Crown owes Moriori says tribunal

A failure to stop slavery is found to be a breach of the Treaty of Waitangi. TONY VERDON reports.

The Crown must pay Chatham Islands Moriori compensation for appalling, brutalising slavery under their Maori invaders, the Waitangi Tribunal has recommended.

Its failure to stop the slavery, imposed by two Taranaki iwi who invaded the Chatham Islands in 1835, was a breach of the Crown's obligations under the Treaty of Waitangi, the tribunal says in a long-awaited recommendation released yesterday.

Moriori spokesman Maui Solomon welcomed the historic report as "courageous," particularly because the Government and some Maori had been "sensitive' about the slavery findings.

The tribunal said European accounts showed that after the 1835 invasion of Rekohu (Chatham Islands) by Taranaki iwi Ngati Tama and Ngati Mutunga, Moriori were housed inadequately, forced to undertake "extreme labour," brutalised and, for a time, gratuitously killed at whim.

"They were forbidden to marry or to have children," the report said.

"In 1862, Moriori elders made a plea to the Government for relief, listing the names of 226 killed and 1366 who, they wrote, had died of 'despair.' But the Government did not respond."

Moriori claimed the Crown was in breach of its treaty obligations by failing to take reasonable steps to secure their release from slavery.

The tribunal found that the Crown knew of the plight of the Moriori. There was an official resident on the Chathams and there were many reports on the Moriori's situation, but the Crown did not intervene.

"Despite the difficulties of distance, it was feasible for the Crown to have intervened," the report said.

"A few missionaries ended mainland slavery by moral persuasion alone, and Chathams Maori had special cause to be persuaded by government wishes, for their rights to Taranaki land had been under question since 1844."

That failure, the report said, cost Moriori many lives and prejudiced later land claims.

"The continued survival of the Moriori as a people is now at risk as a result of the loss of people over this time," the report said.

"We recommend compensation with negotiations to that end."

Tribunal chairman Justice Durie said the tribunal had looked carefully at the claim by Moriori and concluded they were Maori, of the same Polynesian stock, but unique as Maori through the development of a distinctive culture.

"The scientific evidence is compelling: Moriori are the same people as Maori but, through isolation, they are unique as a Maori tribe," the tribunal concluded.

Justice Durie said that, with hindsight, the Moriori claim deserved an early hearing in the tribunal's process "for it raised issues at the frontier of our modern government."

"A just conclusion to recent warfare was an issue squarely before Maori and the Governor when the Treaty of Waitangi was signed, and the issue shed light on a major purpose of the treaty: to ensure justice for all people," he said.

Among the report's main findings were that the Native Land Court adopted criteria set by the Crown that were inadequate in treaty terms when it excluded Moriori from ownership of any but the main island, awarding 97 per cent of the land to Ngati Mutunga and only 3 per cent to Moriori.

The tribunal considered the awards were "patently wrong" and that Moriori were entitled to at least 50 per cent.

The ancestral right to land was with Moriori, the tribunal decided. Maori were recent invaders.

It recommended that compensation was due to Ngati Mutunga for the lasting impact of the Crown's policy on tenure reform.

The tribunal has proposed a new indigenous land law for Rekohu, with land titles held in trust by a runanga (committee) which allocated long-term occupation rights.

Mr Solomon thanked the tribunal for an "honest" appraisal. Terrible things had happened but it was time to move on. "I look forward to a journey ahead with the Crown, to build a future for all our people."

Another principal claimant, Denis Solomon, the chairman of the Moriori Tchakat Henu Association of Rekohu, described the report as "a beacon lighting up our future."

It corrected the many hurtful myths about the Moriori people that they had lived with for generations.

The report was a huge step forward in helping Moriori rebuild their mana and their culture, he said.