Alienation from Land

Te Ao Hou, July 1969, Page 48

Alienation from Land The coming of the European alienated the Maori from his land at increasing speed, culminating in the wars of the 1860s. By the end of this confused conflict in which Europeans fought on one side while Maoris fought on both, the Maori people had been effectively separated from all but a few scattered and relatively inhospitable tracts of land. The most obvious loss has been the economic one, which should not be dismissed as unimportant, as it prevented the Maori from continuing the development of suitable areas (in terms of 19th Century farm technology) for European type farming, an activity which he had begun to carry out on a large scale before the Treaty of Waitangi was signed in 1840. Serious as this economic impoverishment was when it occurred, a more subtle but in the long term more serious loss for the Maori people has been that of individual and group identity which was taken away with the land. It is quite reasonable (at any rate to the European) to contend that the contact with European culture has brought many compensations to the Maori for the loss of his land. Many opportunities apparently exist which his own culture could not provide; greater awareness of the outside world, a marked increase in the volume of material goods, personal independence, relatively greater security; these four would no doubt be high on any list compiled by a European.