Land of Milk and Honey?: Making Sense of Aotearoa New Zealand

by Avril Bell (Editor), Vivienne Elizabeth (Editor), Tracey McIntosh (Editor), Duyu (Editor)

Overview

Since colonization, New Zealand has been mythologized as a ‘land of milk and honey'– a promised land of natural abundance and endless opportunity. In the twenty-first century, the country has become literally a land of milk and honey as agricultural exports from such commodities dominate the national economy. But does New Zealand live up to its promise? In this introductory textbook for first year sociology students, some of this country's leading social scientists help us to make sense of contemporary New Zealand. In 21 chapters, the authors examine New Zealand's political identity and constitution; our Maori, Pakeha, Pacific and Asian peoples; problems of class, poverty and inequality; gender and sexualities; and contemporary debates around aging, incarceration and the environment. The authors find a complex society where thirty years of neoliberal economics and globalizing politics have exacerbated inequalities that are differentially experienced by class, ethnicity, gender, sexuality and age. These social divides and problems are at the heart of this text. For sociology students and for a wider audience of New Zealanders, A Land of Milk and Honey? is a lively introduction to where we have come from, where we are now, and where New Zealand society might be headed.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781775589129
Publisher:	Auckland University Press
Publication date:	02/20/2017
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	336
File size:	704 KB

About the Author

Avril Bell is a Pakeha New Zealander and Senior Lecturer in Sociology at the University of Auckland. Her research centres on the legacy of settler colonialism in making sense of Pakeha identities, New Zealand national identity and Maori-Pakeha relations. Her book, Relating Indigenous and Settler Identities: Beyond Domination (2014, Palgrave) extends this focus to make connections between settler colonialism in New Zealand, Australia, Canada and the USA. Vivienne Elizabeth is a Pakeha New Zealander and Associate Professor in Sociology at the University of Auckland. She brings a gendered lens to thinking about contemporary family life in Aotearoa New Zealand. She has researched in two areas: post-separation parenting arrangements and the difficulties mothers, in particular, face in negotiating these arrangements; and relationship transitions, leading to a co-authored monograph, Marriage in an Age of Cohabitation (Oxford University Press), with Professor Maureen Baker. Tracey McIntosh (Tuhoe) is an Associate Professor in Sociology and Co-Director of Nga Pae o te Maramatanga, New Zealand's Maori Centre of Research Excellence. Her teaching and research interests include incarceration, Maori women and prison, Indigenous peoples and the criminal justice system. Matt Wynyard recently completed a PhD in Sociology at the University of Auckland. His research interests include political economy, colonization, agriculture and the environment and the sociology of food. He currently lives in Wellington with his family where he works as an historian.

Read an Excerpt

A Land of Milk and Honey?

Making Sense of Aotearoa New Zealand

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By Avril Bell, Vivienne Elizabeth, Tracey McIntosh, Matt Wynyard

Auckland University Press

Copyright © 2017 The contributors
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-77558-912-9

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CHAPTER 1

Plunder in the Promised Land

Maori Land Alienation and the Genesis of Capitalism in Aotearoa New Zealand

Matt Wynyard

On 19 November 2014, Prime Minister John Key told Northland's Te Hiku Radio that he believed New Zealand had been 'settled peacefully' by the British in the nineteenth century:

When we talk about the Treaty and sovereignty and all those matters, you take a step back and say 'well, what was really happening?' In my view New Zealand was one of the very few countries in the world that were settled peacefully. Maori probably acknowledge that settlers had a place to play and bought [sic] with them a lot of skills and a lot of capital. (Key 2014)

Here the Prime Minister rehearses what is a widely held – and, for some Pakeha no doubt, comforting – claim: that the historical experience of colonisation in Aotearoa New Zealand was comparatively benign. It is a claim that suggests a past, however, that bears little resemblance to the actual history of the colonisation of Aotearoa: a history of conquest, predation and thievery; a history in which force played a crucial role. Indeed, as Weaver (1999, 18) has argued, the very idea of 'settlement' understates the 'aggressive vigour' that was central to the acquisition of Maori land. Nor is the Prime Minister correct in his assertion that settlers brought with them an abundance of capital. On the contrary, much of the capital necessary to the future wealth of New Zealand was already here, in the form of communally owned Maori land. The British settlers who came to these shores in the nineteenth century were, for the most part, poor people. Many were former peasant farmers, driven from their own homes in Britain and stripped of communally held assets and resources by the self-same processes of enclosure and dispossession that would all but destroy Maori society in the late nineteenth century. Far from unique, the broad experience of colonisation in Aotearoa New Zealand typifies the experience of indigenous peoples around the world as Maori were stripped of their land, and the freedoms, rights and possibilities attached to it, and given no option but to join the cycle of capitalism.

The colonisation of Aotearoa in the nineteenth century followed a particular pattern typical in what Pearson (2001) refers to as 'settler societies'. Settler societies, such as Aotearoa New Zealand, Australia and Canada, are the outcome of a specific form of colonisation in which increasingly large groups of people were encouraged to emigrate and settle permanently in a particular territory. Often the initial interest in these territories was for short-term economic gain through, for example, sealing, whaling and fur-trapping. Only subsequently did the idea of permanent mass settlement begin to crystallise (Pearson 2001, 4–5). As Pearson argues, mass colonisation grew out of more limited patterns of settlement, either as British and settler interests sought to extend direct control over the territory, or as a means to allow Britain to rid itself of a poor and potentially revolutionary surplus population (see also Steven 1989).

These kinds of settler societies, based on permanent and massive colonial settlement, required the ongoing political, economic and cultural subjugation of the indigenous population. Indeed, settler societies are those societies 'in which Europeans have settled and where their descendants have remained politically dominant over the indigenous population' (Stasiulis and Yuval Davies as cited in Pearson 2001, 5). The colonisation of Aotearoa was all about achieving, extending and maintaining settler dominance over the indigenous Maori population. The alienation of Maori land was one central mechanism of colonisation, along with 'wholesale destruction and killing' (Savage 2010), summary execution, and the suppression of language, culture and spirituality, through which settlers were able to achieve dominance over Maori.

This chapter tells the story of the systematic dispossession of Maori land in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, a process that established the preconditions necessary for capitalism in Aotearoa New Zealand and contributed to enduring patterns of inequality between Maori and Pakeha that continue to this day. In telling this story, the chapter makes use of Marx's theory of primitive accumulation. In the closing pages of volume 1 of Capital, Marx ([1867] 1976) details the violence that characterises the transition to the capitalist mode of production; and the myriad forms of force, fraud and oppression that establish the conditions necessary to the functioning of capitalist relations. Primitive accumulation describes the process through which various lands and resources hitherto held in common are captured, enclosed and converted into individual private property. The original owners and inhabitants are 'suddenly and forcibly torn' (876) from the land and left with no means of subsistence other than to sell themselves as labour. Marx argues that while capitalism comes into being 'dripping from head to toe, from every pore with blood and dirt' (926), the inherently violent methods of primitive accumulation are often obscured by 'idyllic' accounts of history (874), such as Prime Minister Key's mistaken view that the settlement of Aotearoa New Zealand was peaceful.

In order to tell the story of the genesis of capitalism in Aotearoa New Zealand, I want first to briefly define capitalism as it was revealed through Marx's analysis. Marx understood capitalism as an exploitative relationship between two very different groups of people: the first group being the owners of money and of the means of production and subsistence (i.e., the various tools, farms, factories and raw materials used in production), and the second group being the so-called free workers, those with no means of subsistence other than to sell themselves as labour. There is, Marx ([1867] 1976, 273) argues, nothing natural about this relation: 'Nature does not produce on the one hand owners of money and commodities and on the other hand men possessing nothing but their own labour power. This relation has no basis in natural history, nor does it have a social basis common to all periods of human history.' Rather, Marx contends, this relation had first to be created. Violent methods of primitive accumulation were needed to strip lands and resources away from the many and accrue them in the hands of the few.

For Marx, the basis of the whole process of primitive accumulation is the expropriation of the agricultural producer from the soil. The history of this expropriation 'assumes different aspects in different countries and runs through its various phases in different orders of succession' ([1867] 1976, 876). In chapters 27 and 28 of Capital, Marx details the expropriation of the land from the agricultural population in Britain. Here I detail the expropriation of Maori soil in Aotearoa New Zealand, and the processes through which Maori land came to form the basis of a capitalist economy, creating wealth for many settlers and their descendants, and leaving most Maori with nothing to sell but their own labour (for more on class divisions, see Curtis and Galic in this volume).

Primitive Accumulation Pure and Simple: Cupidity, Conquest, Confiscation

As is typical of settler societies, the initial economic interest in Aotearoa New Zealand was fleeting and lay not in the fat of the land but rather in the fat of the sea. Long before anyone thought of converting communally owned Maori rainforest into pasture for sheep and cattle, sealers and whalers discovered a rich abundance of prey in the waters surrounding these islands. The industrial revolution in Britain fuelled a growing demand for seal and whale oil that was used to light the streets and lubricate factory machinery (Belich 1996, 127). The sealers and whalers who came to Aotearoa in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries did not come as settlers. Rather, the vast majority visited New Zealand only short term, as sojourners, before returning home to Australia, Britain or the United States (see Belich 1996, 127–33). However, a small number of successful whalers such as William Rhodes and Johnny Jones did settle and became increasingly wealthy and prominent (Belich 1996, 133; King 2003, 124). As a result, they were left supremely well placed to prosper once the acquisition of Maori land became a pressing concern. Steven (1989, 27–28) argues that until settlers discovered that pastoral agriculture could yield enormous profits for those who owned the land, it seemed as if peaceful coexistence between settlers and Maori might be possible. As soon as it was discovered that New Zealand's favourable climate allowed for year-round pasture growth, and that wool and meat (and later dairy) could be produced with few resources other than land, settlers wasted no time in contriving ways to separate Maori from their lands (see Wynyard 2016).

Rhodes and Jones were among a small number of wealthy settlers able to exploit a lack of effective Maori resistance in Te Waipounamu (the South Island) and swallow up vast tracts of land into enormous personal estates (see Belich 1996; Eldred-Grigg 1980; King 2003). The introduction of European muskets and diseases had a devastating impact on Maori, reducing both the population and resistance of iwi to colonisation throughout the country. These processes had a particularly devastating impact on Ngai Tahu (Kai Tahu), the principle iwi in Te Waipounamu. As Eldred-Grigg (1980, 10) notes, the Maori population of Canterbury fell from around 4000 in 1800 to just 500 in 1840. Further, 'on the Kaikoura coast where 4000 people had been living as late as 1827, despoliation was so complete that by 1857 only 78 Maori survived there. ... The strength of Ngai Tahu had been permanently broken. Nothing stood in the way of Pakeha land greed' (10).

Into this vacuum stepped a rapacious few. Rhodes established a vast property empire that stretched from Banks Peninsula to North Otago (Patterson 2012). Jones established himself in Otago and Southland amassing an enormous sub-province of 2 million acres stretching from Waikouaiti to Lake Wanaka, before attempting to purchase the entire South Island, Stewart Island and all adjacent islands for a few hundred pounds (Eldred-Grigg 1980, 10–11). Settler governments subsequently ignored the claims of Rhodes and Jones but this type of land-grabbing nevertheless typified the colonial pattern in Te Waipounamu, where much of the land was snatched up into vast private estates.

Te Tiriti o Waitangi (the Treaty of Waitangi), which gave the British Crown exclusive right to purchase any land Maori were willing to sell and guaranteed Maori the undisturbed possession of any land they wished to retain, should have put an end to settler land-grabbing. This was not the case, however. The European settler population grew dramatically in the middle decades of the nineteenth century, from a little over 2000 in 1840 to just short of 80,000 in 1860 (Statistics New Zealand 2006b, table A 1.1), as more and more would-be settlers left Dickens's Britain for the chance of a new life in this supposed land of milk and honey. For settlers the path to prosperity lay in pastoral farming, which required land; land that Maori in Te Ika-a-Maui (the North Island) were increasingly reluctant to sell or lease to the Crown. Many settlers came to see Maori as an obstacle to their prosperity, and so there was a growing pressure to expropriate Maori land by whatever means necessary (Steven 1989, 28–29; Wynyard 2016).

These tensions came to a head in Taranaki on 17 March 1860 after a junior Te Ati Awa chief, Teira, sold land in Waitara to the Crown against the wishes of the senior chief Wiremu Kingi Te Rangitake. This forced a showdown between a settler government intent on confrontation and Te Ati Awa intent on retaining their ancestral lands. As Belich (1996, 229) puts it, 'War ravaged Taranaki in 1860–1861, and erupted anew in 1863 when [Governor] George Grey ... invaded the Waikato heartland of the Maori king movement. Warfare continued until 1872, developing into a bewildering series of intersecting conflicts spread over much of the North Island and involving most Maori.'

The New Zealand Wars involved a level of settler ferocity entirely incongruent with the idea of New Zealand as 'settled peacefully' (for a discussion of the Kingitanga movement, see Walker in this volume). Tony Simpson (1986, 161) argues that settler interests prosecuted the war with a 'ruthless brutality' that shocked even the British Imperial troops called upon to do the settlers' ighting. Eventually these troops, hardened by Britain's imperial adventures elsewhere, 'left the prosecution of the war to the settlers, in disgust at the brutalities the latter were inflicting' (Steven 1989, 29; see also Simpson 1986). Steven (1989, 29) argues that settlers wanted only one thing from Maori, their disappearance altogether, so that their land could be taken and converted into a source of wealth.

As Walker (2004, 129) notes, Maori 'proved a much more formidable military obstacle to the acquisition of land by conquest than anticipated' (see also Walker in this volume). But despite spirited Maori opposition, the better-equipped and more numerous settler forces were able to secure a 'limited but real victory' (Belich [1986] 2015, 200) in the New Zealand Wars. More importantly, in provoking Maori into rebellion, settlers had manufactured a reason to punish Maori, and punish them they did. The key mechanism of punishment was the coniscation of land, facilitated by the 1863 passage of both the Suppression of Rebellion Act and the New Zealand Settlements Act. The former allowed the settler government to punish 'by death, penal servitude or otherwise' (Section II) anyone found to be in rebellion against the Crown, and the latter allowed for the establishment of settlements on any land belonging to Maori in any district where signiicant numbers had 'entered into combinations and taken up arms ... and are now in open rebellion' (Preamble). The ostensible jus-tiication for the Act was the 'protection and security of well-disposed inhabitants of both races' (Preamble). However, the desire for Maori land was palpable in the language of an earlier draft of the legislation, debated in the House of Representatives on 9 November 1863 and reported in both The Press and The New Zealander, which sought to unlock for settlers 'large tracts of land, lying unoccupied, useless and unproductive' (New Zealand Settlements Bill 1863 Preamble).

These large tracts of land were, of course, far from useless to Maori. But for many settlers, land was 'wrongly idle – wasted – until it yielded wealth' (Weaver 1999, 18). The coniscation of vast tracts of the most fertile land in Waikato, Taranaki and the Eastern Bay of Plenty – sometimes not even from 'rebellious' Maori – certainly enabled future generations of settlers to wrestle wealth from the land. Some 1.2 million acres were taken from Maori in Waikato; 1.28 million were confiscated from Maori in Taranaki; and 738,000 acres were seized by the Crown in Tauranga and the Eastern Bay of Plenty (Ward 1973, 177–8). The impact of confiscation on Maori was devastating, yet not as devastating as what would follow – the legal 'purchase' of Maori land 'at the barrel of the gun' (Walker 2004, 129).

Theft Made Legal: The Native Land Court

If the primary objective for which the New Zealand Wars had been prosecuted was, as Walker (2004, 135) argues, 'the assertion of sovereignty and the acquisition of land', then a far more successful mechanism for achieving the same ends was the Native Land Court established in 1865. Belich (1996, 258) contends that '[t]his notorious institution was designed to destroy Maori communal land tenure and so both facilitate Pakeha land buying and "detribalise" Maori'. Given the centrality of land to Maori identity as tangata whenua, the forced conversion of communally held land into individual title was 'the most devastating of all the onslaughts the settlers made on Maori as a people' (Steven 1989, 30; see also Walker 2004, 135–6). Similarly, Tony Simpson (1986, 169) claims that the Native Land Court allowed for confiscation with legal countenance: 'It was in its effects one of the most pernicious measures ever enacted by a settler community to get its hands on the estate of the native population.'

There was, as Walker (2004, 136) points out, 'nothing Maori about the Native Land Court since it was designed for Pakeha purposes of freeing up Maori land from collective ownership and making it available to individual settlers'. To this end, the Court granted tenure of Maori land to small numbers of 'owners', usually ten, who, in theory at least, were trustees for wider tribal interests (Belich 1996, 258; Walker 2004, 136). Legally, however, these ten owners were not bound to their wider iwi or hapu and could dispose of the land as they saw fit. With precious few economic opportunities open to Maori at the time, many of those named as owners on certificates of title were tempted into debt. Maori were, Ward (1973, 185–6) notes, confronted by 'a predatory horde of storekeepers, grog sellers, surveyors, lawyers, land agents and money lenders' all seeking to trap them into debt and then use the debt as a lever to force them off their lands (see also Belich 1996; Walker 2004).

(Continues...)

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Table of Contents

Contents

Introduction Avril Bell,
Part I: Foundations: State and Nation,
1 Plunder in the Promised Land: Maori Land Alienation and the Genesis of Capitalism in Aotearoa New Zealand Matt Wynyard,
2 Rangatiratanga, Kawanatanga and the Constitution Ranginui Walker,
3 We're All in This Together? Democracy and Politics in Aotearoa New Zealand Richard Shaw,
4 Imagining Aotearoa New Zealand: The Politics of National Imaginings Avril Bell,
Part II: New Zealand Peoples,
5 Ka Pu Te Ruha, Ka Hao Te Rangatahi: Maori Identities in the Twenty-first Century Tahu Kukutai and Melinda Webber,
6 Pakeha Ethnicity: The Politics of White Privilege Steve Matthewman,
7 Deconstructing the Big Brown Tails/Tales: Pasifika Peoples in Aotearoa New Zealand Karlo Mila,
8 The Asianisation of Aotearoa: Immigration Impacts Paul Spoonley,
Part III: Social Class and Economic Inequalities,
9 The Land of Me and Money? New Zealand Society under Neoliberalism Louise Humpage,
10 Rich and Poor: Class Division in Aotearoa New Zealand Bruce Curtis and Marko Galic,
11 Poverty in a Land of Plenty: The Poor Will Always Be with Us? Kellie McNeill,
12 Social Mobility in Aotearoa New Zealand in the Neoliberal Era: Increasing or Decreasing? Gerry Cotterell,
Part IV: Genders and Sexualities,
13 We Still Need Feminism in Aotearoa: The Achievements and Unfinished Tasks of the Women's Movement Julia Schuster,
14 Homosexuality in Aotearoa New Zealand: Regulation and Resistance Johanna Schmidt,
15 Man-Up? A Socio-historical Examination of Pakeha and Maori Masculinities Richard Pringle,
16 Gender Inequalities Are a Thing of the Past. Yeah, Right! Vivienne Elizabeth,
Part V: Contemporary Issues and Divides,
17 Ageing Well? Social Support and Inequalities for Older New Zealanders Ngaire Kerse,
18 No Promised Land: Domestic Violence, Marginalisation and Masculinity Vivienne Elizabeth,
19 Locked Up: Incarceration in Aotearoa New Zealand Tracey McIntosh and Bartek Goldmann,
20 The Urban(e) and the Metro-rural in Aotearoa Peter J. Howland,
21 Clean, Green Aotearoa New Zealand? Corrina Tucker,
References,
Contributors,
Index,