Talk:New Zealand land confiscations

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(Discussion moved from User talk:Kaiwhakahaere):

Hi Kaiwhakahaere, Thanks for your change at New Zealand land confiscations, but I've reverted to what I had. I struggled to find a one-sentence explanation of the policy, and settled on that one in the end because it more accurately presented its purported aim. The article explains the more likely intention of the legislation and its effect a little further on in the introduction.

I'm still working my way through the history ... the failure of the policy and government admissions of wrongdoing. I'd welcome any thoughts. Grimhim (talk) 06:43, 20 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

"Purported aim". PURPORTED AIM my foot.. The land wars happened because Maori rejected theft of their land for white settlement. They didn't happen because of a "purported aim", they happened because of actual events, the murder of natives by colonials. We must reflect that, or forever more stop pretending we are supposed to be an encyclopedia. And why did your intro specify "Māori tribes at war with the government"? What? Conceding that it takes two to tango, I would have thought it would have been more the government at war with Māori tribes. Your version is extremely POV. Mine is not. It accurately states the confiscations (were introduced) to punish Māori who opposed the government giving settlers land owned by Māori , and which Māori refused to sell. Kaiwhakahaere (talk) 08:53, 20 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Except your intro is wrong. The confiscations didn't take place "to punish Māori tribes who opposed the government's policy of settling pakeha on their land they refused to sell." Probably most Māori opposed excessive white colonisation. They weren't targeted by the legislation. The law was applied to those who were identified accused, wrongly in many cases, of "rebelling" (in the language of the legislation) by taking up arms. Your wording is too broad. My wording acknowledges they were at war with the government. I don't think that reflects a POV. They were certainly fighting a war. In most cases the war had been started by the government, but they were still at war.

We obviously disagree on whether the purported aim is relevant. We seem to agree the legislation had to two aims: (1) to punish Māori who rejected what the government wanted and (2) to take their land. The first sentence of the intro doesn't need to discuss why the land wars happened, as you argue above. In large part the confiscations took place after the wars had ceased. I think it's highly relevant to state in the opening sentence their aim, as expressed by the lawmakers of the time. That was their stated aim, regardless of their broader agenda.

Perhaps as a compromise it can be re-worded along this line: ... "to take the land of Māori who refused to sell for white settlement. The confiscation law targeted Māori who had been at war with the government during the NZ land wars."

I'll copy this discussion to the talk page of the article, where it's more appropriate to continue.Grimhim (talk) 12:51, 20 June 2008 (UTC)Grimhim (talk) 13:11, 20 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Let's see now. If Maori had been at war with the government, then the government must have been at war with Maori. So, whose POV goes into the intro? Get my point now? I tried to get rid of POV, but you insist on it. Kaiwhakahaere (talk) 09:23, 22 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You're being unnecessarily aggressive, but I have no objection with your rewording. I don't see any bias in the phrase you refer to, but if you do and you're content with what's written now, then I guess we're all happy. Just to let you know, Kaiwhakahaere, I've spent many hours researching and writing this article, trying to comprehensively and accurately cover a subject that's had scant attention so far on Wikipedia, so I don't appreciate your belligerence about something I'd written with the best motives. Grimhim (talk) 11:21, 22 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I was not trying to be aggressive. You obviously spent hours researching/writing, and your contributions show scholarship. It truly surprised me that you defended your POV intro, twice reverting to specify that Maori were at war with government. Good heavens, the government was at war with Maori even more so. Maintaining Wiki neutrality motivated my reactions. Kaiwhakahaere (talk) 07:06, 23 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The original article completely ignored the fact that enormous areas of land were ,by mid 1865ie a few months of the initial confiscations,returned to both loyal(kupapa) and rebel kingitanga without distinction. By 1873 half of all the land had been returned.The idea that Tainui or better Waikato weren't involved in the war in any aggresive way is nonsense.NZETC records the names of many Waikato who took part in the early fighting .It ignores the fact that Tamihana repeatedly threaten Grey ina series of letters .It is true that Waikato Tainui were then very bitter that Maniapoto had not had land confiscated (though this omission was later corrected when the government took land for a prison farm).This became a very sore point when the kingitanga started to try to exert their mana over Maniapoto while still acccepting the hospitalty of the people of that land.Relationships between W and M became strained to breaking point when Rewi decided he had been wrong all along and decided to sell land to the government for the railway.Rewi seems to have become very concerned at the level of drunkeness among the younger Maori sth of the Punui and this was was of the points he was most insistent on when meeting with ministers in Te Awamutu -there was no land sales unless alcohol sales were stopped -hence the King country becomming dry for so long.Even on the day of the signing this threatened to unravel months of talks.Rewi seem to have been right-once the law was passed and locals got well paid jobs on the railway, problems such as the murdering of surveyors stopped.Tainui-Waikato continued to feel miffed as they knew Maniapoto had asserted their mana as greater than the kingitanga.Worse for the kingitanga ,Rewi got back his whanau's land at Kihikihi and even got a new house .He became agreat friend of Grey and even wanted to be buried with him .Talk about rubbing their noses in it.Claudia Feb 2011

Hi Claudia, please note that content in Wikipedia articles must be based on reliable, published sources. You continue to reinstate your edits which contain no sources, so that will continue to be deleted. You also need to take much more care with your writing and punctuation to maintain encyclopedic standards. Please read

WP:RS before reverting changes again. Thanks. Grimhim (talk) 10:58, 8 March 2011 (UTC)[reply

]

Finally there is the question of the hidden firearms. Why would a pacifist farmer need 200 muskets? It is interesting that intially these were not discovered so they must have been hidden. The muskets were mainly Tupara-2 barrelled -the weapon of choice for Maori during the land wars. It is interesting to speculate what might have happened if the police had not turned up armed. Would this have been the start of the great calamity to push Pakeha into the sea? Claudia April 2011 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.58.185.3 (talk) 19:25, 23 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, but please remember this page is for discussions on improving the article, not your opinions about the subject. Grimhim (talk) 23:54, 23 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The point is the article should be improved by including information that balances the very lop sided, incorrect impression the article currently gives.I dont have the sources at the momentwill have to look up the relevant texts.Apart from the last sentence it is not my opinion.The last sentence is to link it back to the question that was asked above.Claudia April 2011

Te Whiti appears only briefly in this article, although he is obviously central to the events at Parihaka. Your comments here seem directed at denigrating his character rather than dealing with any issues contained in this article. Can you please explain what you mean when you say this article provides a "very lop sided, incorrect impression" of what took place? For the sake of clarity it would also help if you created an account on Wikipedia and logged on when editing, so it's clear who is editing and discussing this article. Grimhim (talk) 07:07, 24 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Re lop sided article-any article that calls the campaign in the Waikato an invasion is biased. As the Waikato was part of NZ-it was not a sovereign Maori territory-you cant invade your own land!In 1840 4 Maori chiefs signed the treaty. Note that Waikato Maori tried to kill settlers etc(Gorst)during a time of peace at the start of 1863. During this time of peace a string of threatening letters were sent to Grey from the Waikato which he rightly interpreted as trouble. Maori had aleady tried to attack Auckand once and would have suceeded but for the presence of a British warship and troops in Fort Britomart.There is also the stealing of several tones of gunpowder from Kawau Island.Note several tonnes. There was also the construction of a a large secret base in the Wairoa Hills which was only found by the Forest Rangers when they were searching for the killers of an unarmed farmer and his boy. A second point is the Waikato confiscations. If they had followed Maori tikanga they would have killed all the captured Maori and eaten a few. They had a legitimate reason or take for the campaign because of the attack by Maniapoto in Taranaki against a group of soldiers escorting a British prisoner.Also the threats against Grey alone were take enough because of his mana. The utu would have been the taking of the land and enslaving the people -but this didnt happen.If you read Hansard you find that about 6 months after the land was "confiscated" huge areas were returned. It is not the fault of the govt if the Kingitanga wished to stay in isolation south of the Punui River and not take up its land that was returned. Dont forget some members of Waikato -Tainui fought for the government and gave good servive and informtion to the troops which materially helped the campaign and bought about peace much sooner.They were rewarded with land which is correct tikanga.In tikanga you only hold manawhenua over the land if you stay and defend it-the Waikato-tainui rebels fled and refused to return even when land was returned and peace was restored. Dont forget that the kingitanga represented a minority of Maori-probably about 20-30%, if you are optimistic ie noone in the South Island or up North or the East Coast from Thames and even Taranaki had a pitiful contribution. In recent times this has been glossed over as has the major fall out betwen Maniapoto and the Kingitanga in the 1870s-all over land- and underpinned by drunken depression, and yes the basis of the arguement was who had the right to sell land to the goverment!!How the worm turns. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 125.237.38.114 (talk) 16:52, 27 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I'm guessing I'm replying to the person who earlier raised this issue. It would help if you created an account and logged on when you edit here. The term "invasion" is used with respect to Waikato by Michael King (Penguin History of NZ, chapter 15), Keith Sinclair (A History of NZ, chapter 6), W.H. Oliver (The Story of NZ, chapter 6) and James Belich (The NZ Wars, chapter 7), so your argument that use of the term is biased is simply wrong. It is not the responsibility of other editors to read Hansard to find support for your arguments. Statements made in Wikipedia articles must be supported by verifiable sources, and with specific page numbers. Please desist from reverting sourced material in the article and replacing it with your own opinions. Grimhim (talk) 21:28, 27 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Currently, the lede states that:

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. The confiscation law targeted Kingitanga Māori against whom the government had waged war to restore the rule of British law.

That the Kingitanga Māori were targeted in the confiscations is not in dispute. But including it in the opening sentence is problematic, since the confiscations weren't limited to Kingitanga Māori, with kupapa and neutral Māori also having land taken (sources for all these groups are in the lede). I'm not saying that Kingitanga shouldn't be mentioned in the lede, but rather I think that the opening sentence should be more inclusive. And at the very least, the

It's been a while now since I read the books on which the article was based. A quick look back the other day showed that authors almost always referred to the confiscations as punishment, so that term should remain in the intro. From memory the anti-selling movement was initiated by the Kingitanga movement, but I would have to go back and check the sources again. The article does state that the land of neutral and loyal Maori was taken as well, but this (again from memory) was part of the collateral damage, if you like: the policy was designed to punish those who "rebelled", which makes it accurate to say that the confiscations "took place ... to punish the Kingitanga movement". Perhaps that problem would be resolved by adding a sentence in the intro to say that land owned by neutral and loyal Maori was taken as well. I have no objection to reference to the land wars being mentioned in the intro, given that (again from memory) any act of "rebelliousness" against the government at that time was taken in law to be a trigger for confiscation. However the key driver was the united stand by Maori against further land sales. Grimhim (talk) 21:00, 5 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I have twice reverted [1][2]edits that refer to the sale from 1900 to 1912 of Waikato land that was returned by the government in 1865, and also government compensation given following the 1927 Sim royal commission. The statements need much better sourcing than has been provided, and also require a better description of events, particularly timing and the extent of the sales. The IP editor 122.62.226.243, who has been adding this material, has referred to some of these events at the article on

My concern is that none of the sources already cited in this Confiscation article refer to the government willingly returning land to Waikato iwi in the 1860s; in fact the authors cited give every indication that the government was in no mood to make any concession to Maori, let alone opt to hand back valuable land it had seized. I'll try to locate King's book on Te Puea Herangi, but in the meantime, can the IP editor discuss here, on the talk page, what King wrote about the circumstances surrounding the return of the land in the 1860s so it can be better described in the article. It's certainly worth including, but needs to be better explained.

The IP editor might also like to create a Wikipedia account so his/her edits are more readily recognised and other editors can engage with them at their talk page. BlackCab (talk) 10:48, 13 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I have reverted this material a third time.[3] The information is too vague for inclusion.

What land was returned by the government in 1865? (Information is now in the article.)

How much land and where? (Information is now in the article.)

Returned to whom and by whom? (Information is now in the article.)

What compensation was given to which Maori MP in which year?

What was the compensation for and who gave it?

In what year did Te Puea suggest financial payment for the loss of land in 1863?

How long did the payments last?

Please provide the full details here so that section of the article can be better explained. I will continue to remove poorly sourced and vague statements. BlackCab (talk) 02:46, 14 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Update: I have located some of the detail in the Sim Report. Any further information that answers those questions would be helpful. BlackCab (talk) 04:31, 14 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Blackcab!I no longer have the King Te Puea book but the info I entered was all correct. Basically Te Puea -after being very wild in her youth and then isolationist in WW1 and being the main person who stopped Waikato men fighting; then found her iwi on the outer after WW1 compared to iwi who had allowed their menfolk to fight. The Sims report was not implemented at the time (1923?) as Waikato blocked all efforts to get a deal on the table. They were really pissed off-King describes them somewhere as being sullen and isolationist. Some acted like the war (1863) was still going on. In the 30s Te Puea formed a good relationship with various people in Wellington, including Fraser the PM, who was keen to get the kingites on side as a political buffer against the rising Ratana church, who were aligned with the new Labour party. Wellington was impressed by Te Puea's own efforts to help her own iwi with very little resources . Ngata in particular was very taken by Te Puea after the touring concert party of the late 30s went to the East Coast. He personally intervened to get Te Puea what she wanted-land in the form of farms and money. This was the era of the land development schemes and Ngata had the power and the freedom to move land and money about to help who he wanted. Te Puea benefited greatly as did Waikato from his largess, until it was discovered Ngata and or his department were fiddling the books and he was kicked out of office. In WW2 Waikato soldiers fought for the country so the government was keen to get Waikato onboard and Te Puea was the key to this.However Te Puea seems to have softened her position during the war as her own iwi just started to ignore her. She was publically accused of being sympathtic to the Japanese and no doubt would have been happy to play along with them had they invaded( like the natives in other ex colonies). Maori soldiers returning from war bought back stores of how well they had been treated in the NZ army. The Maori Battalion was celebrated. King doesnt say specifically why Te Puea decided to approach the government in 1946 but by then she was starting to change many of her ways -she dropped many old school friends and picked up new ones like the modernists Pei Te Hurinui Jones and his brother Mick from Maniapoto. Ngata also a modernist,though out government, was still seeing Te Puea. All these were western educated modernists who saw no future in living in 1863 mode forever. Probably this had a big impact on her. It was Te Puea's idea to ask the government for cash. She always was short of the readies and the kingitanga base at Turangawaewae was continually being developed. Note the money was paid to a trust board, not to Te Puea-she was not on the Board and they got a bit sick of her I believe. King uses the words- the money was frittered away- and says how it was mainly spent. As far as I know the payments are still going on now unless that raupatu was superceeded by the 1995 raupatu deal.King doesnt say.

Its interesting that after the 1995 deal Tainui los tmuch of its $170 million in bad business deals -like buying the Warriors and the hotels in Singapore and the fishing company that went bust. Shades of 1911 all over again!!Of course some iwi HAVE gone bust- like the Taranaki tribe Ngati Tama who gave all their $15 million raupatu to a Maori business man who lost the lot -it turned out he was a fast talking ex freezing worker .

To try to answer some of your Qs-After the 63 war there a was a change of government. They were a liberal government who wanted the confiscation Qs settled and Maori treatde reasonably. The government by then had realised that some of the land confiscated belonged to Queenites and there was a complicated realignment with some land being returned and some chiefs getting paid 1000 pounds each. This land was mainly in the foothills of the Wairoa hills-Papakura, Clevedon, Hunua etc .The question of who was a kupapa was hard to sort out as often one whanua was kupapa queenite and another in the same hapu was kingite .This was especally so in the Bombay hill area,so it was hardly surprising the government made mistakes but they did their best to correct them. Tawhaio was offered back about 50,000 acres in 1865 but refused-he was a real hard line, conservative isolationist and a mystic to boot, until 1884 when he just got sick of the bickering with Rewi Maniapoto and Te Kooti.He was getting old and decided the government werent so bad after all. By then of course Maori had 4 MPs which formed another link into the government. It was after a visit to Raglan(had another name then)about 1884, when he went to a local fete and was well received by the settlers as a minor celebrity, that he decided to accept the land .It was all a part of the railway deal when the government was trying hard to rule a line under Maori bitterness in trying to create a more modern NZ. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.62.226.243 (talk)

Hi, and thanks for the response. I'll have a copy of the King book in a week or two, so I'll have a read through and add the salient information there. The first part of the material you've been adding to the article, about subsequent sales of Waikato land by Maori, is out of scope of this article. The subject of the article is the confiscations, not what iwi did with the land once some of it was returned. The other material about financial redress is clearly relevant, but I'll wait to see the Michael King book in order to ensure it's accurate and sourced. You obviously have a great deal of knowledge about the history of the Waikato district, but I want to ensure the article is thoroughly based on reliable sources. If you don't have the book it obviously makes it difficult. Please hold off until I can read through King's material. Have you considered starting a Wikipedia account so you can be contacted more readily ... and please don't forget to end your comments on talk pages with four tildes (~~~~) which automatically adds a signature and date. Thanks again. BlackCab (talk) 10:43, 14 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

It is in the interest of balanced articles that when an article contains comments from a well known extremist who plays fast and loose with historical fact then that should be balanced out by less radical points of view if thy are available. Walker's book -even his revised 2004 edition, is full of gross inaccuracies not accepted by anyone apart from Walker. In 2004 he still thinks that Maori arrived in 800. Large sections of his book are fantasy and myth. What serious historian includes a full page photo of a naked women in a book about politics? Much of Walker's book flies in the face of actual facts. He seems to have a very loose grip on history and is happier writing about myths. It is a fact that confiscation was legal.It is a fact that rebel Maori had ample warning that their land would be confiscated unless they stopped fighting the government. It is fact that only a minority of Maori supported the rebellion.It is fact that King Tawhaio wanted total independence for Maori(that is what his petition to the British govt in 1884 asked for.)It is a fact that much of the land taken in 1863 (about 4%) was returned 6 months later( about half). Much of the remainder was never occupied.It is afact that Chiefs received large amounts of financial compensation in 1865. It is a fact that koha payments were made to Taranaki tribes. Waikato tribes had so much land given back that they were selling it at the rate of 85,000 acres a year in the early 1900s and in 1 year considered selling 600,000 acres. Many of the chiefs such as Rewi were given additional payments and large government pensions in the 1880s depression at a time when the average settler barely had enough to live on. What really stands out is that the huge majority of Maori land was sold at what the Maori seller accepted as the going rate. For long periods of time various Maori hapu and iwi were awash in cash and just spent it or invested it unwisely. Even before the Sim investigation, Waikato Maori were given large amounts of cash to use as they liked-in one case, about 1912, 50,000 pounds to the king which is probably equal to $million or more today. They lost the lot in a bad investment. Wishart in his 2012 book the Great Divide makes the point that some Taranaki land was sold by Maori 4 times. Let's have the different points of view and not those of just 1 extremist.More important lets have the facts about multiple payments and the selling off (not " alienation"!!) of land. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.62.226.243 (talk) 02:44, 20 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Neither Wikipedia articles nor their talk pages are forums for your views. Ranginui Walker is a

reliable source. Much of what you have just written is unsupported by published reliable sources. You persist in injecting opinion in articles without proper sourcing. I'll continue to remove your agenda-pushing statements. And please remember to sign your comments with four tildes, like this: ~~~~ Thanks. BlackCab (talk) 03:03, 20 November 2012 (UTC)[reply

]

Hi Black cab.I doubt you have actually read R Walker's book mentioned as no literate person with an ounce of historical knowledge would believe that it is a reliable source. It is a very lop side tale and historically very inaccurate now that we have access to original sources . Walker is now very dated and his book no longer relevant-it verges on the absurd in some passages. In places it reads like he was still spinning yarns to primary school children that he taught in the 1960s! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.62.226.243 (talk) 22:57, 20 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I read the book and enjoyed it. It was a very worthwhile review of New Zealand history from a Maori perspective. It continues to qualify under Wikipedia policies as a reliable source. BlackCab (talk) 23:24, 20 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I am reverting a series of edits [4] by an IP editor who has once again injected personal opinion (" in contradiction of the Treaty of Waitangi"), redundancy (" the legal framework "), unsupported conjecture ("as they had been advised a claim would fail") and irrelevance ("Despite loosing the 1863-64 war the Kingitanga movement established a government in the King Country which existed for about 20 years".) I will keep part of a section about the return of Maori land post-1863 but not material that is still unsourced. The editor cites " NZ Encyclopedia. Land Confiscations -Raupatu p4", which again is woefully inadequate as a citation, but in any case that source ([5]) provides no support for much of the material the editor has written into the lead section. The IP editor has previously attempted to add material about return of lands (see earlier thread above); this would need to be covered in the main body of the article, but the editor still has failed to provide proper sourcing. BlackCab (TALK) 03:56, 20 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I had assumed that you would be familiar with the Treaty of Waitangi(?), as most Kiwis are.There is NO mention of Maori having the right to set up an Independent Govt (as they clearly did in the King country) -whole books have been written about it!)in fact the treaty expressly forbides that that.It is the law of NZ(and all nations I can think of!!!) -then and now!!Get real!!The word legal is important as the only authority for making critical decisions like this was the govt. Tainui were advised their claim would fail in the tribunal that is common knowledge in the Waikato.(Santa has a white beard but we dont define Santa like that as its common knowledge).This is why they were able to negotiate the "catch up " clause that has earned them far more than the original claim-the govt could do this(ie commit the tax payer to an "endless" round of catch up handouts) the Treaty tribunal could not.I will double check the ref for Nz encyclopedia as I was interrupted. The general thrust of the article is still quite wrong and misleading. I put the word "robbed" in quotation marks as clearly the action was legal and the govt cannot rob. I left the word in to show how some iwi saw their position. ie they saw an imbalance of power between the govt and frustrated rebel Maori. Claudia — Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.62.226.243 (talk) 00:08, 22 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

You continue to add your own unsourced opinions, which have again been reverted. "Common knowledge" has never been the basis of encyclopedic statements. BlackCab (TALK) 00:17, 22 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Recently an Australian editor who has a limited knowledge of this topic reverted a section that was closely referenced. The refs were in response to a request by another editor to provide same. The reason he gave for reverting was "no refs" which is absurd! In the process of reverting, he removed all the refs -which I have now restored. The editor appears to favour one particular POV regardless of how well an alternative case is made, with refs to back it up. Claudia — Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.62.226.243 (talk) 23:15, 25 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Without discussion, a hyphen was inserted into the article name, as well as every reference in the text to land confiscations, in a couple of edits starting with this edit in 2019. It was done on the basis that "the word 'land' is not an adjective modifying 'confiscations', so the hyphen is necessary to more closely associate the final two nouns." The hyphen is actually not required at all because there is simply no ambiguity — the article deals with a series of confiscations of land in New Zealand, which any reader would immediately grasp. There's no stronger argument for inserting a hyphen in there than there is for inserting one in such article titles as Voter suppression, Behavior modification or Electricity generation. It's overly fussy and simply unnecessary. BlackCab (TALK) 06:44, 8 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

It's also not a usage I've ever seen. I support moving it back and undoing the unnecessary hyphens. Daveosaurus (talk) 09:16, 8 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

After two weeks and no dissenting voices I've moved it back. If anyone wants to move it again, please make your case here before moving it again. Daveosaurus (talk) 10:56, 21 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]