Raupatu by Richard Boast

Author:Richard Boast [Richard Boast, Richard S. Hill]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780864736741
Publisher: Victoria University Press
Published: 2009-08-15T00:00:00+00:00

‘The next Maori war’, The Times thought, ‘must not be fought with British troops nor paid out of British taxes’.

If this is something less than a moral or human-rights critique, it nevertheless shares with Gorst, the Aborigines Protection Society and many others a critical attitude towards the war, the New Zealand government and the confiscation programme. The tendency of Tribunal-derived history at the present day to conflate all government into ‘the Crown’ can sometimes create the impression of a monolithic and resolute entity which did not actually exist; the imperial and New Zealand governments were not necessarily of the same mind, and there were competing factions, parties and interest groups within both. Both Grey and settler politicians knew that their actions were controversial at home and that support from the imperial centre might be withdrawn at any time, as, of course, it ultimately was. British troops were withdrawn and Grey recalled in 1867.

The New Zealand Settlements Act 1863, which ‘attracted little debate’38 in the New Zealand Parliament (in contrast to the House of Commons), laid down a very complex and unwieldy process for confiscation. Step One was the proclamation of a district. Where the Governor in Council was satisfied that ‘any Native Tribe or Section of a Tribe or any considerable number thereof’ was in ‘state of rebellion’, he could then declare that the district in which the group lived to be ‘a District within the provisions of this Act’.39 The Act was retrospective; although enacted in December, the operative date was 1 January 1863. Step Two was the selection by the Governor in Council of ‘eligible sites for settlements for colonization’.40 Step Three was the actual taking of areas of land within these ‘eligible sites’ for ‘the purposes of such settlements’.41 Step Four was the payment – or non-payment – of compensation for lands so taken. Compensation had to be paid for any such taking except to particular individuals ‘engaged in levying or making war or carrying arms’ against the Crown, or who had aided and abetted any such person.42 The New Zealand Settlements Act also provided for the governor to call upon ‘any Native Tribes or individuals’ in arms against the Crown to ‘come in and submit to trial according to law’. Anyone refusing or neglecting to come in was similarly not ‘entitled to Compensation under this Act’. The Act resembles public works legislation in some respects, the equivalent of a public work here being taking land for settlements within an ‘eligible site’ which, in turn, was located within a proclaimed district. (General public works legislation was enacted at the same time as the New Zealand Settlements Act, seemingly as part of the same package.)43

The various confiscation proclamations did not occur at the same time. The proclamations relating to the Waikato were made from 17 December 1864 to 2 September 1865,44 and those in Taranaki in two rounds, the first in January 1865 and the second in September. The Tauranga region was proclaimed a district under the Act and confiscated in May 1865,45 and Whakatane-Opotiki46 on 16 January 1866.

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