Stratford Mountain House - Stratford Mountain House 998 Pembroke Road

Ngati Ruanui and the Land Wars

Ngati Ruanui resisted the sale of land at the time of early European settlement and in the 1850s made a pact with the other iwi of Taranaki and elsewhere to oppose further land sales.

By 1860 no Ngati Ruanui land had been sold and they provided active support to Te Atiawa and Nga Rauru in resisting land sales particularly the sales of blocks at Waitara and Waitara.

Resistance to the survey of the Pekapeka block at Waitara was deemed an act of rebellion by the Crown and they commenced hostilities in the province in 1860 resulting in Ngati Ruanui entering the war on the side of the non-sellers.

That phase of the land wars ended in 1861, but just two years later fighting flared up again and spread to South Taranaki during which the Crown troops occupied the land without formal confiscation or purchase. (Confiscations were proclaimed later in 1865, including the confiscation of 352,000 acres of Ngati Ruanui and Nga Ruahine land).

The land wars continued and a scorched earth campaign was ramped up by the Crown troops resulting in Maori villages and crops being levelled as the Crown sought to reduce the fighting ability of those they considered rebels. These campaigns resulted in much loss of life and property for Ngati Ruanui.

In 1865 the mountain was confiscated from Maori by the New Zealand Government under the powers of the New Zealand Settlements Act 1863, ostensibly as a means of establishing and maintaining peace amid the Second Taranaki War. The legislation was framed with the purported intention of seizing and dividing up the land of Maori “in rebellion” and providing it as farmland for military settlers. The mountain was confiscated despite clear evidence it was unusable for farming and otherwise uninhabitable.

At the end of the land war in 1869, some 233 Pakakohi men, women and children of Ngati Ruanui surrendered following promises they would not be killed, however 96 were tried for treason and 74 sentenced to death. These death sentences were subsequently commuted to 3 to 7 years’ imprisonment in the South Island. The prisoners experienced very harsh conditions resulting in 18 men dying before the release of the remaining prisoners 3 years later.

Compensation and Settlement

The compensation process under the New Zealand Settlements Act 1863 for lost lands was faulted from the start in that Maori who took part in the land wars or supported those in the land wars were excluded from compensation. By 1880 recompense had been awarded to only 4% of Ngati Ruanui claimants. While the West Coast Commission was appointed to remedy the wrong doing the purchase of land continued both within the confiscation area (where often money was paid but no deed of sale drawn up) and outside the confiscation boundary without a full investigation of customary title.

Ngati Ruanui were also involved in the acts of passive resistance of land acquisition organised by Parihaka prophets Te Whiti and Tohu resulting in the 1881 sacking of the site by 1,500 Crown troops and expelling from the settlement some 1,600 men, women and children.

A few years later the West Coast Commission finalised the return of limited land to iwi in Taranaki but done so under individual title and placed under the control of the Public Trustee. Much of this land was farmed by settlers under perpetually renewable leases at non market rates. Additionally because of the ability of the Public and Maori Trustees to alienate certain types of land over 60% of the ‘returned’ land was sold by 1974.

The Sim Commission of 1926-27 investigation of the land confiscation was also limited and it recommended an annuity of 5,000 pounds to compensate all of the iwi of Taranaki for lost land.

A further one off sum of 300 pounds was also paid to compensate the loss of property at Parihaka and both these payments were enshrined in the Taranaki Maori Claims Settlement Act 1944 which states that Maori had agreed to accept the sums as full settlement for the confiscations of land.
The mountain was returned to the people of Taranaki in 1978 by means of the Mount Egmont Vesting Act 1978, which vested it to the Taranaki Maori Trust Board. By means of the same Act, it was immediately passed back to the Government as a gift to the nation.

The Waitangi Tribunal, in its 1996 report, Kaupapa Tuatahi observed: “We are unaware of the evidence that the hapu agreed to this arrangement. Many who made submissions to us were adamant that most knew nothing of it.” 

In acknowledging prior unfair settlements for land confiscation and treatment the Crown have recently renegotiated settlements with iwi with Ngati Ruanui being one of the earliest to agree to a settlement in 2007.