November 06, 2012
Parihaka invasion prelude to legal assault on Rohe Potae
Maniapoto claimants have gathered in Te Kuiti to begin one of the last large historical investigations to be heard by the Waitangi Tribunal.
Lawyer Annette Sykes says the Rohe Potae claims have been six years in preparation, and the tribunal has weekly hearings over the next 14 months to get through the weight of evidence.
She says it was significant as it started on the anniversary of the 1881 sacking of Parihaka, where many Maniapoto people were living at the time.
It was after that assault on Māori resistance to land sales that the Crown was able to make incursions into the King Country.
"From the 1840s to the early 1880s this was essentially the King Country and by various means of applications to newly-established Māori land court regimes those boundaries were eroded and the collectivity of the people undermined," Ms Sykes says.
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