New Zealand - Maori and Pakeha

For the past year, my uncle and I have been researching our family trees.  Well we started doing that (and still do) but it has grown more into a history lesson of early New Zealand occupation.

Many times now we have been reminded by information placed on the internet (and freely available to all that are prepared to search and research) that early New Zealand is more complicated than it first appears.  Now I was taught very little about early pakeha history in New Zealand.  We were told about the Maori wars happening, the Treaty of Waitangi happening, and that was about it.  We were never told about how the Treaty came about, who was involved and why it was needed, by both Maori and Pakeha.  We were also told about the Maori Wars, but once again, only glossed over.

In our research, we learnt that before the Treaty of Waitangi (1842), there was Constitution created (1835) and signed by representatives of the then NSW Governance and a Confederation of Tribes in Aotearoa.  We learnt that a lot of what was signed then failed to make it into the Treaty.  We also learned of the New Zealand Company, an organisation that was set up around 1827 to purchase land off the Maori for the purpose of onselling it to new pakeha immigrants.  At best these transactions were valid, at worse they disenfranchised Maori, even after the Treaty of Waitangi.  This disenfranchisement, and the Crowns evident lack of scope in fully honouring the Treaty, obviously lead to the Maori Wars.  Maori weren't dumb (despite the obvious thinking of Pakeha settlers at the time) and could see then that they had been duped.  The fact the Pakeha "won" the wars lead to measures being put in place to subjugate Maori totally and to place them in a situation whereby they became third class citizens in their own country, despite the Treaty.

I hear the naysayers now protesting.  The age old adage that Maori were fighting themselves anyway and we civilised them is just utter rubbish.  Sure Maori tribes at times raided other tribes, but that was few and far between.  Just because the first peoples of one country have a tribal system that extols war against their neighbours does not give subjugators the right to down trod that people.  Maori had a very viable and pertinent social network in place, one that has refound it's feet over the past 30 years or so.  But after the Maori wars this was trampled on (re: Rua Kenana, Te Kooti, Te Reo not to be spoken and the likes of the Tohunga Suppression Act,).  The reality is that Maori were utterly bereft and the Treaty hadn't helped them.

The sad fact that crops up regularly from our research is the Land Grabbers, the likes of Sir John Ormond, Sir Donald McLean, several Campbells (all related), Hugh Cokely-Ross, and many others.  These men did not buy an acre here and there, they bought thousands of acres (Cokely-Ross for instance - 60,000 acres near Marton) and they paid a pittance for it.  Do Maori have a historical claim to this land?  You bet they do.  The Treaty states (in both versions) that the Crown and Maori were working in partnership.  The land grab was not done in a partnership.  Pakeha came, saw and conquered.  Whether by force or guile, they gained land that belonged (and to my way of thinking - still does belong) to them.  This country was built on deceit and the natural caretakers were robbed.  Sure you say, they did it knowlingly and they had no value on land.  But historically the land was covered in trees and bush, and a majority of Maori were hunter gatherers.  What happened to their ancestral right to the birds of the forest, the medicinal plants?  What happened to Maori ability to walk the land without having a gun put in their face?  The disenfranchisement was complete.

Until today.  I have just read where Maori protesters at Waitangi have forced Maori Party and National Party members off Te Ti Marae (including the Prime Minister).  Maori don't forget!!  They know the true story, it's passed down in whakapapa, tipuna share the story, whanau are relearning their past.  Yes, the Treaty.  Probably a document we should cherish as a founding document, but one wonders how much water it really holds for both parties.  It's plainly obvious that over the last 200 years that the English had only one design for Aotearoa, strip it, rape it, and subjugate the natives.  That was (and probably still is) the English way of doing things.  Probably the biggest mistake they made was to allow a Lt Governor of dubious pedigree to draft such a Treaty and put it in place without full consultation of all parties.  If they had, the Maori wars would not have happened, Maori would not have lost Te Reo and customs, and New Zealand would be a very different place.  But then I digress.

My urge is for all Kiwi's to learn about your country and understand fully the ramifications of the Treaty, of those wars, what Te Kooti and Rua Kenana meant to Maoridom, how Bastion Point was a watershed, the reason an 80 year old woman (Dame Whina Cooper) did a hikoi from the far north to Parliament, the reason the Maori Party exists, the importance of the protest party that is Mana, learn why these people are who and what they are.  They saw (and see) the injustice of the Crown, the New Zealand Company, and the devaluing in society that just won't accept them.

I have people (all pakeha) that come up to me and say they are sick of the Maori problem and they feel they should move to Australia as they don't see it getting any better here soon.  I tell them to move to Australia, good country for racists.