Maori and the rest

I've been a part of a very interesting search into early European days in Aotearoa, spanning from 1795 with the whalers and sealers, through the setting up of the New Zealand Company, and further through to my own family arriving in this country.  The search of the internet and local libraries has revealed  some rather fantastic finds and some that defy belief.

The search started with a possible ancestor (since disproved) by the name of Dicky Barrett, a boat owner and whaler who lived in Taranaki with a wife and two children of Te Ati Awa descent.  Barrett also traveled with Te Ati Awa to Whanganui e tara (soon to be called Wellington) to see how he could go in the new port.  The Barrett's Hotel is a legacy of his stay, as well as his involvement in translating land deeds with Maori for the New Zealand Company.  He then left Te Ati Awa and with his mate Love (both had traveled together from Sydney some years before with another two whaling mates, Williams and Keenan) and set up a whaling station in the Marlborough Sounds.  Anyway that's an aside.  The New Zealand land grab has been the focus of my uncle and I for some months now and we're utterly appalled with what went down.

Now we're familiar with the New Zealand Company, the major organisation that handled land deals with Maori, and mostly before the Tiriti o Waitangi was signed.  We have amassed a large profile of the principle land grabbers of that era, and quite frankly it makes for sad reading, not just because Maori were paid peanuts, but also because the same "Old Boy Network" of names keep popping up, and often in collusion.

I won't go into great detail, that's being saved for a tell all book, and a book that we suspect may shake up sedate old New Zealand.  We're not endeavouring to give land back to Maori, it's too late for that anyway, but certainly if you have been paid 10 cents for a $100 note you could say there is justifiable cause to make reparations accordingly.  I hear often a lot of pakeha saying that Maori are owed nothing and it makes me cringe.  Why are those people saying such and is it fear that they too could be disenfranchised?

Whatever the details, I have a greater appreciation from where Maori are coming from.  Duped, dispossessed, disenfranchised, Maori suffered it all, and mostly in blind ignorance.  Maori often say they never owned the land, but it's fair to say they didn't understand the pakeha version of ownership, and the Treaty doesn't go to any great length in both versions to say what land ownership is about.

One question that was answered was the role the churches had to play in gaining land.  Same scenario, Maori never had it to sell or give, but the pakeha convinced them otherwise.  In all facets of dealings between pakeha of the early to mid 19th century and Maori, the sums mentioned for land deals amounted from bugger all to muskets, blankets and other trinkets.

Perhaps any future land deals in this country repatriating Maori in their own areas will mean that similar trinkets will be paid by Maori?  Yeah, a thought.