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New Zealand land confiscations

The New Zealand land confiscations took place during the 1860s to punish the Kīngitanga movement for attempting to set up an alternative, Māori, form of government that forbade the selling of land to European settlers. The confiscation law targeted Kīngitanga Māori against whom the government had waged war to restore the rule of British law. More than 1,200,000 hectares (3,000,000 acres) or 4.4 percent of land were confiscated,[1] mainly in Waikato, Taranaki and the Bay of Plenty, but also in South Auckland, Hauraki, Te Urewera, Hawke's Bay and the East Coast.[2][3][4]

Legislation for the confiscations was contained in the New Zealand Settlements Act 1863, which provided for the seizing of land from Māori tribes who had been in rebellion against the government after 1 January 1863.[5][6] Its stated purpose was to achieve the "permanent protection and security" of the country's inhabitants and establish law, order and peace by using areas within the confiscated land to establish settlements for colonisation, populated initially by military settlers enlisted from among gold miners at Otago and the Colony of Victoria (Australia).[7] Land not used by for military settlers would be surveyed and laid out as towns and rural allotments and then sold, with the money raised to be used to repay the expenses of fighting Māori. According to academic Dr Ranginui Walker, this provided the ultimate irony for Māori who were fighting to defend their own land from European encroachment: "They were to pay for the settlement and development of their lands by its expropriation in a war for the extension of the Crown's sovereignty into their territory."[1]


Although the legislation was ostensibly aimed at Māori tribes engaged in armed conflict with the government, the confiscations showed little distinction between "loyal" and "rebel" Māori tribes,[7][8] and effectively robbed most Māori in the affected areas of their land and livelihood.[2] The parliamentary debate of the legislation suggests that although the confiscation policy was purportedly designed to restore and preserve peace, some government ministers at the time saw its main purpose to be the acceleration and financing of colonisation.[7] Much of the land that was never occupied by settlers was later sold by the Crown. Māori anger and frustration over the land confiscations led to the rise of the messianic Hauhau movement of the Pai Mārire religion from 1864 and the outbreak of the Second Taranaki War and Tītokowaru's War throughout Taranaki between 1863 and 1869. Some land was later returned to Māori, although not always to its original owners. Some "returned" areas were then purchased by the Crown.[9]


Several claims have been lodged with both the Waitangi Tribunal and the New Zealand Government since the 1990s seeking compensation for confiscations enacted under the Land Settlement Act. The tribunal, in its reports on its investigations, has concluded that although the land confiscation legislation was legal, every confiscation by the government breached the law, by both failing to provide sufficient evidence there was rebellion within the designated areas and also including vast areas of land, such as uninhabitable mountain areas, which there was no prospect of settling. Submissions by the Crown in the 1999 Ngāti Awa investigation and a 1995 settlement with Waikato-Tainui included an acknowledgement that confiscations from that tribe were unjust and a breach of the Treaty of Waitangi.[10] Ten deeds of settlement were signed by the Crown and iwi in 2012,[11] concluding with a $6.7 million redress package to a Waikato River iwi for "breaches of the Treaty of Waitangi that left the tribe virtually landless".[12]

Confiscations begin[edit]

Taranaki[edit]

More than a year passed before Grey, who appeared to be involved in a power struggle with government ministers,[7] issued his first proclamation to confiscate land. Within that time, however, Parliament also passed the Public Works Act 1864. which allowed Māori land to be taken for public works – initially, a road between Wanganui and New Plymouth. (In 1865 the Outlying Districts Police Act also came into force, enabling more land to be forfeited when chiefs failed to surrender fugitives).[7]


On 30 January 1865, Grey issued a proclamation to seize the middle Taranaki district, between the Waitara River and the Waimate Stream. Separate proclamations identified Waitara South and Oakura as confiscated districts. On 2 September he issued further proclamations, embracing the Ngati Awa and Ngati Ruanui districts, effectively seizing all of Taranaki from Parinihi to Wanganui and beyond Mt Taranaki in the interior. The same day Grey announced that "the war which commenced at Oakura is at an end", that "sufficient punishment" had been inflicted and that no more land would be confiscated. In fact no Taranaki land remained unconfiscated.[7] Despite the announcement of peace, hostilities continued in the Taranaki War, as Major-General Trevor Chute stepped up his aggressive campaign of storming pā throughout South Taranaki.


Confiscations in Taranaki left many hapu with nothing of their own to live on, forcing them to become squatters on Crown land and driving them to unaccustomed levels of desperation.[2]

Waikato[edit]

Although fighting in Waikato had finished by mid-1864, the following year Grey confiscated more than 480,000 hectares of land from the Waikato-Tainui iwi (tribe) in the Waikato as punishment for their earlier rebellion. Proclamations under the act were issued on 30 January 1865 for the seizure of the East Wairoa and West Pukekohe blocks for settlement and colonisation, followed by the Central Waikato district and the Mangere, Pukaki, Ihumata and Kerikeri blocks (16 May 1865).[18] 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.[19]


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.[14] The 1927 Royal Commission on Confiscated Land, chaired by senior Supreme Court judge Sir William Sim, concluded that although the government restored a quarter of the 1,202,172 acres (486,500 hectares) originally seized and paid almost £23,000 compensation, the Waikato confiscations had been "excessive".[20] The Waitangi Tribunal in 1985 declared the Tainui people of the Waikato had never rebelled,[21] but had been forced into a defensive war.[22]


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.[23]

Bay of Plenty[edit]

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.[24][25] 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[edit]

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.[26]


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.[27] In Taranaki 39,600 hectares (98,000 acres) 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 (Patea), rarely had more than a dozen.[27] The main reason was the inability of the provincial government to provide work for the men, or to build roads and bridges linking the settlements.[27][28]


Throughout New Zealand the government had confiscated areas clearly unsuitable for settlement: in Taranaki, they had taken the whole of Mt Taranaki,[7] while in the Bay of Plenty they had confiscated Mt Putauaki, the whole of the Rangitaiki Swamp[10] and other areas of thick bush. Military settlers ultimately took less than 1 per cent of land confiscated from Ngati Awa.[24]


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.[14] 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.[14] 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.