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Overview
This poster helped raised awareness of the Ihumātao protest movement in 2019. Ihumātao, the oldest settlement in Auckland, was established by Ngā Oho iwi as early as the fourteenth century. Ihumātao is one of the last original remaining papakāinga in Auckland, and a site of continuous settlement. It is adjacent to the Ōtuataua Stonefields, Māori stone garden mounds that form some of the earliest gardens in Aotearoa.
In 1863, the Crown launched a premediated war against the Kīngitanga movement and its supporters in Waikato and South Auckland, including Ihumātao. Governor George Grey issued a proclamation that required Māori in these areas to take an oath of allegiance to Queen Victoria and surrender their weapons. Those who refused were warned to retire into the Waikato beyond the Mangatāwhiri stream. This signalled the beginning of the Waikato invasion.
The government decided to pay for the war by confiscating vast areas of land in Waikato and south Auckland. Ihumātao was invaded, homes and properties were looted and destroyed, and the land was confiscated as punishment. ‘Generations of Māori were condemned to lives of poverty and landlessness’ (O’Malley, 2019).
Contemporary occupation and protest
Occupation and activism from 2015 has been led by a group of whānau from Ihumātao, following development plans by Fletcher Building to develop high-density housing on the land prompted by the housing crisis in Auckland.
SOUL collective (Save Our Unique Landscape) successfully harnessed the power of older forms of resistance such as hīkoi, occupations and petitions, and communication strategies such as posters and graffiti, while also using new digital platforms and technologies to attract broad support.
This poster uses the Māori concept of the land itself being sacred. The occupiers, represented by the cupped hands, refer to themselves as 'land protectors' rather than the potentially pejorative term 'protestor'. The use of 'protector' also situates the place of this protest within an international Indigenous protest discourse where other Indigenous peoples are referring to themselves as protectors at high-profile protests like Mauna Kea in Hawai’i and Standing Rock in Dakota, United States of America.
Results
In December 2020, the New Zealand government agreed to purchase the land at Ihumātao from Fletchers for $29.9 million. He Pūmautanga, a memorandum of understanding, signed by the Kīngitanga on behalf of mana whenua, the Crown and Auckland Council, sets out how parties will work together to decide the future of the land.
Reference
Vincent O’Malley (27 July 2019). Our trail of tears: the story of Ihumātao. The Spinoff, https://thespinoff.co.nz/atea/27-07-2019/our-trail-of-tears-the-story-of-how-ihumatao-was-stolen/