New Zealand land confiscations

[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.

[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.

[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.

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.

They argued that the security of the colony demanded that Māori aggression needed to be punished and proposed that an armed population be recruited from the goldfields of Otago and Australia and settled on land taken from the "enemy".

[16] 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.

Compensation would be granted to those who claimed a title to it as long as they had not waged war or carried arms against the Crown or government forces, or given assistance or comfort to anyone who had done so.

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".

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".

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.

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.

"[7] 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.

[7] 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.

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.

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.

[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.

[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.

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.

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.

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.