|
The New Zealand land confiscations took place during the 1860s to punish the Kingitanga 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 Kingitanga Māori against whom the government had waged war to restore the rule of British law. More than or 4.4 percent of land were confiscated,〔Ranginui Walker, ''Ka Whawhai Tonu Matou - Struggle Without End'', Penguin Books, 1990.〕 mainly in Waikato, Taranaki and the Bay of Plenty, but also in South Auckland, Hauraki, Te Urewera, Hawke's Bay and the East Coast.〔(Taranaki Report, Kaupapa Tuatahi, Chapter 1 ), Waitangi Tribunal, 1996.〕〔Keith Sinclair, ''A History of New Zealand'', Penguin, 2000, page 146 ISBN 0-14-029875-4〕 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.〔(New Zealand Settlements Act 1863 legislation )〕 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 Victoria, Australia.〔(The Taranaki Report, Kaupapa Tuatahi, Chapter 5, Waitangi Tribunal, 1996. )〕 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."〔 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,〔(The Taranaki Report - Kaupapa Tuatahi, chapter 5, Waitangi Tribunal, 1996. )〕〔(The Ngati Awa Raupatu Report, chapter 1, Waitangi Tribunal, 1999 )〕 and effectively robbed most Māori in the affected areas of their land and livelihood.〔 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.〔 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 Titokowaru'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. 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.〔(Ngati Awa Raupatu Report, chapter 10, Waitangi Tribunal, 1999. )〕 Ten deeds of settlement were signed by the Crown and iwi in 2012,〔(Kate Shuttleworth, "Crown signs settlement for historical Treaty claims", ''New Zealand Herald'', 20 December 2012. )〕 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".〔(Elton Smallman, "Tribe welcomes end to grievance", ''Waikato Times'', 20 December 2012. )〕 ==Background to legislation== Since the outbreak of the First Taranaki War at Waitara in March 1860, the New Zealand Government had been engaged in armed conflict with Māori who refused to sell their land for colonial settlement or surrender the "undisturbed possession of their lands and estates" the 1840 Treaty of Waitangi had promised them. By mid-1863 the costs of fighting the war were continuing to mount – in 1861-62 the colonial defence vote was £8031, while the British Government spent about £400,000 – and the Government still found itself unable to quash Māori resistance. In May 1863, weeks before the outbreak of the Second Taranaki War, Charles Brown, the Superintendent of Taranaki, wrote: "It would be rightful to confiscate from the tribes which should fight against us, territories of sufficient value to cover fully all the cost of the war."〔 Three days later Governor Sir George Grey and his ministers signed an agreement that a disputed block of land between Tataraimaka and Omata in Taranaki would be confiscated and Waitara Māori hostile to the government were warned they also risked confiscation of their land.〔 Premier Alfred Domett's ministry immediately began expanding their plans for mass confiscations. In June the ministry was planning a line of defence posts between Auckland and Ngaruawahia, clearing "all hostile natives" north of the line and confiscating their land, which would then be either given to military settlers or sold to defray the costs of war. The Government published notices of the terms for granting land in the Omata area to military settlers in July, and a month later for land in the Waikato area, even though no legislation for the confiscations yet existed.〔 In August 1863, just three weeks after the invasion of the Waikato began, Attorney-General Frederick Whitaker and Defence Minister Thomas Russell sent Governor Grey a memorandum signed by Premier Alfred Domett, claiming that the Waikato, the most powerful Māori tribe, was planning to drive out or destroy Europeans and establish a native kingdom. 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".〔 Whitaker and Russell, leading Auckland financiers, speculators and lawyers, were the most powerful men in the ministry and stood to make a substantial fortune if Māori south of Auckland could be moved from their land.〔W.H. Oliver, ''The Story of New Zealand'', Faber & Faber, 1960. Chapter 6.〕 Grey, who had recently returned from a term as Governor of the Cape Colony in South Africa, where the military settlement of Xhosa land had been undertaken,〔 embraced the idea and in a dispatch to the Colonial Office a month later set out details of the plan, repeating the claim that Māori planned the wholesale destruction of some European settlements. The proposal was to place 5000 military settlers on the Waikato and Taranaki frontiers, each holding a 20 hectare farm on military tenure.〔 Grey attempted to allay potential misgivings in the Colonial Office by pointing out that there were only 3355 Māori living on 200,000 hectares of fertile land in the Waikato, and of this they had cultivated just 6000 hectares. He proposed making roads throughout the land to link the military settlements and towns and estimated the entire cost to be £3.5 million.〔 The funds would be raised with a loan from the Bank of New Zealand,〔Walker, in the book cited, says the loan was to be taken with the Bank of New Zealand; both Belich and W.H. Oliver say the loan was drawn from a bank in England.〕 which Defence Minister Russell had founded, and from which both he and Attorney-General Whitaker hoped to profit.〔 Security for the loan would be provided by the profits expected from the sale of confiscated land to new immigrants.〔Keith Sinclair, "A History of New Zealand", Penguin, 2000. ISBN 0-14-029875-4〕 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. In Taranaki alone, 8000 military settlers would be spread across 40 settlements stretching across 80,000 hectares from Waitara to Waitotara, near Wanganui.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア(Wikipedia)』 ■ウィキペディアで「New Zealand land confiscations」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|