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After 1872 there is no more armed warfare with the Maori (except one small gun battle in 1916). There is however still unarmed warfare. And it all has to do with land. Instead of gun wars over land, New Zealand has paper wars over land. It also has ploughing wars over land, and fencing wars over land. All because New Zealand has a confusion of land laws.
“The Assembly was making many laws, so many indeed that the Maori were not able to carry them all on their backs, they had better be provided with a cart to put them in.”
“All owners of a land certificate (up to 70, later reduced to 10), are required to sign. But some die in the meantime and successors have to be appointed, by which time other owners are also dead.”
“In spite of trustees, laws, regulations and red-tape, Maori Land Reserves have been blotted from the map. Not a creature from the Native Minister down has the faintest notion of where they are.”
The government is trying to differentiate between the lands of Loyal Maori and the lands of the rebel Maori. On top of that the Maori are moving around themselves trying to resettle on old tribal land. Not enough land is surveyed. Settlers arriving and those promised land for military service, need to be set- tled. There are not enough roads. The government takes out loans to buy land; survey land; build roads, railways, bridges, telegraph lines and public buildings; and increase immigration. From 1870-1880 the population doubles.
The Taranaki Ploughing and Fencing Wars 1879-1881
The government is building a road along the west coast of Taranaki from Wanganui north to New Plymouth. The land needs to be surveyed (1877).
The road is approaching the Maori village of Parihaka (west side of Mount Egmont, east of Cape Egmont). In Parihaka lives the Maori chief Te Whiti (not a high-ranking chief), who was loyal to the government during the wars and became a prophet preaching “a vague and mystical religion involving peace, industry and no drunkeness”. Te Whiti is not happy with the land situation.
“It seems to me from the way the surveys are being conducted, that you wish to take the whole of the blanket and leave me naked.”
Te Whiti organises the Maori of Parihaka to plough up the land designated for settlers’ homes. The Maori are forcibly removed from the land. They return and plough again. They are removed again. They plough again and 17 are arrested (June 1879). It is said Te Whiti got the idea for ploughing from the Bible as it was “the mode employed by Samson to compel the attention of the Philistines to his grievances”.
The Maori keep ploughing. In July “parties of 12-15 Maori, but not over 34, from time to time, at regular intervals, commenced ploughing in different localities, always submitting quietly to arrest”. This happens not only on designated residential land but on land occupied by the local Armed Constabulary as well. By the end of July 1879, 180 Maori ploughers have been arrested.
The government doesn’t know what to do about all this ploughing business, so they propose Bills and pass Acts. The government changes. By June 1880, 140 of the 180 arrested ploughers have still not been tried. Trial dates are set. And postponed. New Bills are proposed, debated and Acts passed. “Pris- oners arrested under one Act shall, by virtue of the provisions of a second, be deemed to be arrested under a third.”
In June 1880 a road goes through a fenced Maori field. The “Ploughing War” turns into a “Fencing War”. The Maori ask for a gate across the road. The government suggests the Maori fence the road off. The Maori ask for a swing-gate. The government will permit a temporary swing-gate, but only until the Maori fence the road off. The Maori ask if the soldiers can help with the fencing. The government says the soldiers cannot help with the fencing, the Maori must do the fencing. The Maori say they will put a fence up across the road as often as the government takes it down. The “Fencing War” begins.
The Maori put a fence up across the road, and are all arrested (July 1880). After that various-sized parties of unarmed Maori fencers come to put the fence up across the road and be arrested. This happens 40-50 times over the next two months until 216 more Maori fencers have been arrested.
Fence putting-up and fence taking-down continues until November 1880, when the Maori put up slip-rails across the road instead of a fence, and ask the government if the slip-rails can remain. The slip-rails can remain. Seventy-nine Maori prisoners are released, 56 ploughers and 23 fencers.
The Governor’s report on “West Coast Native Affairs” (February 1881), suggests that the government should have fenced off the road in the first place, instead of disrupting the Maori fields of crops and animals; and that the Acts passed as a result are a “dangerous example”. The report is “delayed” and “not made public”.
The government sends 1,500 soldiers to take Parihaka and arrest Te Whiti. They are met by singing and dancing children (November 1881). Te Whiti is sent to the South Island for two years. He is later arrested again in Poverty Bay (1889).
The Maori also obstruct surveys in Urewera (1895), and refuse to pay a dog tax in Waima (1898, 120 soldiers are sent to arrest unlicensed dogs). South Island Maori from Temuka go west to Omarama to resettle old tribal lands, and are evicted by the police(1879).
You can purchase Nieuw Zeeland An English-Speaking Polynesian Country With A Dutch Name: A Humorous History of New Zealand from Amazon today.
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