in NZ without the crowns consent. Without delay letters patent were issued under the Great Seal of the United Kingdom on the 15th June 1839, extending the boundary of New South Wales to include any part of New Zealand that may be acquired in sovereignty by her Majesty. This opposition leading to the formation of the NZ Land Company in 1939 instead.
Problems arising from land sales were many; some Maori selling land they didn’t own or was disputed by Maori questioning a lawful sale made or disputes between Maori as to lawful right to sell , or not getting paid. Wakefield selling land he hadn’t seen or bought. Some land was being sold multiple times over by Maori.
3) Te Tririti o Waitangi – The Treaty of Waitangi
Reasons
Something changed in the next 5 years. The Colonial Office sent William Hobson to New Zealand with instructions to obtain sovereignty over all or part of New Zealand with the consent of chiefs. Hobson arrived in the Bay of Islands on 29 January 1840, a week after the Aurora arrived in Wellington Harbour with the first cargo of New Zealand Company settlers.
Reasons given for signing the treaty by both sides are various-
There were concerns Maori were getting defrauded. The inference is Britain and the colonial office wanted to protect Maori from unscrupulous behaviour of people like Wakefield over land purchases. This remains to be proven given Hoson's and other leading colonist’s actions after 1840.
The following is claimed in the NZ Government history website that Britain decided to colonise Aotearoa prior to 1840 - “1837 Britain decides to establish a colony . In December 1837 the British government decided in principle to intervene in New Zealand to ensure that colonisation was regulated and that land transactions that defrauded Māori were stopped “. [2] This is most likely a policy change by Britain when King George IV died in June 1837 and Queen Victoria took over.
The missionaries believed Maori would be protected from lawless Pakeha, whalers etc who said Britain’s laws didn’t apply here in Sovereign Aotearoa. No doubt Maori had similar ideas.
Those Maori in favour of "selling" the land gave two main reasons for their stance: European arms and settlement would give them protection against their enemies, notably the Ngati Raukawa of Otaki who were expected to attack at any time.
What is certain is Wakefield was making advertisements and promises he wasn’t delivering to settlers re land quality and quantity. Maori like native South Africans did not have the concept of ownership of land in western sense and so while Wakefield and others thought they were buying land; Maori were only selling the use of it. Problems over this flared immediately. Compounded by surveyors including land Maori hadn’t agreed to “sell”.
Charles Philippe Hippolyte de Thierry May have been a factor . Having been making claims on Aotearoa and was trying to organise funds and a force to effect his words. Purchasing 40,000 acres by proxy . He alarmed James Busby, British Resident in New Zealand, and the missionary community by issuing manifestos stating that he intended to establish his authority as sovereign chief by force, before arriving in Hokianga in November 1837. [37]
Britain must have seen advantages in signing a treaty as colonisation is expensive and NZ was on the other side of the world. For one the cost of the Americas conquest (fighting the indigenous Americans and other European colonists forced Britain to raise taxes in America which led to the revolution against Britain because of lack of representation and there had been 2 rebellions/uprisings in the Canada in 1837-38 that necessitated The Report on the Affairs of British North America (or Durham Report) by Lord Durham a believer in colony self-rule. In which he stated "While the present state of things is allowed to last, the actual inhabitants of these Provinces have no security for person or property—no enjoyment of what they possess—no stimulus to industry." One of his is 2 most known recommendations was to give them a “responsible government” partly based on the fact their neighbour USA already had one. Britain would have been keen to avoid these issues in NZ in 1840.
Andrew Giddes argues around the time colonisation occurred Britain was in deep depression caused by lack of room for investment and Aotearoa was seen as a place to invest. Secondly a wave of working class activism throughout Britain and especially the rise of the chartist movement terrified the British ruling class. That colonisation of Aotearoa was a safety valve for England getting rid of the working class who were causing social unrest in England. The surplus population of Britain could be resettled here and social unrest diffused. [22]
It is less known why Maori signed the Treaty given they already had Britain’s protection. Perhaps they had coercion by Britain to get that protection. The French were still sniffing around. Whaler Frenchman Jean-François Langlois bought most of banks peninsula with a deposit in 1838 and went home to France to secure funding and French settlers with backing of the French king with plans to settle banks peninsula and eventually colonise the whole South Island leaving the north island to the British. Captain Charles François Lavaud, the French representative for the settlement, arrived in Akaroa in August 1840 carrying 53 emigrants.
“Reasons why chiefs signed the treaty included wanting controls on sales of Māori land to Europeans, and on European settlers. They also wanted to trade with Europeans, and believed the new relationship with Britain would stop fighting between tribes” [3] .
In late 1839 William Wakefield (of the NZ Company) made some major land purchases in Port Nicholson and Cook Strait.
The Treaty
Within a few days of his arrival in the Bay of Islands Hobson drafted the Treaty of Waitangi, first in English then in Maori which was presented to a gathering of Māori on the grounds of Busby’s home at Waitangi. More than 40 Māori chiefs signed it on 6 February. A meeting at Port Waikato in April ran out of authorised Maori versions and 34 overflow signatures went on an unauthorised English version. Hobson declared NZ (including the annexed South Island) under British sovereignty in May 1840 in response to the NZ Company declaring Nelson a republic under the United Tribes [39] . Multiple copies of the treaty continued travelling to Aotearoa and by September 1840, another 500 Māori had signed copies of the Maori version of the treaty that had been sent around the country. Some didn’t sign, some were not prepared to compromise their independence, while others could see no benefit in the Treaty. Others hadn't even had the chance – the Treaty hadn't been taken to their region. In all there are 9 sheets that make up the treaty.
Regarded as New Zealand’s founding document, the Treaty of Waitangi has been a source of much debate and controversy ever since 1840 due to colonisation. The differences between the English- and Māori-language versions of the Treaty are at the heart of this debate. Most Maori believed they had given up some governorship of the European settlers to the Queen, while they through chiefs maintained their rights and land [27].
The treaty is made up of a pre-amble and 3 articles. The relevant parts are listed below ;
Maori version translated 1st article -” The Chiefs of the Confederation and all the Chiefs who have not joined that Confederation give absolutely to the Queen of England for ever the complete government over their land.”
Maori version translated 2nd Article - “The Queen of England agrees to protect the chiefs, the subtribes and all the people of New Zealand in the unqualified exercise of their chieftainship over their lands, villages and all their treasures.8
English version first article “ The Chiefs of the Confederation of the United Tribes of New Zealand….. cede to Her Majesty the Queen of England absolutely and without reservation all the rights and powers of Sovereignty “
English version Article 2 “Her Majesty the Queen of England confirms and guarantees to the Chiefs and Tribes of New Zealand and to the respective families and individuals thereof the full exclusive and undisturbed possession of their Lands and Estates Forests Fisheries and other properties “.
The Maori version used the word Rangatiratanga while the English version omitted it.
The Maori on one hand give up governorship of their land to Queen but get protection of chiefs and people in the unqualified chieftainship (Rangatiratanga) over their land. It seems almost a contradictory treaty for Maori but they must have understood its meaning at the time to be satisfied they were not giving up too much authority/sovereignty when signing it. Hobson and other British must have said a lot of words with different meanings to Maori that were not written in the treaty that Maori relied upon.
The British maintained that Māori had ceded sovereignty via the Treaty, citing the English version which used key different words including giving up sovereignty (Rangatiratanga) which was substituted for Kawanatanga in the first article. Both Maori and British knew the word Rangatiratanga as it was used in the Declaration of Independence in 1835. Some Maori would know of the word Governor as they had visited or heard of the Governor of New South Wales acting for the Queen. [27]. But this is a far cry from the government (that may or may not be acting for the Queen) they got in 1856 which proceeded as if it had sovereignty that acted so treacherously and unlawfully outside the scope and protection of the treaty.
The 3rd Article is considered the same in English and Maori and I think is underrated as significant “In consideration thereof Her Majesty the Queen of England extends to the Natives of New Zealand Her royal protection and imparts to them all the Rights and Privileges of British Subjects.” As regardless of the sovereignty versus governorship issue the Queen should have protected Maori and she didn’t.
Māori heavily outnumbered the new settlers and at first little changed on the ground. This is illustrated by the Wairau incident in 1843 in which 22 settlers were killed by Ngāti Toa in a dispute over land. Governor Robert Fitzroy insisted that Ngāti Toa had been provoked by the settlers and took no action. The disgruntled settler community viewed this lack of action as confirming that their needs were seen as secondary to those of Māori. This was soon to change thanks to increased population and parliament.
Of all British dominions Maori were the only people that got a treaty with the Queen that covered the entire country before colonisation began. Also unlike the other British settler colonies where the indigenous signed treaties under duress usually giving up vast areas of land to colonisers to protect the remaining reserves to live on, Maori did not have to. It was also the shortest definite continuous period of European settler colonisation from beginning to end. South Africa, Canada and USA were all an amalgamation of smaller colonies or states, while India was already separate states, not unifying until throwing out British in 1947.
How were they colonised against their wishes and end up losing so much (land and culture and mana) and end up in the poverty end of the economic system today? Maori today hold only 4.8 % of all land of Aotearoa. It’s often cited that Maori sold it, but no one sells 95% of their land willingly when they have such strong cultural attachment and tikanga around the land leaving them no papakainga and means of living or economic base.
4) Beginning of the End
The two major changes that eventually led to Maori loss of land, culture, economic base and mana were 1; The arrival of many new immigrants out numbering Maori and 2; the Queen allowing a “responsible” NZ Government to be set up to “govern NZ”.
William Spain was tasked with investigating pre treaty land purchases. In many cases the NZ Company was made to pay compensation to Maori. A maximum acreage was awarded to legitimate deals/buyers but the crown kept any land over that rather than return it to Maori.
The NZ Company had a big impact on colonisation of Aotearoa despite becoming bankrupt because it relied on having a right ration of capitalists to labourers, it didn’t get it right . Bringing to many labourers with many capitalists just speculating on land not intending to move to NZ. Of the 18,000 settlers who came directly from Britain between 1840 and 1852, about 14,000 were brought in by the NZ Company or its successors
From 1840 a Governor (representing Queen Victoria) ruled New Zealand. But settlers wanted to elect their representatives, as they had done in Britain. In 1846 the United Kingdom proposed a form of representative government for New Zealand’s 13,000 colonists. Ironically it’s been said the new Governor, George Grey, persuaded his superiors to delay for 5 years as the settler population could not be trusted to pass laws that would protect the interests of the Māori majority .
“In 1846, the British Government instructed that all Maori land ownership was to be registered; land deemed to be unused or surplus was to become Crown Land. Governor George Grey reinstated the exclusive Crown right to purchase Maori land provided for in the Treaty of Waitangi. Crown agents developed some dubious practices to persuade Maori to sell, and they could offer whatever the Government was prepared to pay, rather than the market rate. The government was the arbiter as well as the defendant when Maori complained.” [3]
In 1852, Britain passed the New Zealand Constitution Act, which made representative government possible here. There are 2 sections in it that look like they protect Maori, s71 & 72. At the national level, a General Assembly was established consisting of a Legislative Council appointed by the Crown and a House of Representatives elected every five years by men over the age of 21 who owned, leased or rented property of a certain value. As Māori possessed their land communally, almost all were excluded from voting. In 1856, the first Government was formed from a majority in Parliament. Because of lack of Maori voting rights four Māori parliamentary seats were eventually created in 1867, but in a Parliament with 76 members their impact was negligible. New Zealand’s first Parliament met in Auckland in 1854. The Governor retained conflicting responsibility for defence and Māori affairs until 1864.
This pressure intensified after 1856, when the New Zealand Parliament achieved “responsible government”. Responsible Government simply means responsible to parliament and its elected MPs rather than the Sovereign Monarch Queen Victoria . Most members of Parliament believed their first responsibility was to the settlers who had elected them. Because Maori couldn’t really vote, they had no representation in parliament. The Colonial Office also expected New Zealand to pay its own way – including by acquiring Māori land for settlement which they on sold for profit and was only way to raise money causing a massive conflict of interest with NZ government having a vested interest in acquiring lots of free or cheap land from Maori for whom it was claimed they were looking after/protecting and resell to settlers at inflated more expensive prices.
Plural voting existed until 1890, whereby men could vote in each electorate in which they owned property. In 1893, New Zealand gave women the vote — the first country in the world to do so. Parliament originally had no political parties. The first political party appeared in the 1890s.
The Crown used the Treaty pre-emption to buy two-thirds of the entire land area of New Zealand from Māori – including most of the South Island. They paid 21,150 pounds in total – the equivalent of $2.5 million in today's money, or about three residential properties in Auckland. Treaty breaches have been identified by the Crown in the process of these purchases, these vary from purchase to purchase.
In some cases, iwi were made promises that helped to convince them to sell, but the promises were often broken or simply ignored. In other cases they were pressured to sell. For example between 1848 and 1864, Ngāi Tahu sold most of the South Island to the Crown for 14,750 pounds (excluding disputed Nelson/Nelson Lakes/Wairau Valley/Golden Bay area) – a sum that equated to a fraction of a penny per acre. In return, the Crown promised to build schools and hospitals for the iwi and to set aside 10 per cent of the land for their occupation. The schools and hospitals never materialised and Ngāi Tahu received only 37,000 acres of the purchased land – one-thousandth as opposed to one-tenth. [28].
5) The New Zealand Land Wars
This is the more common name for the wars from 1843 to 1872 which happened on the north island. Others are the Maori-European wars (inaccurate as Maori fought on both sides , the Maori rebellion wars (by colonisers), Te Riri Pakeha - the white man's anger (by Maori). There has been some good books written of these wars like, the New Zealand wars – James Bellich, Wars Without End –Danny Keenan, The Great War For New Zealand – Vincent Omalley, recently Tutu Te Puehu (multiple authors) etc so I won't go into further detail.
Key war campaigns
Northern War (1845–6)
Wellington/Whanganui (1846–7)
Taranaki (1860–1, 1863)
Waikato/Bay of Plenty (1863–4)
Pai Marire (1864–8)
Tītokowaru’s War (1868–9)
Te Kooti’s War (1868–72)
There were around 3,000 deaths during these wars – the majority of them Māori. While many Maori died defending their land, others allied themselves (kupapa) with the colonists, often to achieve tribal goals (utu and land protection etc) and economic goals at the expense of other hapu. Kupapa is now used as a word for traitor and ironically most of them lost land in the end as well.
The conflict was officially described as a suppression of Māori who were in rebellion against the government, but some politicians admitted that it was a war to assert British supremacy.
The 1843 Wairau Incident was not a war but an arrest gone wrong over disputing “bought land” which was over some land Te Atiawa Maori hadn’t sold but was being claimed by the NZ Company. A typical ploy of colonial settlers. There were no colonial or imperial troops involved then but it was the first fighting of trouble over the conflict of Maori sovereignty and land since the signing of the treaty. Where contested understandings of sovereignty were inflamed by decreasing Māori willingness to sell land and increasing pressure for land for settlement as the European population grew rapidly.
Northern Wars
The first post-Treaty challenge to the Crown came in 1845, when Hōne Heke’s repeated attacks on the British flag at Kororāreka sparked the Northern War. This wasn’t over land . Heke believed that Māori had lost their status and sovereignty and their ”country” to the British despite the assurances embodied in the Treaty of Waitangi. The Northern War ended at Ruapekapeka battle in January 1846. The new Governor George Grey made peace with Heke and his principal ally Kawiti.
Wellington Wars
These were minor skirmishes and Te Rupraha was pacified easily and early.
The Kīngitanga
An ever-growing settler population continued to desire Māori land.
In the South Island, where few Māori lived, and most of the land was sold, settlers and sheep had spread with ease. But by 1860, 80% of the North Island still remained in Māori hands and most colonists were bottled up in coastal settlements. The fact that some Māori had become commercial farmers supplying the new settlers compounded the settlers frustrations – especially as, in their eyes, much Māori-owned land was ‘waste land’ (unoccupied).
To counter increasing pressure to sell, some Māori suggested placing their land under the protection of a single figure – a Māori king. Te Wherowhero of Waikato (who had not signed the Treaty of Waitangi) became the first Māori King in 1858. The Kīngitanga (‘King Movement’) attempted to unite tribes under its banner. It was hoped that a king would hold sufficient mana to enable Māori land to be placed under his protection and thus defeat the ‘divide and conquer’ approach to buying it. But many iwi refused to place their mana under that of another. While the Kīngitanga did not see itself as in opposition to the Queen, the colonial government and settlers did and this is one of the main reasons for the invasion of Waikato.
At this point Waikato Maori grew and sold the new European immigrants grains and vegetables to Auckland grown on its fertile soils and was a major source of income. It’s been said it was much better than, and even out competing Auckland colonial immigrant growers.
Wars in Earnest in Taranaki, Waikato and Tauranga
War erupted in Taranaki in 1860 following Governor Thomas Gore Browne’s decision to accept an offer to buy land from a minor Te Āti Awa chief. Knowing this offer was disputed by the more senior Chief. British attack a Maori pa first .New Plymouth was besieged and British attempts to lure Māori into a decisive battle failed. Waikato supplied some warriors to help in the conflict. Ending in a stalemate, a truce was eventually agreed in 1861. Thou further fighting broke out.
NZ Government's first unlawful act in this war was to confiscate Waikato land from Auckland southwards to Pokeno to make a buffer against the war and build the Great South Rd to transport troops and supplies to the coming war. This includes land at Ihumatao currently under Maori occupation for its return from Fletcher Challenge Ltd. Greys excuse was issuing an ultimatum to Maori to pledge loyalty to the Queen which was mostly refused.
Attention then turned to Tauranga and Bay of Plenty, whose iwi were sending reinforcements and supplies to the Kīngitanga. Despite an overwhelming advantage in numbers and firepower, the British suffered a demoralising defeat at Pukehinahina (‘the Gate Pa’). After they got their revenge two months later at nearby Te Ranga, the campaign came to an end.
Fresh conflict
The Pai Marire movement and the fighting that followed was not so much over specific land stolen but the injustices that had already happened.
Further fighting broke out in 1868 involving the prophet warriors Te Kooti and Tītokowaru. These guerrilla campaigns ranged across the central North Island from the west coast to the east, stretching the colony’s military resources to near breaking point. Tītokowaru won several stunning victories before in February 1869 – at the height of his success – his army disintegrated overnight. The fighting with Te Kooti ended when he was granted sanctuary by King Tāwhiao in 1872. Tāwhiao himself formally made peace with the Crown in 1881.
The harrasement and eventual arrest of Rua Kenana of Nga Tuhoe in 1916, who had replaced TeKooti , and the passing of the Tohunga Act said to be passed to stop Rua , showed a less violent but still continuing methods of maori subjugation .
British usually attacked first. Maori were heavily outnumbered and outgunned in these wars especially in Waikato by a factor of about 4 to 1. Yet Maori still won some battles, with British winning some with many more ending in stalemate. Maori often built forts, and then evacuated them to build another elsewhere. Maori didn’t fight in open or field warfare due to lack of numbers. But in the end Colonialists were able to hold more ground. In 1860 there were 1000 imperial troops in Aotearoa and by 1865 there were 10,000. They started being withdrawn back to Britain from 1866 leaving constabulary (police) and kupapa Maori to subdue rebel Maori. With kupapa most likely being the deciding factor in the battles against Tekooti and Titokowarau .
Maori also suffered from not having a permanent army with warriors having to rotate back to their villages to tend/grow crops. The biggest deciding factor was tribes not being united to help each other or being either neutral or openly supporting the NZ government and troops like Ngati Porou, Arawa & Lower-river Whanganui Māori.
Maori kept their word and generally treated enemies with respect, hardly attacked settler women and children although driving the war for land settlers weren’t seen as the enemy but rather the surveyors and the NZ Government and NZ constabulary and (British) Imperial troops were.
6) Maori Land Loss,1860-1975
Once the land wars were over and the Government and colonists had won, the struggle for land entered a new phase of confiscation (Rauputu). This resulted in reduced Maori economic base, cultural identity and unity leaving a fragmented Maori, driving them to act as Europeans. This was part of the Government’s policy to assimilate Māori into Pākehā society, forcing them into a culture and tikanga vastly different than was traditionally theirs and alienating them from their own.
NZ government during and after the land wars passed the following legislative acts to help destroy Maori culture to reduce their power in order to control them and to steal their land.
The NZ Settlement Act 1862. Passed just after the Waikato invasion to confiscate Maori land. Ultimately 3,490,737 acres were confiscated. Of this 1.2 million from Taranaki and 1.2 million from Waikato Maori. Even though the judiciary argued it was illegal.
The effects varied from region to region. The consequences were most severe for Waikato–Tainui tribes; Taranaki tribes; Ngāi Te Rangi in Tauranga; and Ngāti Awa, Whakatōhea and Tūhoe in the eastern Bay of Plenty. Military settlers were placed on confiscated land to act as a buffer between Māori and European communities. Even Māori regarded as ‘loyal’ found themselves affected by confiscation and the imposition of British notions of property ownership. Ngāti Maniapoto largely avoided confiscation. Their land was difficult to access and not considered valuable. This clearly shows the goal was to obtain valuable land.
The Suppression of Rebellion Act 1863 was passed to label Maori as rebel criminals who fought for land rights to be detained indefinitely without trial.
The Public Works Acts of 1864 and 1876. Together with later legislation, these acts enabled the Crown to compulsorily acquire Māori land for roads, railways and other public works.
The Native Lands Act 1865 produced the Native Land Court and it achieved what had not been accomplished on the battlefield: the acquisition of enough land to satisfy settler appetites. The Native Land Court converted tribally owned Māori land rights into Crown-granted titles, making the land easier to sell. Often old rivalries between whānau and hapū were played out in court, with Pākehā the ultimate beneficiaries.
The court was required to name no more than 10 owners, regardless of the size of a block. Land had to be held individually, not communally as part of trust, or tribal for a tribal group. They could then manage it and sell it as individuals for their own benefit. All other tribe members were effectively dispossessed of their land. Out of town claimants had to attend at great cost of travel, food, accommodation, lawyers, surveyors etc, many having to sell land they were trying to protect to pay the high debts accrued.
Former NZ Attorney General Henry Sewell protested saying native land court was designed to destroy if possible the principle of communism which ran thru their (Maori) institutions upon which their social system was based and which stood as a barrier in the way of all attempts to amalgamate the native race into our own social and political system (and newly forming capitalist economic system).
By the 1860s settlers had become a major population and language changed from most including settlers speaking Maori to speaking English being the dominant language. Speaking Maori was formally discouraged. A network of Native Schools was created to replace mission schooling of Māori. NZ government passed the Native Schools Act in 1867, creating 160 native schools in NZ (the last ones being transferred to (NZ) Department of Education in 1969). As part of the Government’s policy to assimilate Māori into Pākehā society, instruction was to be conducted entirely in English by this act. With Te Reo banned from being spoken in school’s classrooms and playgrounds from 1903. Anybody was punished who spoke it or helped struggling Maori speak Te Reo.
The Maori Prisoners Detention Act 1880 put Parihaka fencers (protestors) in prison where the Maori Prisoners Act 1880 could not. From 1879 the Taranaki settlement of Parihaka became the centre of opposition to confiscation. Its leaders, Te Whiti o Rongomai and Tohu Kākahi, encouraged their followers to uproot survey pegs and plough up roads and fences erected on land they considered theirs. Ongoing peaceful resistance resulted in many arrests before the government invaded Parihaka in November 188 1by an armed force of 1500 constabulary (later to become the police) in the undefended settlement and Te Whiti and Tohu were imprisoned and exiled to the South Island.
The Tohunga Suppression Act 1907 – Prevented Maori from using traditional healing practises including herbal medicines and visiting traditional spiritual guides
NZ courts were not neutral either, but enforced Government policies in favour of settlers - Chief Justice James Prendergast of the Supreme Court in the Wi Parata v Bishop of Wellington case involved a block of land at Porirua, which Ngāti Toa had given to the Anglican church on the understanding a school would be built on it. Though no school was built, the church was later issued a Crown grant to the land. Prendergast ruled that the courts lacked the ability to consider claims based on aboriginal or native title. The Treaty of Waitangi was ‘worthless’ because it had been signed ‘between a civilised nation and a group of savages’ who were not capable of signing a treaty. Since the treaty had not been incorporated into domestic law, it was a ‘simple nullity’. Though Prendergast’s ruling was essentially based on earlier Court of Appeal decisions, it would be used to justify the alienation of much more Māori land.
Maori land holdings declined dramatically. Between 1870 and 1892, 2 million hectares of land transferred to pakeha ownership with Maori owning little more than a third of all North Island. A quarter of this was leased to pakeha. Another 1.2 million sold by 1900. Whereas at signing of treaty in 1840 Maori owned almost all of the north island or even in 1860 on the eve of the land wars Maori owned over 70-80 % of the north island still, (see map above).
The common law court of Britain, the Privy Council went some way to redress this in 1903, coming into conflict with NZ statutory courts. And by 1912 NZ courts/court of appeal ruled the same way as the Privy Council in that native land claims were subject to the court's decision and therefore fair justice which the Wi Parata case had taken away.
Immigration kept coming, pressuring NZ Government to provide more land and so meaning no redress of any of the unlawful acts of the NZ Government. By the end of the 1870s Māori were outnumbered ten to one by the European population. In 1870 only 74 km of rail had been laid and by 1880 expanded to 2000 km, opening up new regions to Pākehā settlement. More British migrants flooded in, almost doubling the colony’s population in ten years. By 1896, when the Māori population was around 42,000, its lowest point, the Pākehā population was 700,000, and it had reached 1 million by 1911. [35] Deprived of their land, tribes were in many instances reduced to poverty, with no option but to live in overcrowded and unhygienic conditions. Losing land, they also lost access to traditional food sources. Lack of resources, overcrowding and poor diet helped disease to take hold and spread. [35]
NZ was considered a colony until Sep 1907 when it became a dominion. The current NZ flag was introduced at this time replacing the colonial union jack flag.
Maori political independence dwindled until finally expiring in 1916 when police invaded the last sanctuary in the Urewera mountains.
On the eve of the Second World War only 10% of Māori lived in urban areas, compared with almost 60% of Pākehā. The war changed this. The Manpower Act 1944 directed young Māori men (who were ineligible for the military) and women to work in essential industries, often located in cities. By 1951 the number of Māori living in urban areas had doubled. Within a generation of the war ending, 68% of Māori lived in urban areas.
While Andrew Giddes argued the treaty was created to colonise Aotearoa for Britain to deal with one of its capitalist crises, NZ was founded as a replica of rural England by many other participants. It was not until after WW2 with government assistance supporting companies like Fletcher Holdings Group did NZ move into a more industrialised and capitalist phase as per Bruce Jesson’s book “Behind the Mirror Glass“.
Multiple successive generations of Maori taught their children to be less “Maori'' including not speaking Maori in order to fit in and survive or get ahead in the new NZ. All this leads to Maori being forced to become workers for somebody else, and that doesn’t build an economic base. Building an economic base can only be done through ownership of capital and assets and exploitation of others.
7) The Fight Back
This situation continued until the famous 1975 land march led by Whina Cooper which initially began with 50 marchers leaving from Te Hāpua ending in parliament with 5,000 to protest the alienation of Maori land. This fightback had really begun with workers class struggles in the 1960s which involved Maori workers as well as European workers fighting their exploiting bosses.
Most Maori have been seeking to regain their traditional culture and mana back and a lesser number - but still many - seek to regain their land and sovereignty back to make their own decisions to protect their land ,culture and way of life .
Maori have made great progress in reclaiming their culture and mana, especially their language including tattoos, song, haka, carvings , jewellery, karakia, mythology, ceremonys etc . Maori is now 1 of 3 recognised official languages of NZ. Of course now it’s used to put a nice face to NZ and avoid its ugly colonial history to market NZ as a better tourist destination for the tourist dollar which is NZs 2nd biggest export earner after agriculture. Maori have reached celebrity status as comedians, actors, film directors. Maori are Dames. They have infiltrated the offices of the coloniser government and reached great heights in the Parliament , universities, army and police (currently Deputy Commissioner of Police is Wally Haumaha), court Judges and even as Governor General (Paul Reeves -15th and Jerry Mateparae -20th) . They are trusted as doctors, nurses and teachers now. Maori have staged memorable occupations of stolen land and won some of it back - Bastion point, Raglan Golf Course etc and currently Ihumatao. While the odd piece of land will be returned with these staunch occupations it wont be anywhere near what was stolen.
Notwithstanding looking at the complete history of world European colonisation that Maori will still need to fight daily to retain that culture as it will always be competing with western consumerism culture just as Tonga struggles with it, although it wasn’t truly colonised it did become a protectorate of Britain. It's clear gains in Maori culture, mana and identity will not alone return land stolen or bring forward an economic base for Maori to end poverty and its associated diseases, unemployment,alienation, depression ,suicide, drugs crime, incarceration and housing problems etc.
The original need for racism has disappeared as Aotearoa has been colonised yet it still exists today in many forms driven by culture and social construct (brainwashing) . Thou its protractors/supporters are disappearing it still exists in part because the governments inadequate ways of addressing the devastation colonisation bought upon Maori was to give them extra help to make up for racism ,discrimination and white privilege that the treaty and government failed to protect Maori from that hold Maori back from achieving .
The problem is these extra rights are then used by the far right/altright and racists to call reverse racism citing that help. Things like the Maori parliament seats and education grants etc . As open speeches by politicians like Don brash at his infamous 2004 Orewa speech as leader of the National party continued on into the Act party with similar speeches and even still today still espousing racism in groups like “1 law4all” and Hobsons Pledge.
Some is in writings by the ruling class like back in early 2018, Bob Jones, a right wing ruling class man, wrote in his bits and bobs NBR magazine column calling for an annual “Māori Gratitude Day”. He said “I have in mind a public holiday where Māori bring us breakfast in bed or weed our gardens, wash and polish our cars and so on, out of gratitude for existing “. This after the English were the main cause in reducing the Maori population from 100,000 pre European to 40,000 by 1890 seems ludicrous.
They all endeavour to keep racism alive hoping others will ignorantly follow. While persistent , fortunately they are a dying breed.
Derwin Smith wrote in his booklet “Criminal Injustice” 2014 [20] that there is a prison industrial complex existing in NZ. That the higher rate of arrests, convictions and imprisonments of Maori compared to Europeans is not just because of all proceeding factors that caused Maori stuck in the poverty trap. Derwin argues that as the movements in the 60s, 70s and 80s against racism of Maori succeeded, the ruling class dropped its assimilation policy and adapted to biculturalism. As racism becomes more inappropriate the benefit of this mass incarceration goes to capitalists who can exploit workers. As the Maori gain their culture back and NZ becomes bicultural, employees are able to exploit all workers through criminalising a section of workers, Maori, on basis of being criminal rather than race and this lowers all wages just as using and exploiting migrants for cheap labour does. Ruling class right wing ideology says it's not society and social conditions that affect human behaviour, but it's built in through your DNA when you’re born. Under this fallacy logic, if you’re in prison or unemployed it’s because you are bad not because your circumstances which society put you in forced you to take action that put you there. This thinking means it’s easy to criminalise Maori as a group by saying look they are bad there’s so many in prison. Creating a culture of racism and picking on Maori, thus creating a feedback loop around Maori being criminals and second class citizens. Forcing them into poor jobs, crime which justifies harsher treatment and criminalisation because the stats “show how bad they are” forcing them into welfare crime or poor jobs and so on round and round. It is a self-perpetuating system started with a in-correct idea everybody plays their part in much like the Stanford Prison experiment [33]
Our drug war in Aotearoa came from the USA .Harry Jacob Anslinger was a United States government official who served as the first commissioner of the U.S. Treasury Department's Federal Bureau of Narcotics formed in 1930 during the presidencies of Hoover, and was a notorious rascist . He began a campaign against marijuana where African Americans and white Americans were treated differently under his policies. At least his friends were of Narcotics. He targeted and persecuted Billie Holiday until she died chained to a bed without medicine from his racial policies. NZ followed USA in its war on the people by drugs. Decades after the civil rights and Black Panthers movement , African Americans are being subjecting to intentional criminalisation through a manufactured war on drugs - just as Maori are here – to push right wing governments agenda to get elected using “getting tough on crime” as a selling point . But first they had to make drugs a problem and a crime . Coincidentally it benefited the capitalist because it created cheaper labour for the capitalist in general and for those directly through the largely private prison system under USA 13th amendment, because those with records found it harder to get jobs they accept worse jobs with worse pay and conditins. This translates into more profit for the capitalist.
Gangs and drugs are not the problem and police are not the solution. Gangs and drug issues so prevalent within Maori are not the problem the right wing, police and governments would have you believe. They are the symptoms of the problem and once the causes are removed the symptoms will disappear. The government is not willing to accept it is wrong because like terrorism that the system creates, gangs and drugs created by the system justify heavy handed police tactics and surveillance. Which in turn justifies stronger authoritarian government by manufactured consent and allows control over the whole population that all suffer from while accepting the very wealthy ruling class.
For more, read Johann Haris book “Chasing the Scream'' or youtube his interview, that describes more accurately the government's false “war on drugs” that is in fact a war on the people. By the same analysis Police or Maori in the Police is not a solution. Maori join the police force and may even think they can do some good to change these bad statistics but while individual police may help the odd individual , they are merely enforcing legislation and protecting the government and system that put those Maori in such bad situations , just as Maori mistakenly fought in WWI & II protecting the British empire and its colonisation. They are as kupapa under the current economic system and government just the same as the friendly tribes were helping British colonise Aotearoa..
In a system that now only values individual pursuit the Maori tikanga that thrived on community is gone. The very survival of the whole was absolutely dependent upon everyone who made it up, and therefore each and every person within the group had his or her own intrinsic value. They were all a part of the collective; it was therefore a collective responsibility to see that their respective roles were valued and protected. Maori are caught between their disappearing traditional world and the new European spiritually deprived individualist colonialist profit system that’s been perfected over thousands of years) Those that that don’t succeed in the individual world of profit making without their traditional community turn to crime and drugs.
The lawful status of the NZ Government is in question as most Maori signed a treaty with the Queen and it must be questioned if Maori agreed to Aotearoa being governed by an agent of the Queen that was not the Governor - ie NZ Government - which is unlikely, rather than directly by the Queen or through a governor of the Queen. If NZ Government is the Queens agent it cannot be a separate sovereign country or corporate institution of its own right and operate separately without direction and consent of the Queen or Maori. NZ Government came into being after the British Parliament issued the NZ Constitution Act 1852 not the Queen. Interestingly NZ is poorly described and undefined in current NZ legislation, as is the Crown. I would say NZ Government and NZ are one and the same.
Never the less “NZ” is a constitutional monarchy with Sovereign Majesty Queen Elizabeth II of UK (hereafter Queen) as head of state with both Westminster and common law rules. And in theory the Queen (as titular head of state) governs the land of New Zealand and is still supposed to protect Maori, although she has clearly and/or deliberately failed in this. Royal Assent is required to enact NZ legislation (said laws) . The Queen must pass all the legislation voted in both English and NZ Parliament before they become Acts. The Queen's representative removed Edward Whitlam, PM and Labour party leader from government in Australia in 1975. In Denmark the anti-democratic King Christian x dismissed the democratically elected Social Liberal cabinet with which he disagreed, and instated one of his own choosing in Easter 1920. The Queen must issue a writ to dissolve NZ Parliament a month before elections can take place for a new Parliament. The treaty prevents the NZ becoming an independent country with a sovereign NZ Government. This is different for the landmass Aotearoa and Moari themselves as discussed earlier in treaty section.
The real power of the Monarchs and church was really smashed before colonisation of Aotearoa even began. She has neither the will or power to order land restored back to Maori. Republics who threw out their monarchs by revolution like France and USA in the late 1700’s, have worse economies than NZ and North America has worse human rights violations than NZ.
After the first king's great grandson Te Rata, became king in 1914 he and three others travelled to England. He met King George V, but was told that the land confiscations were an issue for the New Zealand Government. Thereby wiping his hands of his duty and government crimes under the treaty
It is very unlikely the Queen or the NZ Government will return much more land than it already has . Its unlikely a court would either.
It also is unlikely the current Queen could be sued for the money as compensation for the land loss to buy the land back, notwithstanding she probably does not hold that much wealth, no court within the commonwealth would rule in favour against its titular head, perhaps an international court might but does she have the money to pay compensation ? While the NZ Government is a better entity to sue in the common wealth or in an international court, Court cases require large sums of money to see them through. The only known international courts are the International Criminal Court which deals with individuals and the International Court of Justice which is a construct of the United Nations which itself is a construct of a collection of governments including coloniser and settler colonised countries. And like suing the Queen the NZ Government is unlikely to have the money as compensation and would not allow themselves to go bankrupt in order to pay back a minority of its voters, many that are largely unaware of the governments criminal nature of colonisation. Which it largely gets away with because it is not taught in schools. I haven’t heard of an indigenous tribe winning any substantial money or land back from stolen land in an international court notwithstanding that a Brazilian tribe just won a court case to protect existing land.
The amount of money required as compensation for several million acres of stolen land or coerced land sales (fraudulent contracts) would be in the tens of trillions if not over 100 trillion ( just 5 million acres at $15,000 per acre is $75 trillion but this is low as some is more valuable land like prime dairy land or contested ihuamato ( which was bought by fletchers at $20 million or 266,000 per acre )
Maori are not one united people for several reasons. Maori are highly urbanised into European culture under commodity consumerism with many accepting the colonial assimilation policies. While Maori gain essential parts of their culture back, language, song, tattoos, carvings, ceremonies etc a lot is based around living and that is hard to practice if you are not able to live in communities separate from European consumerism culture, thus leaving culture well diluted. There is a class divided by some rich including the brown table iwi mentioned before, with the majority middle class or poor. But even more divided along tribal lines bearing grudges from earlier inter-tribal fighting, especially for example against Nga Puhi because of their rampages and utu. This is true of some other tribes too. Although less true among Maori activists. There are Maori in government acting like white colonialists. There are Maori capitalists and middle class Maori doing well who would not support such a movement.
Any uprising or movement to reclaim lands that ends up confronting the violence of the state and requires arms to defend it is obviously not doable and hasnt been since the colonists won the land wars. The state can bring greater violence and oppression against the freedom fighters than freedom fighters can use. In south Africa successful strikes and protests in the 1950s lead to the African National congress (ANC) and PAC being banned and underground sabotage and other violence was unsuccessful. Monitoring of Police violence by the Black Panthers carrying weapons (with no intention of independence ) lead to violence which initially built the group nationwide from its humble California 1966 origins, but ultimately lead to it being declared no1 one threat to “America” and they were murdered, jailed and persecuted out of existence by 1980. After the Irish Republican Army (IRA) freed most of Ireland through armed struggle in 1922 they continued on in Northern Ireland (the still un-freed part ) in violent sabotage campaign combined with standing in elections in which they lost both because the majority in Northern Ireland still support the Act of union 1800 and so remains part of United Kingdom of Great Britain. Today Maori are outnumbered too much, and just as colonialists did not act after the Wairau massacre because of lack of numbers being in the minority. Colonists made up roughly 2-3 % of the population at treaty signing, not taking action until their numbers rose and had imperial support in the 1860s. By the 1860s European population was at least equal if not more than the Maori population. Whereas today colonialists and immigrants make 85% roughly of the population. So any ability to regain sovereignty through armed resistance or protest and voting will be harder if not impossible. Any move against the government will be heavily spied on and met with fierce Government resistance. In 2007 17 people were arrested and charged under the Terrorism Suppression Act 2002 after more than a year’s police surveillance, and held on 292 charges including participating in an armed gang. The charges under that Act were thrown out by the Solicitor General. The new National government passed the Search and Surveillance Act 2012 to give more powers to police and other Government agencies for easier surveillance and warrant less searches to prevent any similar future anti-government resistance arising. Police numbers have increased, they now carry guns in their cars and are using the Christchurch mosque shooting as an excuse to carry guns on the streets with the intention of arming every police permanently as “NZ'' deteriorates and to prevent revolutions like the Arab spring in 2011.
This lack of unity and lack of numbers combined with Maori being dispersed in small pockets through out NZ makes them an ineffective minority to gain self rule within NZ even thou the flags of self rule (either 1835 or tino ) fly everywhere.
On the chance Maori win Tino Rangatiratanga and their land back through revolution or parliament they will no doubt fall into the same trap as the nationalist Irish and the South Africans independence movements , who after throwing out the British colonialists left capitalism in place. Some Maori or iwi will win the competition and do well against other competitor producers be it NZ, foreign or Maori and make profit under the colonist culture but many many more will fail leaving many Maori in poverty. Allowing the economic system to continue harming the majority and ecology while a few get obscenely rich. Look at Sealords deal Ngai Tahu got as part of the treaty settlement and the hiring of cheap foreign labour on their fishing boats instead of their own Maori tribal members. South Africa gained independence formally from the Queen (Britain) in 1961 and ended apartheid in 1994. With election of a ANC after a long struggle largely through political means. Yet in South Afrika there is still massive poverty, joblessness, crime. The Marikana miners went on strike over better pay and conditions and the indigenous ANC African Government used the police to murder 35 miners to keep workers under control for the wealthy mine owners who are mostly foreigners. Ireland is one of the worst performing economies in the OECD. Ireland reclaimed most of its land back from British colonisation formally in 1922 after 3 years of violent armed struggle against British troops in what became Irish FreeSstate dominion like (Sth Africa,Canada Australia etc) . Yet today Ireland under capitalism is one of the worst performing economies in the OECD. With 13% of houses empty, just under 200,000, as at 2016 not because there's no homeless but because they are not affordable. With unemployment until recently over 10%.
In other financially struggling developing countries where they mostly have resources to sell that are on indigenous lands the government aids the capitalist. In Nigeria and Peru their own governments help oil companies steal oil from indigenous lands killing any indigenous that resist. In Brazil the government helps clear rain-forests of trees and indigenous for farmers.
Relying on the NZ Government to compensate Maori is also a dead end. It's obvious the NZ Government (Labour or National) intend to return as little stolen land as possible giving a pittance in reparations because its not in the government's best interest. The money given in Treaty settlements so far is $2.2 billion as at Jan 2018 yet the NZ Government has spent $1322 billion on the economy over that same time [25] This is a fraction of the value of the land stolen, and a fraction of the total government spending. Yet the average kiwi thinks too much is being spent on these settlement claims.
The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) was adopted by the General Assembly on Thursday, 13 September 2007, by a majority of 144 states in favour, 4 votes against . Those 4 against are the British settler colonies of Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the USA.
Yet while the NZ Government behaves this way it is still better than those other colonised countries in a case of lesser evil by its actions today not by its treaties broken in the past. NZ has finished colonisation but Canada , America and Australia have not, only this time its not land for settlers , its land for profit.
All these unlawful native land incursions are necessary for the relentless growth of capitalism for without growth and new resources, it dies.
The Waitangi tribunal was created with the passing of the Waitangi Tribunal Act 1975 and while given power to investigate treaty breaches it had no power to enforce its recommended remedies, initially given no power to investigate breaches prior to 1975. The tribunals’ ability to recommend land being returned was taken away in a 1993 amendment. It is limited to claims on stolen land in NZ Government hands and not that which it had sold to private hands. And a further amendment limited claims filed by 2008. Making the tribunal effectively created for the government to control the ensuing treaty settlements with the government co-opting key individuals in Maori protest movements in secret negotiations and consultations thereby making them straddle between wealth/ privilege and the grassroots Maori struggle dulling the struggle . Nonetheless the Waitangi Tribunal said in 2014 that Maori did not cede their sovereignty in the Treaty of Waitangi 1840. The tribunal said; “The rangatira, or Maori leaders, who signed te Tiriti o Waitangi in February 1840 agreed to share power and authority with Britain, but did not give up sovereignty to the British Crown, according to stage one of The Waitangi Tribunal's inquiry into Te Paparahi o te Raki (the great land of the north) Treaty claims. Though Britain went into the Treaty negotiation intending to acquire sovereignty, and therefore the power to make and enforce law over both Maori and Pakeha, it did not explain this to the rangatira," And further “At the time, Britain's representative William Hobson and his agents explained the Treaty as granting Britain "the power to control British subjects and thereby protect Maori," while rangatira were told they would retain their "tino rangatiratanga", or independence and full chiefly authority. The rangatira consented to the Treaty on the basis that they and the governor were to be equals, each controlling their own people.” [6]
Treaty settlement led to an uneven distribution of money within tribes and hapu. There is a small group of self-selected/unelected iwi leaders forming the National Iwi Chairs Forum “NICF” or the Iwi Leadership Group “ILG'' forming the brown table (like the business roundtable) that were making economic decisions from the Waitangi settlements often for themselves and not in the best interest of all Maori. e.g. Tainui Iwi decision to buy the warriors or a corporate box at Ericsson stadium for $750,000 lease, holds 30 people while its tribe is 30,000 who will never use it. Or the Treelords deal wasting tens of millions $ on meetings, salaries and lawyers to settle the deal. [21]4Thereby most Maori missing out on the treaty settlement benefits, even though 75 iwi hold about $9 billion in assets with over 50 claims still to be heard as at Jan 2018. Which is by coincidence the same amount NZs richest white man owns by himself. That is, when not wasting money or spending on themselves the Maori elite following a European capitalist model of corporate investment with trickle-down effect does not benefit the average or struggling Maori at the bottom of the economic heap. Ngai Tahu one of the first treaty settlements got a fishing quota as part of that settlement in what’s called the Sealord’s deal in 1992, yet they exploit (employ) cheap Filipinos & Indonesians workers on their own boats instead of employing Maori workers because lower wages mean more profit in order to make and maintain profit [30]., and despite this profits have fallen. [29]
Some land returned to Maori was unfarmable and unliveable or less desirable land and forest Reserves like National Park and Te Ureweras returned gives prestige and mana but gives no economic base.
A 1927 government inquiry, the Sim Commission, declared the confiscations of Waikato lands unjust. In 1995 the Crown formally apologized and financial compensation was made, through the Waitangi Raupatu Claims Settlement Act 1995, which recognized the legal and moral injustice of the 1860s confiscation.
Correctly a number of Maori still meet yearly every 28th October to keep Maori parliament alive as per 1835 He Whakaputanga o te Rangatiratanga o Nu Tirene “Declaration of Independence” with the idea Maori are still sovereign over themselves and can pass laws. But it lacks a real power base in either money or numbers to hold that claimed sovereignty.
Many Maori also participate in the freeman/sovereignty/common law movement , which also includes non-Maori. These are 3 separate but loosely connected movements .Sovereignty includes both Maori as a nation and as individuals . The irony is Maori while sovereign as tribes or “nation“ were never sovereign as individuals as they had tribal or village chiefs. This movement (collectively) believes the problem of NZ and NZ society is the NZ Government itself and. This is logical given the above NZ history of colonisation and a shallow look at current politics. The movement can clearly prove the NZ Government has no jurisdiction over individual man without consent. But
a) The movement collectively advocates standing free of the NZ Government in a separate status but not challenging it and therefore not intending to change it.
b) It ends up confronting head on the Government's main tool of oppression, the NZ Police but not as a movement as an individual , at a high individual cost. It is also a very highly intellectual argument often testing its argument in the court, relying on the court to act and behave correctly. But the court is the 2nd tool of oppression by the state (after Police).
c) The freeman movement goes against cultured hegemony/conditioning of NZ society (where we are told incorrectly NZ Government is law and the only one) .
These are the main 3 reasons it remains a very small peaceful movement unnoticed by the majority and lacks the power to confront the system to make real change at least until many more join.
d) In short the freeman and sovereign movement is an anarchist movement (the only true one upon Aotearoa). Anarchism suffers from an inherent lack of structure and disunity which can be ineffective with peoples greatest power their unity and also lead to itself authoritarian regimes and while that can be overcome leaves a bigger problem.
e) Its biggest drawback is anarchism can be just as easily be right wing as a progressive left wing movement and this can easily lead to right wing ideas about doing business under capitalism with less or no government. This is because the movement believes in private property ownership. Private property is the basis of the capitalist system (not all private property just the means of production). Anarchism is about governance but it is not an economic system. By blaming the NZ Government alone and ignoring the (capitalist) economic system itself they are not looking at the whole picture. It’s a bit like trying to find why a car wont start and only looking at the electrical system and ignoring the fuel system when a car motor needs both to start. That is a major problem itself and will not bring about emancipation of all including Maori. While they try to leave the white mans system of government they wont leave its capitalist system. They remain in it using its money and banking system competing on unequal terms starting with less capital and cannot remain independent . If they try to leave their original wages wont be high enough to buy land (under colonisers title) to become truly self sufficient unless they are rich to start with. While government protects the capitalists and their system of exploitation the contradictory dual nature of Governments protects workers rights too through health and safety, min wages , employment contracts that can be taken to court – under capitalism most workers only earn enough to exist or survive –govt runs and owns services that they couldn’t ordinarily afford like universitys , schools, hospitals. For the middle class it provides these plus police and courts to protect their middle income and property. Leaving the NZ Government corporation means leaving all this behind.
e) Blaming Government alone also leads to a more dangerous issue . That of the many conspiracy theories about what government is doing bad and/or how they are trying to control us . While the origin of these conspiracy theories is understandable, its no coincidence a huge amount of people in this movement believe in these conspiracy theories eg around covid19, anti-vaccines, 5g, 1080, chemtrails, UN agenda 21 and alternative theories of government power like deepstate which are all about control by governments over us. Those that have become political support a capitalist Trump as president who portrays himself as anti establishment. And in flash of emotion and hypocrisy some have gravitated to Billy TK Jnr and his NZPP party. Im not saying these highly dubious claims aren’t real. Some of these conspiracys will no doubt be true around the health issues but they are emotionally attached to thinking they are 100% right when they are not and the defensiveness of their ideas they aren’t thinking logically or truthfully about all facts but instead think they know more than anyone else . The old adage “a little truth is dangerous thing” springs to mind. These ideas stop those people looking further at the larger true cause of poverty and democracy and engaging and co-operating with others and the masses trying to make change , but creating often divisive arguments instead.
8) The Solution
- the absence of left wing maori party like Mana and the ensuing drift of maori to the right in politics -like conspiracy theories and to Billy TK and supporting Trump etc
- The reclaiming of the Maori Party from its right wing National arse licking , which means somewhere for Maori to vote if they can get over any entrenched prejudices.
Any critiques or correction of facts please feel free to email me with sources.
kia kaha
malcolm-daniel
a man who whakapapas from both sides of the colonisation debate
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Quotes
[1] Pg 9 & 10 Tino Rangatiratanga Andrew Giddes
[2] https://nzhistory.govt.nz/politics/treaty/treaty-timeline/treaty-events-1800-1849
[3] https://teara.govt.nz/en/treaty-of-waitangi
[4] https://teara.govt.nz/en/new-zealand-wars/page-1
[5] https://fee.org/articles/the-myth-of-capitalist-colonialism/
[7] https://www.heaokotahi.co.nz/blog-1/2017/9/12/episode-9-fact-1-colonisation
[8] John Holloway, Crack Capitalism
[9] Lewis E. Hill & Betsy Jane Clary https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF02761438
[10] https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/content/documents/Agenda21.pdf
Sources
[20] Criminal Injustice – Derwin Smith (2014)
[21]) Politics of the Brown Table – Annette Sykes (2010)
[22] Tino Rangatiratanga Decolonisation and Class – Andrew Giddes (1997)
[23] The evolution of contemporary Maori Protest – Evan Poata Smith
[24] https://www.britishempire.co.uk/maproom/africa.htm
[26] https://nzhistory.govt.nz/culture/history-of-new-zealand-1769-191
[27] https://nzhistory.govt.nz/politics/treaty/read-the-treaty/english-text
[28)) https://teara.govt.nz/en/interactive/25774/south-island-land-sales
[29] http://www.stuff.co.nz/editors-picks/8915572/Sealord-to-face-angry-iwi
[30] http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/4841777/Slavery-at-sea-exposed
[31] https://socialistworker.org/2010/10/21/the-roots-of-racism
[32] https://teara.govt.nz/en/labour-party/page-5
[33] https://www.simplypsychology.org/zimbardo.html
[34] https://www.forbes.com/sites/noahkirsch/2017/11/09/the-3-richest-americans-hold-more-wealth-than-bottom-50-of-country-study-finds/#75e4e2863cf8
[35] https://teara.govt.nz/en/death-rates-and-life-expectancy/page-3 & page -4
[36] https://nzhistory.govt.nz/war/musket-wars/overview
[37] https://teara.govt.nz/en/biographies/1t93/thierry-charles-philippe-hippolyte-de
[38] http://www.enzb.auckland.ac.nz/document/?wid=809
[39] https://collections.tepapa.govt.nz/object/62255
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