On 6th February 1840, as everybody knows, Captain William Hobson, RN, succeeded in getting 52 Maori chiefs (by his count) to sign a document in the Ngapuhi dialect, by which, in essence, they agreed to transfer such sovereignty as each possessed completely and for ever to the Queen and in return all their people (all slaves included) received all the rights of the people of England. All well and good, we may say.
Well, what about all the other chiefs and tribes in our far-flung islands, many of whom knew little, if anything, of activities in the extreme northern peninsula? Nothing which happened there could in any reasonable sense be claimed to have affected them, their tribal hierarchy and customary rights.
Lord Normanby, British Colonial Secretary (and Stephen who drafted his brief for Hobson) realized this, stating in it: “we acknowledge New Zealand as a sovereign state so far as is possible. in favour of numerous petty tribes who are incompetent to act or even deliberate in concert.”[i]
And so, as Hobson remarked
after his success on 6th February: “The treaty, which forms the basis of my
proceedings, was signed at Waitangi on 6th February, 1840, by 52 chiefs ...
This instrument I consider to be de facto the treaty, and all the signatures
that are subsequently obtained are merely testimonials of adherence to the
terms of the original document.”[ii]
Well, Hobson certainly had a point there. Consider this. Every one of the eight sheets which are or purport to be copies of the original treaty text (seven in the Ngapuhi dialect, plus Freeman’s fake in English, utilised at Waikato Heads) state: “done at Waitangi this sixth day of February” (in its language, with slight variations) BUT none of them was actually signed there on that date and they cannot properly be certified as being so.[iii] As such they are not correctly executed legal documents.
In particular, Freeman’s
purported “Treaty in English” used to gather signatures at Waikato Heads, is
not a properly executed legal document and cannot therefore be accepted as “The
Treaty in English” in any statutory record or law. Hobson was right: it was merely one of many
used to affirm “adherence to the terms of the original document”.
* * *
* *
While Hobson’s emissaries did a remarkable job in collecting in total the assent of more than five hundred chiefs as far south as the isolated Ruapuke Island,[iv] he did not attempt to get signatures from every tribe. None were obtained in most of Taranaki because the area had been denuded of population by the ravages wrought by the Waikato tribes.[v] None were gathered from the warlike but isolated Tuhoe because Hobson did not have sufficient military strength to guarantee his emissaries’ safety.[vi] Te Whero Whero did not sign because, as he said, it would “place him beneath the feet of a woman”, “though ... manifest[ing] no ill-will to the Government.”[vii] (An associate signed for him!)
The simple fact is that an overwhelming majority of Maori chiefs agreed to cede such sovereignty as each possessed to the Queen, in return for obtaining for their people the full rights of the people of England.[viii] With this support, on 21st May 1840, Hobson formally declared British sovereignty over all the islands of New Zealand and that was that! As T.L. Buick, acknowledged doyen of treaty writers, said in 1914, “Britain’s right to colonise and govern New Zealand was incontestable before the world.” The so-called “Treaty of Waitangi” had done its job and might then have become a respectable footnote to history.
This had been confirmed in no uncertain terms by a unanimous declaration of more that one hundred chiefs at Kohimarama in August 1860. and again by Sir Apirana Ngata in 1922.[ix] Nevertheless, when I drew her attention to this evidence, Dame Anne Salmond replied “No professional historian would take that as definitive evidence of Maori understandings in 1840”.[x] Really? Yet the Waitangi Tribunal and others accept the uncorroborated hand-me-down tales of generations of old Maoris as the Gospel truth.
Something is surely rotten in the state of ... ????
References:
[i] Lord
Normanby, British Colonial Secretary: Hobson’s written instructions, 14 August
1839 (a précis)
[ii] T.L. Buick,
“The Treaty of Waitangi, 1914, p.162, see Doutré, “The Littlewood
Treaty”,ISBN0-473-10140-8
[iii] In
some cases, but not all, British witnesses noted subsequent dates of signing
[iv] Where the
important chiefs Tuhawaiki (Bloody Jack), Kaikoura and Taiaroa signed.
[v] So much
for the recent distorted depiction in the cathedral there of subsequent
hostilities!
[vi] A
situation exploited to the full in recent times and accepted by weak and
compliant governments
[vii] H.E.R.L.Wily,
1938
[viii] No more, no
less!!!
[ix] References
available
[x] A.Salmond,
email to me, 24 August 2010.
Bruce Moon is a retired computer
pioneer who wrote "Real Treaty; False Treaty - The True Waitangi
Story".
9 comments:
When history is re-written ( as is the current case), one can know the situation is very serious indeed.
' Te Whero Whero did not sign because, as he said, it would “place him beneath the feet of a woman”,
It would appear that The Whero Whero wasn't the brightest bulb on the tree. Otherwise he would have understood the treaty gave him a seat next to the most powerful lady in the world.
Salmond’s remarks are very odd. Why would she dismiss the Kohimarama chiefs and Sir Apirana Ngata? Why is their knowledge not credible?
We have a lot of Reversionists telling us what is wrong with the colonials and what the Treaty of Waitangi really really says despite it words which few (except Joseph Mooney). What exactly do the Reversionists see New Zealand politics and society looking like if they get their agenda in place? How will NZ actually function? What is their vision of a functioning future?
Addendum: it appears Joseph Mooney has actually read the Treaty in particular the Maori version, which few to none of the Reversionists and followers have.
NZ had been declared British sovereignty under the 'Law of Nations' six months before the first signature appeared on the Treaty. British sovereignty was established by the 1839 Royal Charter/Letters Patent. This royal charter also placed NZ under the laws/dependency of New South Wales until May 1841.
New Zealand's true founding document and first constitution is the 1840 Royal Charter/Letter Patent.
Hobson declared sovereignty over the North Island by Treaty and the South Island by discovery (Law of Nations)
Salmond is controlled opposition.
This is incredibly important and throws into doubt all the bullshit our Govt (whether it be Labour or previous National based) has espoused and/or entrenched. This needs immediate review and, as I expect, correction. If correct, as I fully expect it is, it places He Puapua firmly in the dustbin rather than at the forefront of where our politics are currently at. Thank you, Bruce, for bringing it to our attention. Now if only someone in the msm would pick it up and run with it?
You state that the Treaty signed at Waitangi on Feb 6th 1840 is the only correctly executed legal document and the others cannot be accepted in law. Of course none of them form part of NZ’s laws, however that doesn’t mean that copies of the treaty were invalid. As you adequately explain it was impossible to get all chiefs in NZ to attend on 6th Feb, so copies were taken around the country for signings. The signatories were not attesting that they were signing at Waitangi on 6 Feb, but were agreeing to the contents of the treaty ORIGINALLY signed at that date and place. This also included the only known version of the Treaty in English that was signed at Waikato Heads by about 30 chiefs.
Today a legal document would require a signature and date of signing. In 1840 some chiefs didn’t even have a signature (and used markings), let alone a calendar.
A great post Bruce, I greatly respect your views. But I do wonder the wisdom of debating the Treaty at the academic level, even though arguing who did what to whom and when, may be very interesting. I feel we lose the bigger picture in focussing too closely on the detail. We need some wider context.
Could I suggest Britain in the early 19th century was, like most of the major European countries, reaching the end of a phase commenced near 1600 whereby marine technology was such that they all spread out across the globe establishing trading posts and colonies, where they could get away with it. 1816 marked the end of the Napoleonic war and having established new convict settlements in Australia, after losing North America c1780 it seems apparent Britain was quite happy to pass on adding distant NZ to its portfolio. But in the face of pressure from a mixed group of developers, real estate salesmen and idealistic missionaries, they sent a rather junior naval officer out to see if they could satisfy all the competing cliques without upsetting the natives too much.
I imagine that, had said tribal folk been talking with one another rather than fighting, and had they thought deeply, they probably would have told Hobson to..."naff off"!
The agreement they all signed over a meal and issue of gifts was clearly important at the time but the vigour of the land sharks, the timeliness of significant emigration from Britain, and the increasing utility of sea travel all resulted in the obvious "development" we can note from the mid 19th century onwards.
One can assume a good mix of goodwill, skulduggery and haphazard planning (on the part of both immigrant and native population)
The one really good thing Briatain brought to the table was the (evolving) rule of law. When the King movement tried to apply traditional methods of land tenure by
force of arms, they, well, basically lost. Certainly there was plenty of anger, provocation, and general ill will but Tuku and his Tainui mates should be glad that the Waikato River is not called Cameron River and that his tribe were not taken into slavery, exile or worse.
Over recent years Parliament has tried hard to "balance the books" a little, perhaps praiseworthy, but the point I am trying to make is that the "good and the bad" was global. It continues today with "green shoots" of Kiwi ingenuity largely being snuffed out in the march of global economics. The world of Africa and Asia is on the move with millions travelling to Europe and North America. Like the other tiny nations of the Pacific, NZ doesn't need to worry about armed invasion,...we are rapidly being bought out with created international currencies.
Nice to talk about the "Tiriti" Bruce, but there are much bigger things afoot.
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