New Zealand land confiscations

Since the outbreak of the First Taranaki War at Waitara in March 1860, the New Zealand Government had been engaged in armed conflict with Māori who refused to sell their land for colonial settlement or surrender the "undisturbed possession of their lands and estates" the 1840 Treaty of Waitangi had promised them. By mid-1863 the costs of fighting the war were continuing to mount – in 1861–62 the colonial defence vote was £8031, while the British Government spent about £400,000 Grey, who had recently returned from a term as Governor of the Cape Colony in South Africa, where the military settlement of Xhosa land had been undertaken, which Defence Minister Russell had founded, and from which both he and Attorney-General Whitaker hoped to profit. By October the scheme had grown again, with the number of military settlers in Taranaki, Waikato and other areas now pegged at 20,000, with settlements linked by 1600 km of roads. In Taranaki alone, 8000 military settlers would be spread across 40 settlements stretching across 80,000 hectares from Waitara to Waitotara, near Wanganui. ==Legislation and debate==

The New Zealand Settlements Bill was introduced into the House of Representatives on 5 November 1863, attracting little debate and only two votes against it in each of the Lower and Upper Houses before it became law. The bill was introduced by the Native Minister, Sir William Fox, who said its primary purpose was to suppress the "present rebellion". The word "confiscation" did not appear in the legislation. In the House of Representatives, only two MPs spoke in the debate on the bill. G. Brodie supported it in a brief speech and James FitzGerald, in a lengthy attack, argued that the bill was contrary to the Treaty of Waitangi, and that confiscation would "drive every (Māori) into a state of hopeless rebellion ... be they friends or be they foes". In the Legislative Council Whitaker introduced the bill, contending that by their rebellion, Māori had violated the Treaty of Waitangi, thereby discharging the Crown "from all obligation" under the Treaty. Former Attorney-General William Swainson opposed the legislation, claiming it was in breach of both the treaty and the New Zealand Constitution Act. He said the Crown could not, "with honour and good faith, seize the land of peaceable Māori subjects (those who were not in rebellion) without their consent". Dr Daniel Pollen, a former Superintendent of Auckland and Commissioner of Crown Lands, supported the bill, but said the government should take "not one acre more" than was necessary for military settlements. He described the legislation as immoral, claiming it was "in fact a Bill for the confiscation of Native lands of the province, that object being veiled by a specious form of words". He predicted that confiscation and military settlement would lead to a war of extermination. Public debate Confiscation was promoted by the press and many settlers because of its potential to provide cheap land and repay the cost of fighting the land wars. The Southern Cross newspaper condemned the conduct of the "blood-thirsty murderers" in the Waikato and declared: "There is only one way of meeting this, and that is by confiscation and the sword ... the natives have forced it upon us ... At the very least large tracts of their lands must be the penalty." Retired chief justice Sir William Martin was one of the few in New Zealand who publicly opposed confiscation. He wrote: "The example of Ireland may satisfy us how little is to be effected towards the quieting of a country by the confiscation of private land; how the claim of the dispossessed owner is remembered from generation to generation, and how the brooding sense of wrong breaks out from time to time in fresh disturbance and crime." In Britain, the Aborigines Protection Society also protested, with a statement noting: "We can conceive of no surer means of adding fuel to the flame of War; of extending the area of disaffection; and of making the Natives fight with the madness of despair, than a policy of confiscation. It could not fail to produce in New Zealand the same bitter fruits of which it has yielded so plentiful a harvest in other countries, where the strife of races has perpetuated through successive generations." Colonial Office response Governor Grey assented to the bill on 3 December 1863 and, because the Queen was empowered to still disallow the act, a month later sent a copy of it to the Secretary of State for the Colonies, Duke of Newcastle, claiming he had agreed reluctantly with the principle. The Duke was replaced in April 1864 by Edward Cardwell, who wrote back to Grey expressing several objections to the law – it could be applied to Māori in any part of the North Island; it allowed unlimited confiscation; some could be dispossessed without having been engaged in rebellion; and decisions could be made in secret without argument or appeal – and suggested the powers of the act be limited to two years and that an independent commission be appointed to determine the lands to be confiscated. He noted that the act allowed "great abuse" and needed to be controlled with a strong hand, recognising that it could prolong rather than terminate war. He urged the Governor to withhold his permission to any confiscation if he was not satisfied it was "just and moderate". Cardwell offered his own warning of the possible consequences of excessive confiscation: "The original power, the Maori, (would) be driven back to the forest and morass (and) the sense of injustice, combined with the pressure of want, would convert the native population into a desperate banditti, taking refuge in the solitudes of the interior from the pursuit of the police or military, and descending, when opportunity might occur, into the cultivated plain to destroy the peaceful fruits of industry." Despite his reservations, Cardwell opted not to disallow the act and later passed on an opinion of Crown law officers that it was not repugnant to the laws of England. ==Confiscations begin==

Taranaki More than a year passed before Grey, who appeared to be involved in a power struggle with government ministers, 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 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 part of the land used for military settlements was at Whakatane, on the land of the most innocent. The tribunal concluded: "We do not think it is at all established that there was a war in the usual sense. More particularly, we consider that there was no rebellion ... the confiscation was clearly contrary to the Treaty of Waitangi." ==Settlement of confiscated lands==

Regulations of May 1851, and subsequent amendments by provinces, set levels of payments and land allocations, according to military rank and varying slightly from one province to another. Soon after the passing of the Settlements Act in 1863, agents were employed to enlist men for military service in Taranaki from among the gold miners of Otago and Melbourne. Between 30 December 1863 and 17 February 1864 four ships arrived in New Plymouth carrying 489 volunteers. In Taranaki were laid out as military settlements with the hope that when men were released from military duty they would remain on their allotments and become permanent settlers. By 1866, when their three years of service was over, many had left Taranaki already, while most of those who did complete their service opted then to sell, leaving no more than 10 per cent of the military settlers on the land. Of the 11 towns laid out north of the Waingongoro River, most had no houses on them, while the most populous, including Normanby, Hawera and Carlyle (Pātea), rarely had more than a dozen. Throughout New Zealand the government had confiscated areas clearly unsuitable for settlement: in Taranaki, they had taken the whole of Mt Taranaki, while in the Bay of Plenty they had confiscated Mt Putauaki, the whole of the Rangitaiki Swamp and other areas of thick bush. Military settlers ultimately took less than 1 per cent of land confiscated from Ngati Awa. In Taranaki, Māori, often with the tacit consent of the government, later began returning to the lands that had been taken from them. When parts of those lands were subsequently wanted for settlement, compensation payments were made to Māori users – in government eyes, a bribe to keep the peace rather than a purchase price – and deeds of cession were signed, transferring title to Europeans. In 1880 spiritual leader Te Whiti o Rongomai judged that such payments meant the confiscations were a sham and began to actively claim back confiscated land that had not been used by the government, proceeding on the basis that Māori only had to enter the land and plough it to re-establish their rights. Te Whiti rejected cession payments and bribes and his followers persistently pulled up surveyors' pegs and obstructed road makers, initially in central Taranaki and later throughout New Zealand, with ploughmen's campaigns. Tension led to the armed police raid on Parihaka, Taranaki, in November 1881 and the expulsion of 2000 men, women and children, followed by the destruction of the village. ==References==