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Journal of Historical Geography 46 (2014) 26e35

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Journal of Historical Geography

journal homepage: www.elsevier .com/locate/ jhg

Incomplete reconciliations: a history of settling grievances in Taranaki,New Zealand

Matalena Tofa a,b

aResearch Centre for Health and Wellbeing, Charles Darwin University, Casuarina Campus, Darwin, AustraliabCasuarina Campus, Ellengowan Drive, Darwin, Northern Territory 0909, Australia

Abstract

Negotiated settlements and reconciliations are increasingly used to address the historic grievances of Indigenous peoples in settler-colony nations. Themodern era of settlements has attracted widespread attention; however, in New Zealand there is a substantial tradition of the Crown investigating and‘resolving’ the claims and grievances of M�aori, the Indigenous people. This article examines the history of settling grievances in a region named Taranaki.It argues that holding critiques of modern settlements alongside this history of settling grievances reveals that particular ideas about nation, sovereignty,authority, and time have, and continue to, condition what is made possible in settlements of M�aori grievances. These conceptual and practical limitationshave produced settlements that continuously (re)produce the Crown’s sovereignty and that have paradoxically compounded, rather than resolved,historic grievances. This analysis, therefore, historicizes the novelty and optimism attached to current settlements, and highlights the value of recent workthat challenges the established repertoire and conceptual limits of reconciliation in anxiously postcolonial nations.� 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Reconciliation; Indigenous; M�aori; Treaty settlements; Taranaki, New Zealand

Negotiated reconciliations between Indigenous peoples and gov-ernments, including treaties, regional agreements, and legislatedsettlements, have emerged as a frequent postcolonial strategy insettler-colony nations, and have attracted widespread media andscholarly attention. Characterized by narratives of postcolonialpartnership and nationhood, settlements reconfigure and grantIndigenous rights within the nation-state ‘in exchange’ for theresolution of grievances against the government.1 This articlecontextualizes recent settlements within the history of settlingIndigenous claims in Taranaki, New Zealand to highlight the waysin which such ideas as nation, sovereignty, authority, and timehave, and continue to, condition possibilities in settlements.

In New Zealand, Indigenous claims are evaluated against theTreaty of Waitangi (1840; henceforth, the Treaty), which is anagreement between the Crown (colonial/national government) andM�aori, the Indigenous people. It is a contested and controversialdocument, particularly as the M�aori and English versions of the

E-mail address: matalena.tofa@cdu.edu.au

1 C. Blackburn, Producing legitimacy: reconciliation and the negotiation of aboriginal rShort, Australian ‘aboriginal’ reconciliation: the latest phase in the colonial project, Citiz

2 J. Belich, The New Zealand Wars and the Victorian Interpretation of Racial Conflict, Aucklhistory, History Compass 1 (2003) 1e13; C. Orange, The Treaty of Waitangi, Sydney, 1987

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jhg.2014.05.0270305-7488/� 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Treaty are inconsistent. While the M�aori version cedes kawana-tanga [governorship], a portmanteau term that suggests acquies-cence to the Crown acting as a kind of suzerain or nominalsovereign, the English version cedes sovereignty.2 Such divergencesin understanding and intentions produced tensions and conflicts,and arguably continue to complicate CrowneM�aori relationships.Notably, the Treaty, and most particularly the M�aori version, waslargely disregarded in domestic jurisprudence and legislation untilThe Treaty of Waitangi Act (1975). Enacted by a (left-leaning) La-bour government in a period of ‘M�aori renaissance’ and activism,this Act affirms the status of the Treaty and forms the basis forcontemporary settlement processes. It also established a standingcommission of inquiry, the Waitangi Tribunal, to investigate Treatybreaches and provide the Crown recommendations for redress. In1985, a Labour government expanded the Tribunal’s ambit toinclude ‘historical grievances,’ dating back to 1840. This shift placedthe Tribunal at the intersection of historical scholarship,

ights in Canada, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 13 (2007) 621e638; D.enship Studies 7 (2003) 291e312.and, 1986; E. Morris, History never repeats? The Waitangi Tribunal and New Zealand.

Fig. 1. Location map of Taranaki.

M. Tofa / Journal of Historical Geography 46 (2014) 26e35 27

jurisprudence, and M�aori claims and aspirations.3 The Tribunal’swork has prompted vigorous scholarly discussion about historio-graphic practice and presentism, the politicization of the Tribunaland its expert witnesses, and the simplification of CrowneM�aorirelations in adversarial narratives that serve to identify history’svillains and victims.4

Settlement negotiations, though, selectively and ambiguouslyengage with the Tribunal’s recommendations. The Office of TreatySettlements (henceforth, OTS), on behalf of the Crown, negotiates a‘full and final’ settlement with each iwi [tribe] consisting of anegotiated apology and historical narrative, and economic andcultural redress.5 Although land loss features strongly in claims, thefirst major settlements of the 1990s, negotiated by a center-rightNational government, embedded settlement policies that recon-cile land loss with fiscally and electorally ‘acceptable’ financialcompensation to iwi.6 The act of buttressing private and stateproperty rights alongside such significant postcolonial gestures as

3 M. Gibbs, Justice as reconciliation and restoring mana in New Zealand’s Treaty of WWheen (Eds), The Waitangi Tribunal: Te Roopu Whakamana I Te Tiriti O Waitangi, Welling

4 Hayward and Wheen, The Waitangi Tribunal (note 3); R.S. Hill and B. Bönisch-Breprocesses in New Zealand, Social and Legal Studies 16 (2007) 163e181; J. McAloon, By wh(2006) 194e213.

5 OTS, Healing the Past, Building a Future: A Guide to Treaty of Waitangi Claims and DWhakamaarama i ngaa Whakatau Kereeme e paa ana ki te Tiriti oo Waitangi me ngaa Wh

6 R.S. Hill, People, land and the struggle for rangatiratanga/autonomy in New Zealand7 Orange, The Treaty of Waitangi (note 2).8 Haywood and Wheen, The Waitangi Tribunal (note 3); N. Seuffert, Nation as partners

Society Review 39 (2005) 485e526.9 Orange, The Treaty of Waitangi (note 2).

10 M. Tofa, Justice in Collaboration? Indigenous Peoples and Postcolonial Conservation ManCollaborative Environmental Management and Maori in Taranaki, Ph.D. Thesis, Macquarie11 F.A. Carrington, The Land Question of Taranaki with Suggestions for Improving the CondPlymouth, 1860, 4.

the acknowledgement of history and wrongdoing suggests anambivalent and complex relationship between modern settle-ments, historical justice, and M�aori sovereignty. Nevertheless,these settlements hold great historic, political, and economicimport for M�aori and for the national polity, and they have been theobject of polemic debate. Dissatisfaction with the cumbersome andcostly process variously finds expression in M�aori hikoi [protestmarches] and impatient calls for M�aori to ‘move on’ from ‘grievancemode.’7 Opportunistic politics and media coverage have exploitedand fostered public intolerance of Treaty-based rights and settle-ments, drawing censorious attention to intra-tribal conflict, M�aorispiritual and cultural values, and to those employed in Tribunal andSettlement work.8 M�aori ambitions and expectations have alsobeen confronted by Crown attempts to limit and standardize set-tlements, such as sunset clauses and the rejected ‘fiscal envelope’policy of one billion dollars for all historical settlements.9 Thoughdoubtless significant, the contentious politics of current settle-ments diverts attention away from the history of settling in NewZealand, and the continuities and legacies that run between pre-vious and contemporary approaches to ‘resolving’ M�aori griev-ances. This observation forms the starting point for this paper.

This article engages with the history of settlements in the regionof Taranaki where there are now eight Crown-recognized iwi(Fig. 1). The iwi are at once distinct and connected, and they shareMount Taranaki as their common tupuna [ancestor]. Followingmilitary conflict, confiscation of over 485,000 hectares of land, andthe invasion of a M�aori village, redress for these specific breaches ofthe Treaty has been negotiated several times. This article draws onarchival and secondary sources that were initially used to developan historicized understanding of environmental managementpolitics in the context of Treaty settlements.10 Here, I revisit thesetexts to hold critiques of the current settlement repertoire along-side the history of settling grievances in Taranaki. I argue thatcareful attention to the palimpsest of settlements in this regionhistoricizes the apparent novelty and finality of contemporarysettlements and, more importantly, reveals conceptual limitationsthat condition the possibilities of settlements. This article proceedswith an historical narrative that outlines the origins of currentgrievances in Taranaki, and then previous and recent settlements ofthese grievances. Finally, I discuss three themes that unfold throughprevious and contemporary settlements. These themes illustratethe impervious and problematic nature of the Crown’s reconcilia-tion repertoire, and demonstrate the value of recent work that callsfor an emphasis on transformation and openness in settlements.

Origins of ‘Treaty grievances’

Colonial ambitions in Taranaki were driven by imaginaries of theregion as ‘fertile waste and unoccupied country,’11 and as ‘the

aitangi settlement process, Political Science 58 (2006) 15e27; J. Hayward and N.R.ton, 2004.dnich, Politicizing the past: Indigenous scholarship and Crown-Maori reparationsich standards? History and the Waitangi Tribunal, New Zealand Journal of History 40

irect Negotiations with the Crown, Ka Tika Aa Muri, Ka Tika Aa Mua He Tohutohuakaritenga ki te Karauna, Wellington, 2004., Identities 19 (2012) 26e42; OTS, Healing the Past, Building a Future (note 5).

hip: law, ‘race,’ and gender in Aotearoa New Zealand’s Treaty settlements, Law and

agement, MA Thesis, The University of Auckland, 2007; M. Tofa, Unsettling Openings:University, 2011.ition of the Aboriginal Inhabitants and Developing the Resources of New Zealand, New

M. Tofa / Journal of Historical Geography 46 (2014) 26e3528

richest and best province in the colony for all agricultural pur-poses.’12 The pursuit of productive pastures, at once an economic,spatial, and political project, informed the work of governmentadministrators and settlers.13 While the Treaty endowed the Crownwith a sense of sovereignty and nation, this rarely matched ‘on theground’ realities in Taranaki. Acquiring property rights, and therebydisrupting M�aori relationships with the land, served to entrenchBritish land-uses and peacefully expanded the Crown’s ambit.14 Thepromise of ‘full exclusive and undisturbed possession’ of lands,forests, fisheries, and other properties in Article Two of the Treaty15

generated a Government preoccupation with ‘legally’ alienatingM�aori land by purchase or justified appropriation.16 Where cross-cultural misunderstandings and complexities troubled attemptsto legally appropriate M�aori land, the Crown turned to legislativemanoeuvring to acquire land.17 M�aori contested the legitimacy ofmany of the resultant land transactions, and the strains of a ques-tionable land transaction, combined with implacable settler landhunger, anxious Crown assertions of sovereignty, and inter-tribalpolitical co-operation led to violent confrontations.18 This sectionbriefly outlines key events in this period.

The Nga Motu deed (1840), in which an assortment of guns,blankets and other items were traded for the present day city ofNew Plymouth and much coastal land to the north occurred whenmanyM�aori with rights to the land were absent.19 Additionally, it isunlikely that the M�aori ‘sellers’ fully comprehended the signifi-cance of the transaction. The legality of this and other early landtransactions in Taranaki was affirmed in the New Zealand LandClaims Ordinance (1844), which asserted that absentees had for-feited all rights to their land. Largely as a political manoeuvre toassuage M�aori protests and ensure further land sales, the Governorin 1844 reversed this decision and negotiated the FitzRoy blockpurchase, essentially a ‘political settlement,’ with M�aori in Tar-anaki.20 This purchase, and subsequent purchases in the 1840s and1850s, did not satiate demand for land in Taranaki. Local politiciansand settlers agitated for new legal mechanisms to alienate M�aoriland because ‘the prosperity and progress of this Province are verymuch impeded and the development of its resources retarded.[because] the Native Title to about half a million acres, available foragriculture. is still unextinguishable.’21

In this period of escalating tensions and expanding settlement,the Crown’s attempt to purchase a 242 hectare block at Waitarafrom Te Teira, a rangatira [chief], despite the objection of another

12 T. Gilbert, New Zealand Settlers and Soldiers or, The War in Taranaki Being Incidents indocument?wid¼2065&page¼0&action¼null (last accessed 29 November 2013).13 M.D. Dominy, Hearing grass, thinking grass: postcolonialism and ecology in Aotearo14 S. Banner, Two properties, one land: law and space in nineteenth-century New Zealaretention and assertion of land and identity, in: E. Pawson, T. Brooking (Eds), Environme15 The M�aori version promises ‘the unqualified exercise of their chieftainship over the16 M. Belgrave, Taranaki: victims triumphant, in: M. Belgrave (Ed), Historical Frictions: M(note 2).17 R. Boast, Maori and the law, 1840e2000, in: P. Spiller, J. Finn, R.A. Boast (Eds), New Zearangatiratanga/autonomy (note 6).18 Belgrave, Taranaki: victims triumphant (note 16).19 Belgrave, Taranaki: victims triumphant (note 16); Waitangi Tribunal, WAI143 The Ta20 Waitangi Tribunal, The Taranaki Report (note 19).21 Provincial Council, 1861, IA/1/1861/1169, Internal Affairs, Provincial Council seekingZealand, Wellington [hereafter ANZ].22 Belgrave, Taranaki: victims triumphant (note 16).23 Letter to Colonel Browne from Settlers, 1860, IA/1/1860/2059, Internal Affairs, Addr24 Belich, The New Zealand Wars (note 2).25 Belich, The New Zealand Wars (note 2); T. Brooking, Building a better Britain at someoConnecticut, 2004, 43e65.26 Belich, The New Zealand Wars (note 2).27 W. Martin, The Taranaki Question, London, 1861. Available at: http://www.enzb.auK. Sanders, Parihaka and the rule of law, Te Mata Koi Auckland University Law Review 1128 Belich, The New Zealand Wars (note 2).

rangatira, Wiremu Kingi, prompted the outbreak of war.22 TheCrown could not abandon the sale without appearing to tacitlysupport the authority of Kingi to impede Te Teira’s right to sell hisindividual rights to the land. Such a position was politically un-tenable for administrators because:

the Life

a-Newnd, Lawntal Hisir landsaori Cla

land Leg

ranaki R

method

esses on

ne else’

ckland.a(2005)

The opposition ofWiremu Kingi to the sale of Teira’s land hasbeen uniformly based .on his pretensions as chief, to con-trol the sale of all lands belonging to his tribe. The exercise ofsuch an authority. is incompatible with Her Majesty’ssovereignty in this Colony, and most fatal to the interests ofboth races.23

War was intended to swiftly impress the Crown’s sovereigntywith military might and deliver a ‘sharp local lesson’ to M�aori inTaranaki, which would also be instructive to the pan-tribal M�aoriKing Movement based in Waikato.24 The first war, prompted by theWaitara sale, lasted from 1860 to 1861. The second war(1863e1866) was triggered by soldier occupation of a block of land,and ended in an uneasy peace that gave way to war again in 1868.For both M�aori and the Crown, clear victory proved elusive.Although Imperial troops had superior weaponry, M�aori in-novations to traditional fortifications and guerrilla tactics thatexploited the richly forested and rugged terrain effectively coun-teracted this advantage.25 Support from the King Movement andthe cycling of warriors also allowed M�aori to fight the profession-alized army for extended periods and continue other social andeconomic activities. These tactics frustrated British attempts toobtain a cheap and decisive victory, but were also insufficient toallow M�aori to triumph.26

Yet, to present this as a conflict with two clear sides elides muchcomplexity. TheWaitara issue and the ensuing conflict werewidelydebated in both New Zealand and England, and humanitariancritics highlighted the legal and moral obligations of the Treaty andfundamental questions of sovereignty, law, and governance in NewZealand.27 Moreover, some M�aori provided limited and contingentsupport to Crown forces, often based on pre-existing rivalries.28

Consequently, M�aori who fought against the Crown were labelled‘rebels’ and their defeat was positioned as essential to colonialambitions.

As the absence of outright military triumph became costly andfrustrating, the Crown turned to legislation. The New ZealandSettlements Act (1863) was intended to punish M�aori who had

of a Settler, London, 1861, 1. Available at: http://www.enzb.auckland.ac.nz/

Zealand, Cultural Geographies 9 (2002) 15e34.and Social Inquiry 24 (1999) 807e852; D. Keenan, Bound to the land: Maoritories of New Zealand, Victoria, 2002, 246e260., villages and all their treasures’.ims and Reinvented Histories, Auckland, 2005; Morris, History never repeats?

al History, Wellington, 2001, 123e186; Hill, People, land and the struggle for

eport Kaupapa Tuatahi, Waitangi Tribunal, 1996.

s by which further land may be acquired from the Natives, Archives New

Native disturbances at Taranaki, ANZ.

s expense, 1840e1870, in: T. Brooking, The History of New Zealand, Westport,

c.nz/document?wid=3369&action¼null (last accessed 29 November 2013).174e200.

Fig. 2. Original confiscation boundaries with approximate iwi locations (after WaitangiTribunal 1996).

M. Tofa / Journal of Historical Geography 46 (2014) 26e35 29

‘rebelled’ against the Crown by confiscating their land for thepurpose of settlement and to generate revenue by way of land salesto settlers.29 Parliamentary debates on the Bill were rushed,evidencing a preference for expediency over due process.30 Politi-cians in favour of the Bill saw the suppression of ‘insurrection’ andextensive British settlement as integral to nation-building:

29 H. BNew Ze30 Ora31 New32 New33 WaHohaia)34 R. Ahttp://nWelling35 A. H36 Belg37 Bau

The primary feature of its policy is the suppressing of theexisting rebellion. What is required is a large population,practically outnumbering that of the Natives in those dis-tricts where rebellion exists, or may exist, to be perma-nently settled, with ownership of the land, so that they maynot only have an interest, but the ability, to defend theirhomes from future aggression; and to effect this the Gov-ernment looks to the lands of those tribes who have been inrebellion. There is no injustice in taking the lands of such

auchop,WAI143 I18 The Aftermath of Confiscation e Crown Allocation of Land to Iwi: Taranaaland Settlements Bill: Second Reading (5.11.1863, 16.11.1863), 782e790, 869e874.nge, The Treaty of Waitangi (note 2).Zealand Parliamentary Debates, 1861e1863 (note 29), 782e783 (Fox).Zealand Parliamentary Debates, 1861e1863 (note 29), 874 (Whitaker).

itangi Tribunal, WAI143.A17 Taranaki Muru Raupatu. Evidence Given Before Waitangi Tribu.rnold, Time and space, the 1880s, in: R. Arnold (Ed), Settler Kaponga 1881e1914 e A Frozetc.victoria.ac.nz/tm/scholarly/tei-ArnSett.html (last accessed 14 March 2014); G. Byrnton, 2001; Bauchop, The Aftermath of Confiscation (note 29).arris, Crown Acquisition of Confiscated and Maori Land in Taranaki 1872e1881, Waitangi Trave, Taranaki: victims triumphant (note 16).chop, The Aftermath of Confiscation (note 29); Keenan, Bound to the land (note 14).

tribes, not by way of punishment, or of reducing the tribesfrom the position they now hold, but simply as a substantialguarantee for the future peace and consolidation of thecolony.31

Confiscation was intended to achieve what war had not:acquisition of M�aori land and establishment of the Crown’s au-thority. The fairness of the Bill was assured by promises tocompensate ‘loyal’ M�aori with money or land, and to provide re-serves for ‘rebel’ M�aori. Significantly, such labels position theCrown as a natural entity within New Zealand, and reference its (asyet unsecured) sovereignty over the territories concerned as ifinnate. There was also an inculcatory element to the Bill, with onepolitician asserting that M�aori ‘would receive benefit from this Billrather than hurt, for they would be led to see that obedience wasthe first essential to their living in peace, as well as that those whogo to war must pay its expenses.’32

In Taranaki, 485,470 hectares of land were confiscated in 1864and 1865 (Fig. 2). This covered most of the Taranaki region.Colonial excess is evidenced here most poignantly by theconfiscation of Mount Taranaki even though it was clearly not fitfor settlement or agriculture. The confiscations dispossessedM�aori of their livelihoods, and continue to impact current gen-erations. As one elder explained to the Waitangi Tribunal, ‘beforethe various raupatu [confiscations] were enacted, we had a totaleconomic base, a total political structure for Government, a totalcultural foundation, spiritually charged, sustaining, holistic inevery sense.’33 The confiscations of land, and, in effect, of thisheritage, form the basis for contemporary grievances, and haveinformed all subsequent interactions between M�aori and theCrown.

Post-confiscation ‘confusion,’ Parihaka, and the West CoastCommissions

Confiscation by pen was gradually implemented on the ground bysurveyors, pegs, and pastures.34 Revealingly, the Governmentinitially purchased ‘confiscated’ lands from M�aori, and then latergave takoha [gratuity, money] in exchange for land.35 These prac-tices e purchasing and bribing36 e meant that apparently mono-lithic confiscation was actually realized as a mosaic of landsconfiscated, ‘purchased,’ and abandoned by the Crown. The legis-lation also obliged the Government to discern and reward ‘loyal’M�aori, and establish reserves for ‘rebels’ via compensation courts;yet, by the 1880s these promises remained essentially unfulfilled,prompting continued M�aori petitions outlining unjustified landconfiscations from ‘loyalists.’37

During this period of M�aori land alienation in Taranaki, twoleaders based in Parihaka (Fig. 1), Tohu Kakahi and Te Whiti oRongomai, rose to prominence. The village of Parihaka became asafe haven for displaced M�aori within and beyond the Taranakiregion, and it peacefully developed into an influential and

ki 1865e80, Auckland, 1993; New Zealand Parliamentary Debates, 1861e1863,

nal Hearing. Owae Marae Waitara 3rde6th September 1990, 1990, 53 (T.M.

ntier Fragment of the Western World, Wellington, 1997, 27e56. Available at:es, Boundary Markers: Land Surveying and the Colonisation of New Zealand,

ribunal, 1993.

M. Tofa / Journal of Historical Geography 46 (2014) 26e3530

flourishing community.38 In 1878 the Government, eager to deriveincome from land sales and to impress its authority, begansurveying land in central Taranaki that it had previously confis-cated and then abandoned.39 In response, Te Whiti led a campaignof peaceful resistance from Parihaka of ploughing contested landand removing the surveyor pegs that traced the lines of Crown landacquisition to draw attention to land grievances, unfulfilledpromises of reserves for M�aori, and Crown refusal to negotiatedirectly with Te Whiti.40 Hundreds of M�aori protestors werearrested and held in prison for months. The Government, aware ofboth the frivolous nature of the charges and the illegal confine-ment, enacted several pieces of legislation that ex post facto sanc-tioned the arrests, suspended habeas corpus rights for theprotestors, and established the West Coast Commissions of Inquiryto investigate M�aori grievances.41

As the protests and Te Whiti’s demand for adequate legal ex-amination of M�aori claims continued, settler suspicion of Parihakagrew and Crown officials became beholden to the fear of war anddesire to please the electorate.42 In late 1881, Crown agents hastilyand sneakily organized an invasion to destroy Parihaka anddisperse its residents to coincide with the (disapproving) Gover-nor’s absence. An armed constabulary assembled in Taranaki andcarefully surrounded the village. Contemporaneous reports revealridiculous scenes. The Native Minister declared martial law byreading the Riot Act to ‘an orderly assemblage of. men, women,and children sitting quietly in their own village,’43 and on 5November 1881, soldiers entered Parihaka to be met by childrensinging, freshly baked bread, and adults quietly waiting.44 Tohu andTe Whiti were immediately imprisoned on charges of sedition (butwere never tried), and over the following days and weeks, thevillage was looted and burned, its crops were destroyed, and itspeople were abused, arrested, and evicted.45 The ‘day of plunder’and long years of imprisonment and suffering that accompanied itare the products of collusion by officials to serve their own eco-nomic and political interests and impose Crown sovereignty overM�aori land and polity.46

The West Coast Commissions of Inquiry, established in legisla-tion responding to pacifist resistance at Parihaka, were chargedwith investigating claims that land within the confiscation districtshad not been returned to ‘loyal’ M�aori and that reserves had notbeen created for ‘rebels.’47 Their purpose was to resolve the

38 H. Riseborough, Days of Darkness: The Government and Parihaka, Taranaki 1878e188439 G.W. Rusden, History of New Zealand in Three Volumes (Volume III) [online], Melbourneaccessed 17 November 2013).40 Riseborough, Days of Darkness (note 38).41 Rusden, History of New Zealand (note 39); Sanders, Parihaka and the rule of law (no42 G.H. Scholefield (Ed), The RichmondeAtkinson Papers, Volume II [online],wid¼3589&page¼1&action¼null (last accessed 17 November 2013); Rusden, History of43 Rusden, History of New Zealand (note 39), 301.44 T.M. Hohaia, G. O’Brien and L. Strongman (Eds), Parihaka: The Art of Passive Resistan45 Hohaia, O’Brien and Strongman (Eds), Parihaka (note 44).46 G.W. Rusden, Aureretanga; Groans of the Maoris [online], Cannons Creek, 1974 (accessed 17 November 2013); Rusden, History of New Zealand (note 39).47 Appendices to the Journals of the House of Representatives, Reports of the Royal CommPrisoners’ Trials Act, 1879’ Together with Minutes of Proceedings and Evidence, and AppeReport of the Commissioner Appointed under ‘The West Coast Settlement (North Island)1840e1913, Wellington, 1997.48 Appendices to the Journals (note 47), 1880, G-2, 162.49 Appendices to the Journals, West Coast Royal Commission: Final Report of the CommiA-05b, 1e26.50 Appendices to the Journals (note 47), 1880, G-2, lxi.51 New Zealand Parliamentary Debates, West Coast Settlement Reserve Bill, 1881, 586e52 Johnson, The Trust Administration (note 47).53 Waitangi Tribunal, Taranaki Muru Raupatu (note 33); Waitangi Tribunal, The Taranak54 L.D. Berg and R.A. Kearns, Naming as norming: ‘race’, gender, and the identity politicsSpace 14 (1996) 99e122; Tofa, Justice in Collaboration? (note 10).

‘confusion’ arising from ‘alleged promises’ and ‘lawless acts’ andremove ‘any just ground of complaint. on the part of Maoris’ sothat ‘peace may be firmly established between both races.’48 TheCommissions awarded land to M�aori in the form of Crown-grantedreserves.49 The apparent benevolence of this is undermined by theCommissioners’ view that reserves could be ‘made at least asconducive to English settlement as the Crown lands’ by interestingthe tribes ‘in the progress of settlement; and [letting] them feelthat. it will be best for them not less than us to change the countryfrom a wilderness into cultivated fields.’50 Significantly, the reso-lution of post-war ‘confusion’ and M�aori claims actually facilitatedthe transposition of the 1865 confiscations from paper to land-scapes by imposing cadastral order through maps, boundaries, andproperty rights.

Reserves for ‘landless natives’ were established from 1881.However, paternalistic disregard for M�aori ability to manage theirland along with governmental reluctance to give up high qualityfarming land led to reserve administration being placed in thehands of the Public Trustee.51 Consequently, the vast majority of thereserves became tied up in perpetual leases to British farmers,providing a small monetary return to individual M�aori ownersyet also dispossessing them of their own land. To the Crown, per-petual leasing appeared a compromise between M�aori calls forgreater control over their land and demand from settlers for greatersecurity in their leases and improvements (such as bush clearing,fence building), but to M�aori it was effectively confiscation byanother name.52

The invasion and destruction of Parihaka, military conflict, anddisenfranchisement of M�aori form the basis for historic grievancesagainst the Crown, and their effects live on experientially in Tar-anaki communities.53 Indeed, confiscation and land sales enabledprojects of place-making that saw forests cleared to make pasturesfor dairy farms, and saw Mount Taranaki renamed after LordEgmont and administered as a site for conservation, tourism, andrecreation. Such landscape transformations alienated M�aori fromboth land use and management, and symbolically naturalized thepresence and control of the Crown and settlers.54 Over thefollowing decades, several inquiries have revisited this period ofconfiscation and its consequences, each producing some form ofsettlement to resolve grievances and secure the Crown and nationfrom historical critique.

(Revised Edition), Auckland, 2002; Sanders, Parihaka and the rule of law (note 27)., 1895. Available at: http://nzetc.victoria.ac.nz//tm/scholarly/tei-Rus03Hist.html (last

te 27).Wellington, 1960. Available at: http://www.enzb.auckland.ac.nz/document?

New Zealand (note 39).

ce, Wellington, 2005.

1888). Available at: http://nzetc.victoria.ac.nz//tm/scholarly/tei-RusAure.html (last

ission Appointed by His Excellency under ‘The Confiscated Lands Inquiry and Maorindices, 1880, G-2, 1e243; Appendices to the Journals, West Coast Royal Commission:Act, 1880’, 1884, A-05a, 1e13; R. Johnson, The Trust Administration of Maori Reserves,

ssioner Appointed under ‘The West Coast Settlement (North Island) Act, 1880’, 1884,

736.

i Report (note 19).of naming places in Aotearoa New Zealand, Environment and Planning D: Society and

M. Tofa / Journal of Historical Geography 46 (2014) 26e35 31

Incomplete reconciliations

Present day reconciliations seek the full and final settlement of allhistoric grievances against the Crown; however, there is a longhistory of settling M�aori grievances in Taranaki. Importantly, eachof the settlements discussed in this section has been shown tolack legitimacy and durability, partly because even conciliatorypromises to amend prior injustices have been left unfulfilled, butalso because the weight of the grievances and their on-goinglegacies has consistently outweighed the justice proffered bythe Crown.

The Royal Commission into Confiscated Lands and OtherGrievances (Sim Commission) (1926) was formed at the insistenceof M�aori politicians that continuing M�aori claims and petitionsagainst the unfair confiscation of their lands be investigated.55

Delayed initially for the First World War, the Commission’s estab-lishment coincided with an emerging view that many of theCrown’s actions towards M�aori were illegal and unjust.56 Led bySupreme Court Judge Sim, the Commission was required to inves-tigate whether the confiscations ‘exceeded in quantity what wasfair and just,’ whether any Natives were ‘justly entitled to claimcompensation,’ whether any of the confiscated lands should havebeen ‘excluded for special reason’ and whether Native reserveswere adequate.57 As the Commission itself noted, there were sig-nificant limitations to its brief; for example, it is assumed ‘that inevery case confiscation was justified, and directs an inquiry as tothe extent only of the confiscation.’58 The Sim Commission foundthat the war was unjust and that Taranaki M�aori had acted in self-defence. Thus, it concluded that M�aori ‘ought not to have beenpunished by the confiscation of any of their lands’ and recom-mended a one-off payment of £300 for Parihaka and the annualpayment of £5000 in perpetuity to Taranaki Maori. Such officialrecognition of the injustices was doubtless significant, but theproposed remedy confined justice to monetary reparations thatwere ‘far from generous.’59 The recommended payments, however,proved difficult to access. Redress was paid to a M�aori trust board,which problematically rendered iwi applicants for, rather thanmanagers of, settlement monies. The Crown also legislativelyempowered itself to vary and cease the recommended payments;consequently, actual payments to Taranaki were sporadic, and weredrastically reduced during the Great Depression and World WarTwo.60

The Taranaki Maori Claims Settlement Act in 1944 was intendedto address on-going petitions and attempts to renegotiate the re-dress by legislatively ensuring the payments as recommended bythe Sim Commission. It also sought to provide a ‘full settlement,’ ‘an

55 Waitangi Tribunal, The Taranaki Report (note 19).56 Appendices to the Journals, Confiscated Native Lands and Other Grievances. Royal Comby Natives (Report of), 1928, G-7, 1e40.57 Appendices to the Journals (note 56), 1928, G-7, 1.58 Appendices to the Journals (note 56), 1928, G-7, 6.59 Belgrave, Taranaki: victims triumphant (note 16), 266.60 Waitangi Tribunal, The Taranaki Report (note 19).61 New Zealand Parliamentary Debates, Taranaki Maori Claims Settlement Bill, 1944, 7462 R.S. Hill and V. O’Malley, The Maori Quest for Rangatiratanga/Autonomy 1840e2000,63 Tofa, Justice in Collaboration? (note 10); Tofa, Unsettling Openings (note 10).64 P. Tamati (TMTB) and R. Ngatata, Love (Leader, Negotiating Panel) to Right Hon. W RConservation (Head Office), National Parks e Egmont National Park e Maori Land Claim65 Director General of Lands to Minister of Lands, 2 Nov. 1977, National Parks Amendment495 6/1/1/1 1 (note 64).66 Director General of Lands to Minister of Lands, 12 May 1978, Egmont National Park, incompromise: dual naming of the mountain and retention of the name ‘Egmont’ for the67 Handwritten file note, 27 April 1977, in AANSW5491/495 NP 6/2/1 2, Department of CANZ.68 File note, 7 April, 1978, Taranaki Confiscation Claims and Return Mountain, in AANS 7

acknowledgement of wrongs done,’ and to put ‘the relationship ofthe two races, in that respect, on a satisfactory basis.’61 It demon-strates a repeated effort to replace land with money and settleTaranaki claims as a single region despite diversity within localhistories and the geopolitical organization of M�aori. The TaranakiM�aori Trust Board (TMTB), consisting of one representative per iwi,was created to receive and distribute this financial redress. ThisBoard remains at once a colonial creation for administrative con-venience and a vehicle for advancing M�aori interests, though it hasoften been controversial.62

Settlement negotiations were instigated again by the TMTB inthe 1970s. The TMTB raised the sensitive issue of Mount Taranaki,and also sought financial recompense for land seizures. Since itsconfiscation in 1865, the Mountain had become the key touristattraction of Egmont National Park, and subject to policies thatphysically, culturally, and managerially disenfranchised M�aori fromtheir tupuna.63 The TMTB sought M�aori representation on the ParkBoard, restoration of the name ‘Taranaki,’ and the vesting of thepark in the TMTB.64 These claims, and the call for financialcompensation, appear to have been positively received by Labourgovernment ministers in 1975, but the Crown’s position changeddramatically upon the election of a National-party government.65

This shift was closely tied to public opinion and anxiety over thepotential for future claims. Officials argued that ‘public opinionshowed an overwhelming opposition to any change [in themountain’s name]’66 and that the government finds the ‘suggestionof representation politically unacceptable as being an indication ofgovernment recognition of Maori ownership of Mount Egmont.’67

The government and TMTB thus negotiated the Mount EgmontVesting Act (1978) which vested the mountain in the TMTB whoimmediately ‘gifted’ him back to the Crown. For the government itwas ‘a relatively costless but intensely significant exercise,’68 butthis legislation remains highly controversial and inspired little trustin the TMTB among M�aori. The questioned legitimacy of the TMTBin this transaction attests to the problematic allocation of repre-sentational authority in the 1944 settlement, but also to theimportance of settlement processes and practices.

Taken together, this history evinces a longstanding dissatisfac-tionwith the settlements offered by successive governments. It alsoreveals a political and historical landscape in which settlementsand their products have also become embedded. Perpetual leasesfrom the West Coast Commission era, the TMTB, Egmont NationalPark, and indeed the conversion of Taranaki from ‘wasteland’ topastures remain in the contemporary landscape, and are complexlyinterwoven and contingent on contested histories of dispossessionand conciliation.

mission to inquire into confiscations of Native Lands and other Grievances Alleged

8e754, 750 (Mason, Native Minister).Wellington, 2000.

owling, Prime Minister, no date, in AANS 7613 W5491/495 6/1/1/1 1, Department ofe 1975e1978, ANZ.Bill 1977 Submission to Land and Agriculture Select Committee, in AANS 7613 W5491/

AANS 7613W5491/495 6/1/1/11 (note 64). This issue was eventually resolved with aNational Park.onservation (Head Office), Egmont National Park. Park Board Minutes e 1977e1980,

613 W5491/495 6/1/1/1 1 (note 64).

M. Tofa / Journal of Historical Geography 46 (2014) 26e3532

Recent Treaty settlements in Taranaki

The Treaty settlement era has been particularly controversial inTaranaki. These settlements are negotiated with each iwi separatelywhich reflects Crown awareness of iwi-specific histories andidentities. Each iwi, thus, has its own experiences with and chal-lenges to engaging in modern settlements. Table 1 summarizes thenegotiations to date in Taranaki.

TheWaitangi Tribunal released its report on the Taranaki regionin 1996 and unequivocally found that Treaty breaches hadoccurred. It called for a large and generous financial settlement inrecognition of both the violent plunder and its on-going social,economic, and cultural effects.69 Since this time, iwi have activelypursued Treaty settlements, though the process has proven frus-trating. The need to produce Crown-recognized iwi organizations tonegotiate and receive such historic and symbolic settlements hasrevealed and intensified diversity and conflict within iwi.70 Indeed,the decision to settle has been, and remains, contentious in Tar-anaki, with settlements at times being painted as ‘selling out’ thehistory and ‘buying in’ to the Crown.71 Dissatisfaction with theredress offered and the requisite bureaucratization of iwi gover-nance often inform such sentiments, particularly as private prop-erty rights preclude the return of most confiscated lands and thequantum is far less than the losses incurred.72 Further, iwi narra-tives reveal that inequalities permeate the settlement process, suchthat there is little scope for genuine negotiation of the terms.73

Thus, while the Crown apology and historical narrative remainmomentous, it is perhaps the promise of some resources tostrengthen iwi and provide for the next generation, rather than anabstract notion of justice, that motivates acquiescence to settle-ments in Taranaki.74 Iwi engagement with the current Treaty set-tlement era, then, complexly entangles M�aori agency andaspirations with (arguably) neo-colonial processes and structures,prompting hybrid strategies of economic development and gover-nance that delicately balance Crown requirements and iwi aspira-tions and values.75

Settling history and the nation

Reading this history of ‘settling’ grievances in Taranaki alongsidecontemporary settlement processes reveals three key areas ofconvergence. The first is the positioning of the triumvirate ofnation, territory and sovereignty as a priority and condition ofsettlements. This has consistently undermined and delimited the

69 Waitangi Tribunal, The Taranaki Report (note 19).70 Tofa, Justice in Collaboration? (note 10); Tofa, Unsettling Openings (note 10); Waitang2000.71 Tofa, Justice in Collaboration? (note 10).72 Crown Forestry Rental Trust [henceforth, CFRT], Maori Experiences of the Direct NegNegotiation Process with the Crown to Settle Claims under the Treaty of Waitangi, Wellingto73 CFRT, Maori Experiences of the Direct Negotiation Process (note 72).74 CFRT, Maori Experiences of the Direct Negotiation Process (note 72); Tofa, Unsettling O75 Tofa, Unsettling Openings (note 10).76 B. Bhandar, Plasticity and post-colonial recognition: ‘owning, knowing and being’, L77 J. Goldberg-Hiller, Reconciliation and plasticity in a postcolonial Hawai’i, Law, Cultu78 T. Ballantyne, On place, space and mobility in nineteenth-century New Zealand, Newintroduction: the utility and futility of ‘the nation’ in histories of Aotearoa New Zealand79 Rusden, History of New Zealand (note 39); Sanders, Parihaka and the rule of law (no80 B. Coombes, J.T. Johnson and R. Howitt, Indigenous geographies II: the aspirational spin Human Geography 37 (2013) 691e700; E.A. Povinelli, The governance of the prior, Int81 Rusden, History of New Zealand (note 39).82 R. Bess, New Zealand’s Treaty of Waitangi and the doctrine of discovery: implicationconstruction of indigenous ‘native title’ land rights in Australia, Current Sociology 55 (2083 B. Egan, Sharing the colonial burden: treaty-making and reconciliation in Hul’qumownership: property, geography, and treaty making in British Columbia, Geografiska An84 OTS, Healing the Past, Building a Future (note 5), 30, 89.

justice proffered by the Crown. Secondly, settlements manipulateand affect the organization of polity and space in ways that locateand distribute power and authority. Finally, settlements invoke ateleological conception of history and nation in which Indige-nouseCrown relationships are renewed through the narration ofcolonization as the past and the nation as the present and sharedfuture. In this sense, settlements repeat rather than remove ‘theviolence inherent in colonial spatial and temporal orders.’76 Con-necting modern settlements to this larger history of settling, then,cautions against ahistorical optimism, and highlights the value ofrecent calls for a politics of openness and transformation.77

Projecting and protecting the nation

The nation is not simply a static product of colonization; rather, it isan on-going project and process.78 It is a project that was anxiouslyproclaimed and violently asserted in Taranaki, and a process thathas been advanced and protected through thework of commissionsthat ostensibly sought the removal of grievances. Throughout allthe conflicts and controversies in Taranaki, asserting and securingthe ‘nation-territory-sovereignty’ trinity has consistently informedCrown actions. Indeed, the Waitara land sale (that precipitated thefirst war) and the Crown’s fear of Parihaka were grounded inquestions of sovereignty and legitimacy, and illustrate an intoler-ance of plurality within the nation.79

The Crown’s positioning and conception of Indigenous ambi-tions is similarly informed by the demands of this geopoliticalimaginary.80 In this way, settlements have consistently privilegedthe nation and its electorate over promises to M�aori, both in theircontent and (oft delayed) execution. Early Government disregardfor the Treaty and legislative manoeuvring were induced by settlerdemands for land and security and the economic interests of set-tlers and the Crown.81 Correspondence between the TMTB and theCrown in the 1970s reveals that governmental caprice continued tobe directed by popular demands. The current reconciliation era inNew Zealand and abroad is also subject to the currents of politicalstratagem and public opinion,82 and hemmed in by the rights andinterests established over contested ground.83 Redress in modernTreaty settlements is perforce calculatedwith reference to ‘present-day social and economic realities’ and what is ‘practicable orgenerally acceptable to the New Zealand public.’84 Nation, as aproject and process, thus restricts the scope for genuine engage-ment with Indigenous claims and ambitions in the settlementprocess. Indeed, the history in Taranaki of ‘justice’ and redress

i Tribunal, WAI758 Te Pakakohi and Tangahoe Settlement Claims Report, Wellington,

otiation Process: Case Studies and Personal Experiences of Various Negotiators on then, 2003; Tofa, Justice in Collaboration? (note 10); Tofa, Unsettling Openings (note 10).

penings (note 10).

aw and Critique 22 (2011) 227e249, 228.re and the Humanities 8 (2012) 485e512.

Zealand Journal of History 45 (2011) 50e70; G. Byrnes and C. Coleborne, Editorial, New Zealand Journal of History 45 (2011) 1e14.te 27).aces in postcolonial politics e reconciliation, belonging and social provision, Progresserventions 13 (2011) 13e30.

s for the foreshore and seabed, Marine Policy 35 (2011) 85e94; D. Short, The social07) 857e876.i’num territory, Canadian Geographer 56 (2012) 398e418; B. Egan, Towards sharednaler, Series B: Human Geography 95 (2013) 33e50.

Table 1Summary of recent Treaty settlements in Taranaki.a

Iwi Settlement negotiations Quantum in New Zealanddollars

Ng�ati Tama Ng�ati Tama Claims SettlementAct (2003)

$14.5 million

Ng�ati Mutunga Ng�ati Mutunga ClaimsSettlement Act (2006)

$14.9 million

Ng�ati Maru No formal agreementsTe Ati Awa Agreement in Principle (2012) $87 millionTaranaki No formal agreementsNga Ruahine Agreement in Principle (2012) $67.5 millionNg�ati Ruanui Ng�ati Ruanui Claims Settlement

Act (2003)$41 million

Ng�a Rauru Kiitahi Ng�a Rauru Kiitahi ClaimsSettlement Act (2005)

$31 million

a OTS claims progress.

M. Tofa / Journal of Historical Geography 46 (2014) 26e35 33

contorted by the demands of the nation appears central to thefailure of previous settlements to achieve their political goals.

Conceptually, the Crown’s enduring commitment to unitarystate sovereignty positions reconciliation and inclusion as thelogical, and indeed only possible, end point of M�aori activism.Throughout this history of settling past grievances, the desiredresult e peaceful coexistence, equitable ‘race relations,’ harmo-nious existence e has always been located within the conceptualambit of absolute Crown sovereignty. This pattern is continued incontemporary settlements that focus on ‘moving on’ and shifting‘our eyes to the challenges of our shared future as New Zea-landers.’85 Thus, Indigenous ambition, difference, and primacy arealways apprehended e both understood and arrested e within theframework of Crown sovereignty over the nation and its territory.86

As a corollary, settlements purport to address the grievancescaused by the Crown and nation in order to affirm and strengthenthe Crown and nation. Projecting and protecting the nation, thus, isnot simply a leitmotif that runs through this history of settlements,it is arguably an ambition that contours what is made possible insettlements e regardless and in spite of a much wider range ofIndigenous ambitions, aspirations and imaginaries.

Organizing the polity

By addressing questions of history and justice, settlements inter-vene in the spatialization and juridification of authority and rightsin relation to land and polity. In Taranaki, broad claims to Crownsovereignty were ultimately realized through the organization ofspecific land rights and boundaries. Indeed, the West Coast Com-mission’s work to resolve the post-war ‘confusion’ enabled thetransposition of boundaries to M�aori land over lived-in and con-tested landscapes. Precisely because the act of delineating Indige-nous land rights restricts the potential for relationships andinterests that extend across landscapes, it also clears the way forcolonial ambitions to fill all other spaces.87 This observation is aptin Taranaki, where the organization of property rights, and the

85 Prime Minister J. Key, Waitangi Day Speech [online], The New Zealand Herald,id¼1&objectid¼10624511 (last accessed 6 December 2013).86 Povinelli, The governance of the prior (note 80).87 R. Howitt, Frontiers, borders, edges: liminal challenges to the hegemony of exclusio88 P. Nadasdy, Boundaries among kin: sovereignty, the modern treaty process, and thStudies in Society and History 54 (2012) 499e532; J. Robbins, A nation within? Indigenous89 Tofa, Unsettling Openings (note 10).90 Nadasdy, Boundaries among kin (note 88).91 Gibbs, Justice as reconciliation (note 3), 27.92 Appendices to the Journals, 1884, A5b (note 49), 2.

Crown’s control over M�aori property, facilitated the conversion of‘wastelands’ to productive pastures. Further, in settlements bothpast and present, reconciling M�aori land claims with financial re-dress has served to secure and strengthen private property rights.Significantly, this commodification of M�aori relationships withland, evident in both early land ‘sales’ and subsequent settlements,obviates deeper consideration of sovereignty and rangatiratanga[self-determination, sovereignty].

Additionally, the Crown’s arbitration of M�aori claims in Taranakihas both simplified and complicated socio-political organizationwithin M�aori communities. From the division of M�aori into ‘loyals’and ‘rebels,’ the individualization of land titles, to the creation ofthe TMTB, interacting with the Crown has frequently impelledreconfigurations of rights and representation for administrativeconvenience. Each of these reconfigurations superimposes a kind oflegibility to Indigenous political organization, integrates Indige-nous polities in the juridical structures of the nation and, ulti-mately, belittles and marginalizes alternative modes of politicalorganization.88 This is perhaps most evident in contemporary set-tlements which require significant bureaucratization of iwi gover-nance prior to negotiations and prior to the transfer of settlementassets.89 Further, the resultant Indigenous organizations are at oncecolonial and Indigenous creations; they embody both empower-ment and subjection.90 The TMTB, for example, established throughthe 1944 settlement, operates according to the Crown’s legalmandates but also represents and advocates M�aori interests. Thecumulative effects of such reconfigurations in the political land-scape, where bodies like the TMTB and Treaty settlement organi-zations exist alongside iwi and hapu [sub-tribe] organizations, isalsoworthy of consideration, especially because the acceptability ofprevious settlements has faltered where M�aori negotiators havelacked cultural or political legitimacy. Settlement processes, thus,have affected shifts in Indigenous geopolitical organization andrepresentation.

Yet perhaps the most important politico-spatial effect of thishistory of settlements in Taranaki is that in each instance the au-thority to recognize Indigenous claimants, their grievances, anddetermine and administer justice is located in the Crown. Thegovernment ‘is both “judge” and “historical wrongdoer,”’ such thatits sovereignty is affirmed even as the means of affecting its sov-ereignty is questioned.91 In 1884, the Leader of the Oppositionstated in his comments supporting the recommendations of thefinal report of the West Coast Commission, ‘We ourselves chosewhat I must call the Judges in this case; we chose the peculiar Courtwhichwas to settle these claims; we chose themanner inwhich thedifferences which had been so long outstanding should be broughtto a close.’92 This statement is equally true for all subsequent in-quiries, and speaks to a fundamental asymmetry in power thatstructures processes of recognition and reconciliation. Successiveefforts to ‘remove grievances’ in Taranaki, therefore, have eachlocated sovereign authority in the Crown, imposing a directionalityto recognition that forces Indigenous ambitions to be articulated inways that are comprehensible to the Crown, and relentlessly

Auckland, 2010. Available at: http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_

n, Australian Geographical Studies 39 (2001) 233e245.e rise of ethno-territorial nationalism among the Yukon first nations, Comparativepeoples, representation and sovereignty in Australia, Ethnicities 10 (2010) 257e274.

M. Tofa / Journal of Historical Geography 46 (2014) 26e3534

reproducing the Crown’s authority to organize space and politywithin the nation.93 Thus, through an engagement with history andgrievances, settlements effectively allocate and cement authorityand rights within the nation.

Reconciling the past, settling the future

The title above comes from the New Zealand Government’s mostrecent guide to the Treaty settlements, and is indicative of howsettlements define the relationship between past, present andfuture in settler-colony states.94 Settlements, and particularly offi-cial apologies, hold events from ‘the past’ for consideration in thepresent, and simultaneously call the nation to look forward to afuture in which the past need not be revisited.95 There are, then,three movements of note here; closure, distancing, and linearity.

Bringing closure to grievances is an important directive in set-tlements. Present day settlements are not the first in Taranaki toclaim to be ‘full and final;’ legislation in 1944 purported to be ‘Insettlement of all claims and demands which have heretofore beenmade or which might hereafter be made’ on the Crown.96 TheWestCoast Commissions (1880, 1884) and the Sim Commission (1928)similarly sought to ‘end’ M�aori grievances. These settlements lookat colonial history in order to close it and thereby free the post-colonial nation from the specter of Indigenous grievances andcolonial excesses. Earlier settlements in Taranaki tended to char-acterize this closure as necessary for the successful development ofthe region, while modern day settlements speak of ‘letting go’ and‘moving on’ to face the world as a nation.97 This imperative to bringclosure to historical critique is also closely linked to the goal ofprotecting the nation through settlements.

A related observation is that settlements are an anxious effort to‘chronologically demarcate’ colonial acts from the postcolonialpresent and future, and in effect ‘re-found’ the nation.98 Theaffectation of distance between the government of the day and theacts committed by former government agents is partially achievedby a focus on unjust past ‘events’ e such as land confiscations andParihaka e that obscures the injustices of colonization, the nation,and its system of governance and sovereignty. This produces a‘quasi-divine Crown’ whose honour and legitimacy remain beyondinterrogation and are dissociated from specific acts committed inits name.99 The simultaneous connecting and distancing of colonialpasts and the future is also expressed through the apparent inau-guration of a better relationship between the Crown and M�aori by‘removing’ grievances. Harmonious and peaceful race relationshave been anticipated in each of the reconciliations in Taranaki, andmodern settlements continue this trend most obviously throughofficial apologies that locate colonial acts in the past and directattention to a shared national future.100

93 Bhandar, Plasticity and post-colonial recognition (note 76); Goldberg-Hiller, Reconc94 OTS, Healing the Past, Building a Future (note 5).95 A.D. Moses, Official apologies, reconciliation, and settler colonialism: Australian inMurphy, Apology, recognition, and reconciliation, Human Rights Review 12 (2011) 47e6996 New Zealand Parliamentary Debates (note 61), Taranaki Maori Claims Settlement Act97 Prime Minister Key, Waitangi Day Speech (note 85).98 Moses, Official apologies (note 95); Byrnes and Coleborne, The utility and futility of99 M. Valverde, The Crown in a multicultural age: the changing epistemology of (post)

100 Moses, Official apologies (note 95); Murphy, Apology, recognition, and reconciliatireconciliation in Australia, Memory Studies 5 (2012) 293e304.101 New Zealand Parliamentary Debates (note 61), 1944, 750 (Mason).102 New Zealand Parliamentary Debates (note 61), 1944, 753 (Corbett).103 OTS, Healing the Past, Building a Future (note 5), 4.104 B. Bhandar, Anxious reconciliation(s): unsettling foundations and spatializing historysovereign exceptions: colonization and the foundation of society, Social and Legal Studie105 Valverde, The Crown in a multicultural age (note 99).

The call to look forward in settlements leads to the observationthat settlements produce a linear narrative of national history.Parliamentary debates on the 1944 settlement, for example, elicitedthe opinion that the legislation ‘has a most interesting, and, in asense, painful origin in the history of our country,’101 and that itwould remove the historical barrier of grievance that existed. Thisclosure so completed, politicians opined that ‘our Maori peoplewill, in the days ahead, take to the fullest degree their place side byside with the Pakeha [white New Zealander] in New Zealand.’102

The historical narrative and apology in the current settlement erasimilarly locate ‘unconscionable actions’ in the past, and seek to‘allow us to leave the past in the past and turn to our new rela-tionship, and our new future.’103 In settlements past and present,therefore, the violent and morally questionable foundations ofnations are simultaneously recognized and positioned as the rootsfrom which postcolonial nationhood grows.104 Notably, the teleo-logical narration of colonial pasts and postcolonial futures alsoweakens the disruptive potential of historical critique and affirmsthe stability and legitimacy of the nation-state as a sovereign entity.

The history of settlements in Taranaki demonstrates the recip-rocal interplay of past, present, and future, and perhaps moreimportantly, the discursive effort to shape and limit this interplay.Temporal organization in settlements emphasizes the distance anddifference of the colonial past rather than its proximity, and pro-duces linear narratives of the nation that directionally link past,present, and future, while also buttressing the future from histor-ical critique. However, the very repetition of settlements reveals thelimitations to this approach, particularly because unjust resolutionsof grievances have themselves become grievances.

Continuities and possibilities in settlements

Holding the contemporary settlements alongside the history ofsettling grievances in Taranaki reveals a substantial tradition ofreconciliations that simultaneously promise and negate a genu-inely postcolonial future, and the constant accretion of coloniallegacies that persist in spite of and because of settlements thatpurport to bring closure to the colonial past. The observation ofimport here is not simply that ‘history repeats’; rather, it is that thepossibilities negotiated in settlements have been, and continue tobe, shaped by particular ideas about nation, sovereignty, authority,and time. This relentless drive to bring closure to colonization, tolook forward (not back), and to continuously (re)produce theCrown’s sovereignty creates colonizing settlements and foreclosesalternatives and possibilities in Taranaki. Reading modern settle-ments in connection to this history of settling also highlights thatthere has been greater flexibility towards the content of settle-ments than with the overall ‘rules of the game.’105

iliation and plasticity (note 77).

digenous alterity and political agency, Citizenship Studies 15 (2011) 145e159; M..1944 (s2).

‘the nation’ (note 78).colonial sovereignty, Social and Legal Studies 21 (2012) 3e21.on (note 95); D. Short, When sorry isn’t good enough: official remembrance and

, Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 22 (2004) 831e845; P. Muldoon, Thes 17 (2008) 59e74.

M. Tofa / Journal of Historical Geography 46 (2014) 26e35 35

Lurking behind these observations of the continuities in settle-ment eras are yet more complex questions about implacable dif-ferences and mutual futures. Recent work on reconciliationsincreasingly advocates open-endedness in place of the conceptualand practical closure that has defined settlements in Taranaki thusfar, and documents an effort to explore the analytic space betweenoptimism and opposition to settlements that meld opportunity andrisk. Legal scholars, for example, have turned toMalabou’s notion of‘plasticity’ to explore possibilities for alternative understandingsand legal forms.106 Geographers and anthropologists have articu-lated calls for a politics of openings and transformation wherebypolitical inclusion does not necessitate political submersion.107

History and memory studies scholarship further contributes a po-sition of selectively affirming and challenging settlement processes,and of simultaneously perceiving a sense of closure to the past andthe impossibility of closing off the past.108 An historically contex-tualized understanding of settlements and grievances in Taranakipoints to the value of exploring these analytic spaces preciselybecause they challenge the established repertoire and conceptual

106 Bhandar, Plasticity and post-colonial recognition (note 76); Goldberg-Hiller, Reconci107 P. Noxolo, P. Raghuram and C. Madge, Unsettling responsibility: postcolonial intervenA nation within? (note 88); M. Ybarra, ‘You cannot measure a tzuultaq’a’: cultural polit108 Moses, Official apologies (note 95); A. Rigney, Reconciliation and remembering: (ho

limits of reconciliation. Indeed, positing settlements as a denoue-ment to postcolonial claims in Taranaki is deeply problematic, inpart because settlements tend to circumvent tricky questions ofsovereignty and self-determination by exchanging money for his-tories of land alienation, yet also because M�aori acquiescence isclosely related to social, economic, and political conditions at thishistorical conjuncture. In Taranaki, specific narratives of history,authority and nation have contoured both the possibilities of set-tlements and the apprehension of Indigenous aspirations, pro-ducing settlements that both assert historical closure andperpetuate grievances.

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank the anonymous reviewers and the journaleditor for their valuable suggestions, and Gretchen Ennis, RichieHowitt, and Sandie Suchet-Pearson who kindly read earlier ver-sions of this manuscript and provided insightful comments.

liation and plasticity (note 77).tions, Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 37 (2012) 418e429; Robbins,ics at the limits of liberal legibility, Antipode 45 (2013) 584e601.w) does it work? Memory Studies 5 (2012) 251e258.