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Final Thesis Old Problem, New Zealand: An Applied Analysis of the Maori Among Indigenous Peoples by Megan Elizabeth Rohn 2-color (and 4-color process) In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Bachelor of Arts in International Relations Version 1 (“Logo Version”) of the College Mark Version, 2, “Seal Version” of the College Mark Single-color Version 1 (“Logo Version”) of the College Mark Version, 2, “Seal Version” of the College Mark Dark backgrounds (Reversed) POMONA COLLEGE Claremont, California The Twenty-Seventh of April, Two-Thousand and Eighteen Version, 2, “Seal Version” of the College Mark Embossed Version 1 (“Logo Version”) of the College Mark ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Megan would like to acknowledge her friends and new family (whanau) in New Zealand for helping her complete this thesis, especially Lyn Wilson, Maria Amo, Auntie, and Jan and Greg Presland. She would also like to thank Kate Cherrington, Paula Bold-Wilson, Tu Williams, and Matt McCarten for their interviews. An additional thanks to all of these interviewees for agreeing to have their real names in this thesis, since it is not being published at the moment. Furthermore, Megan is grateful to the Pomona College International Relations Department for funding her research, and to Professors Englebert, Gladney, and Marks for guiding her through the process. She is also thankful for the support of her parents and friends in America. 1 TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter 1: Literature Review 1.1 Introduction of Research Question … 1 1.2 Literature Review … 7 Frame 1: Maori with Respect to Pakeha … 12 A Brief History of Maori-Pakeha Relations … 14 Frame 2: Maori with Respect to Other Native Peoples … 16 A Brief History of Native American-European Relations … 18 Additional Contributing Literature … 20 Research Strategy … 23 Chapter 2: Interview Analysis Preface: Analyzing Two Self-Comparing Groups From An External Viewpoint … 26 2.1 Kate Cherrington … 28 2.2 Paula Bold-Wilson … 38 2.3 Lyn Wilson and Maria Amo … 40 2.4 Tu Williams … 51 2.5 Jan and Greg Presland … 57 2.6 Conclusion … 59 Chapter 3: Data Analysis 3.1 Maori and Native Americans vs. Nonindigenous Counterparts … 62 3.2 Maori and Native Americans vs. Global Indigenous Average … 63 3.3 Analysis … 66 Chapter 4: Policy Suggestions Comparative Historical Context … 69 4.1 Self-Governance of Reservations and Continued Land Returns … 72 4.2 Increased Language Nest Funding and Scope … 76 4.3 National Language Week and Further Cultural Integration … 79 4.4 More Effective Representation in Federal Government … 82 4.5 Conclusion … 86 Works Cited … 90 1 CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 1.1 Introduction of Research Question In New Zealand, descendants of the native people are called Maori, and descendants of English colonialists are called Pakeha. When the colonists arrived in New Zealand in 1840, they signed a document known as the Treaty of Waitangi with the Maori people. The British were interested in the Treaty as a means of formalizing their claim over New Zealand so that other European colonial powers could not lay claim to it (Orange). Unlike Australian aboriginal peoples, the Maori of New Zealand spoke one language and were well-learned in musket warfare by the time the British arrived (Ministry for Culture and Heritage 2015). Thus, the colonists were forced to negotiate a treaty, as opposed to simply claiming the continent for themselves as they often did. The Maori chiefs, not all of whom signed the Treaty, wanted to maintain their rights over their land, and some believed that negotiating with the settlers would force tribes to stop fighting amongst each other. The Treaty gave the Crown sovereignty over New Zealand whilst ensuring that Maori retained their rights to own or sell their land and possessions (Orange). While this treaty sounded promising from the outset, the rights of the indigenous peoples were quickly ignored by the British, and soon the Maori were treated like second-class subjects (Allen, 61). Worse still, when citizens compared the Maori and English versions of the Treaty, they realized that the Maori version only promised government (kawanatanga) of New Zealand to the Crown, while the English version gave total sovereignty of New Zealand to Great Britain (Allen, 61). There was no equivalent word or concept for “sovereignty” in Maori, and as such the Maori people had no way to argue on their own behalf about the variation between the two 2 treaties. Colonists used this intentional mistranslation to claim unwarranted authority over the Maori people until New Zealand became self-governing in 1907. Even after 1907, Maori people remained oppressed until the 1980’s when the Treaty of Waitangi was revitalized during the “Maori Renaissance,” which I will address shortly. Subsequently, in the decades since the Renaissance, a popular consensus has developed that Maori are generally better off today than many other indigenous groups, such as the Aboriginal people of Australia, and the Native Americans (Albury 2015, Leahy 2017, Duff 2013, Minorities at Risk 2009). In both of these other groups, substance abuse is more prevalent than the white populations of their respective countries today, their economic wellbeing is significantly worse than that of their white counterparts, and both indigenous populations appear to be much more severely affected by racism than the Maori (Volkow 2014). In America specifically, Native Americans were driven off of their lands by the Indian Removal Act of 1830 and subjected to the “Trail of Tears,” wherein they were sanctioned off to live on reservations (Cherokee Nation 2017). Native Americans are no longer required to live on reservations, but 22 percent still live on these reservations today (US Census Bureau 2016). Although Native Americans are no longer “segregated” from the rest of the country in such an explicit manner, this historical segregation has had lasting impacts on their participation in American society, especially with regards to government. To date, there have only been five Native American senators, and 16 Native Americans in the House of Representatives (Stubben, 172). While this is not necessarily the direct result of past segregation, the historical oppression of Native Americans has certainly not helped them to gain representation in government (Stubben, 172). 3 In contrast, Maori people have had guaranteed representation in the New Zealand parliament since the signing of the Maori Representation Act of 1867 (New Zealand Government 2017). This Act split New Zealand into four major electorates and guaranteed a Maori Member of Parliament (MP) for each electorate. Over time, as population has increased, the country has been re-divided into seven electorates, but the quota system in Parliament still persists. While the government as a source may be self-congratulatory about this quota system, it nevertheless exists and is extremely beneficial to Maori political representation. Numerically speaking, Native Americans only account for roughly two percent of the United States population, whereas Maori people account for over 15 percent of New Zealanders (New Zealand Government 2013; US Census Bureau 2016). This is an extremely significant factor in the political leverage that Maori have in New Zealand, compared with the smaller political influence of the relatively lower percentage of Native Americans in the United States. Furthermore, the Maori have one language which is taught to some extent in a majority of schools, whereas Native Americans have over ten recognized languages, making it more difficult to feel a collective identity from language. One argument as to why Maori have undergone slightly less post-colonial trauma is their distribution and population on the islands of New Zealand, relative to that of America. In the United States, the Native Americans had been living and migrating across the continent for some 13,000 years, giving them time to break off into several distinct tribes and regions with their own languages (Basu 2015). Consequently, when the British colonialists arrived, they thought the Native Americans were all still “savages,” and did not respect any of their claims to the land (Davis 2008). Instead, the colonizers declared the land was theirs because they believed it did not belong to any other particular group, while in reality it belonged to several indigenous groups. 4 In New Zealand, however, the Maori people had only migrated from Samoa and other islands in the late 13th century, whereas Aboriginal people arrived in Australia approximately 50,000 years ago (New Zealand Government 2016; Tobler et. al., 2017). As such, they did not have time to grow apart into as many separate tribes. This meant that when the Dutch and English arrived during the 18th and 19th centuries, they had actual groups with whom they were forced to negotiate, unlike the Aboriginal people of Australia who were spread too thinly to band together and respond to the colonialists’ arrival (Leahy 2017). This is because New Zealand is much smaller than Australia, so the Maori stayed somewhat more concentrated in smaller areas. Additionally, prior to the arrival of the colonialists, the Maori had just undergone the Musket Wars, which helped them understand the use of the forthcoming British weaponry and develop military tactics that the English would not develop until decades later (Ministry for Culture and Heritage 2015). This made them more adept at combatting the British, as Ron Crosby explains in his book, The Musket Wars: A History of Inter-Iwi Conflict 1806-45. Subsequently, the Maori- Pakeha wars that followed were less detrimental to the Maori people than the colonization of America was to the Native Americans (Crosby 312). While Maori people often have lower salaries and higher unemployment than Pakeha, their culture appears to be much more respected, and much of this progress is recent. In the 1970s and 1980s, Maori people staged cultural protests known as the Maori Renaissance and demanded that the Treaty of Waitangi be given more respect (O’Sullivan 2007).
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