27 Human Rights Commission Tirohanga Whanui | Overview Of Colonisation This section provides context and a brief overview of the impacts of colonisation over Aotearoa’s 182year colonial history – the loss of Māori land, war, and political, cultural and identity marginalisation, the destruction of whānau, and unjust legislation. This history is further expanded in chapters 1-8. Land War The old land claims, surplus land, forced land sales, raupatū land confiscations, and the operation of the Native Land Court (also known as Te Kōti Tangohia - the Land Taking Court) were the main means by which Māori lost possession of their lands, forests, waterways, lakes, rivers, foreshore and seaways. The taking of land and resources by the Crown and settlers robbed Māori of their primary economic base triggering inter-generational destitution and impoverishment, the impacts of which continue to be felt today. The opposite effect was achieved for tauiwi who received Māori resources leading to intergenerational wealth and prosperity at the direct expense of tangata whenua. When Māori resisted, Pākehā Wars on Māori followed in the Wairau, Hutt, Northland, Taranaki, Waikato, Bay of Plenty, East Coast, Central North Island and Parihaka. The intention was to destroy resistance, autonomy, self-determination, the rangatiratanga of chiefs, and the cohesion of Māori society. Arrival of settlers Pākehā were brought into Aotearoa in much larger numbers than conveyed by the Crown at the signing of Te Tiriti o Waitangi (Te Tiriti) and their eventual possession of land was a major factor in the marginalisation of Māori. In 1840 Māori made up 98 percent of the population of Aotearoa, however, within 20 years of signing Te Tiriti, Māori became a minority people in their own land. Political marginalisation Political marginalisation confined Māori to just four seats in Parliament for more than a century when, by population, Māori were entitled to many more seats. Pākehā political institutions did all they could to erode Māori political initiatives like the 1850s Kingitanga, 1890s Te Kotahitanga and the 1990s Māori Congress. Cultural and identity marginalisation Pākehā institutions dismantled Māori culture, one example being an attempt to extinguish te reo Māori. A major activation of the state policy was delivered by teachers who would beat new entrant tangata whenua school children for speaking te reo and encouraged children to inform on each other for speaking te reo in the playground. The twentieth century loss of te reo caused catastrophic harm to the identities of several generations of Māori, doubly alienated from the kupu and kōrero of their ancestors and their non-acceptance in an English-speaking, prejudiced, Pākehā-dominated society.