Claire Charters has said it quite often – so often in fact that she probably believes it now herself– that the Maori chiefs never ceded sovereignty to Queen Victoria and definitely not in the Treaty of Waitangi.
Maybe she learned this tale from another part-Maori Associate Professor, Sandy Morrison of Waikato University who asserted that “Te Tiriti speaks of the chiefs maintaining their tino rangatiratanga (authority) over their taonga (all they hold precious including the Maori language). The chiefs do allow the Queen to have kawanatanga, a nominal and delegated authority so that she can control her people.”[1] Fancy that – a bunch of petty chiefs ridden with mutual hatred “do allow” the most powerful woman in the world to do something!! Maybe she’s not the expert authority!
So what was the Treaty really about? Did Hobson really come halfway around the world with a 4200-word brief from the British Colonial Secretary to indulge in no more than a paper exercise? Claire Charters appears to think so.
New Zealand was not of course unfamiliar with paper exercises – the so-called “Declaration of Independence” of 1835 being a glaring example[2], now being flogged by racist part-Maori revisionists for all they think it is worth. But we’ll let that pass for the moment.
And so to Waitangi on 5th February 1840. Now what was said on that day was very fully recorded by Colenso and checked by Busby[3] at the time, though never, as far as I can ascertain, quoted by any of today’s racist revisionists. What that account makes very clear is that the chiefs, by their own words, understood that by signing the Treaty document they would become subordinate to the Governor – Hobson – and hence, only more so, to the Queen to whom Hobson himself was of course subordinate.[4] Simply stated, they knew that each would cede such sovereignty as he possessed – no doubt at all about it![5] They signed.
And they did not forget that they had done so either. I remind Professor Charters and others who appear to have forgotten if indeed they ever read them, that the minutes of the great Kohimarama conference of 1860 concluded with several motions, passed unanimously by more than one hundred senior chiefs present, thus:
“That this Conference takes cognizance of the fact that the several chiefs, members thereof, are pledged to each other to do nothing inconsistent with their declared recognition of the Queen’s sovereignty and of the union of the two races, also to discountenance all proceedings tending to a breach of the covenant here solemnly entered by them.”
Well, that’s pretty clear, isn’t it, even if a bit wordy in the fashion of the age?! Does Professor Charters even know about it? If so, she would no doubt agree with another naysayer, Dame Anne Salmond, who responded to me when I drew it to her attention: “No professional historian would take that as definitive evidence of Maori understandings in 1840.”[6] Why on earth not? This is paternalistic, ridiculous, and demeaning. Pre-European Maoris, with no written language of their own, had well-trained memories. At least some of that skill must surely have been retained by attendees at Kohimarama. One indeed was Waka Nene who had played such a prominent part in supporting Hobson on that fateful day at Waitangi.
And so, with the virtually unanimous agreement of the chiefs at Waitangi to cede such sovereignty as each possessed, Hobson and his emissaries proceeded to negotiate further with North Island chiefs and with rare exceptions they signed. Despite Hobson’s severe stroke on 6th March and the difficulties of making their way through a land devoid of all but the most primitive means of travel, they were remarkably successful. Of course there were exceptions – in Taranaki, so denuded of population by the brutal Waikato tribes’ recent slaughter and slavery – in the Urewera country whose remoteness made it hazardous to enter.
Accordingly, on 21st May 1840, Hobson proceeded to declare British Sovereignty over the North Island by right of cession and the South and adjacent islands by right of discovery. The distinction is easy enough to ascertain. Hundreds of North Island chiefs had ceded their sovereignty[7] but South Island ones were yet to be approached. Most of the South was deserted in any case!
Hobson need not have worried. Nine chiefs signed at Cloudy Bay and also Joseph Thomas whose father-in-law Nohoroa insisted that he do so. Senior chiefs Tuhawaiki (Bloody Jack), Kaikoura and Taiaroa signed at Ruapuke, almost as far south as one could get,[8] “On Tuesday the 9th” by Bunbury’s account.[9] The evidence shows clearly that southern chiefs were just as ready as those in the north to accept British sovereignty.
There is other evidence from keen observers. Rev. Samuel Warren was one. Writing in 1863, Warren, who had been present at Waitangi and also at the major meeting at Hokianga a few days later wrote: “There was a great deal of talk by the natives, principally on the subject of securing their proprietary rights to the land and their personal liberty. Everything else they were only too happy to yield to the Queen. ... because they knew that they could only be saved from the rule of other nations by sitting under the shadow of the Queen of England. ... [They] perfectly understood that by signing the treaty they became British subjects, and though I lived amongst them for fifteen years after the event, and often conversed with them on the subject, I never saw the slightest reason to change my opinion. The natives were at the time in mortal fear of the French[10] and justly thought they had done a pretty good stroke of business when they placed the British lion between themselves and the French Eagle.” That’s clear enough to most people, isn’t it?
But to Claire Charters ...
In “E-Tangata” for 30 October 2022 in which she chooses to describe our country by the fake name of “Aotearoa”[11], Charters described several ways in which sovereignty could be acquired. Deducing “in my view” “that sovereignty was legally acquired by the Crown simply by the unilateral declaration of sovereignty” ... “seems to be the most honest assessment” which “might” ... “be described as illegally legal.” She continues by quoting Professor Bruce Harris [who] “succinctly puts it, [that] it remains ‘unclear how legal sovereignty passed.’” Well now, if Professor Harris would just read the sequence of events we outline above (and succinctly enough, we hope), he would find out quickly enough “how legal sovereignty passed.”
At this point Charters seems to believe that she has established a “myth that has endured ... that the Crown does have sovereignty.” Well now, if Charters would also read the evidence outlined above, (surely not beyond a Professor of Law) she would also find out that indeed the chiefs freely ceded sovereignty and, in Warren’s words quoted “justly thought they had done a pretty good stroke of business [while I] never saw the slightest reason to change my opinion.”
But to Charters: “legal myths that perpetuate should be exposed and dispelled, and the injustice remedied. This is the situation we’re confronted with in Aotearoa New Zealand.” Since in reality there is no evidence of any “fundamental injustice” in the abundantly transparent and well-established procedures by which the chiefs ceded sovereignty and attained for themselves and their tribes (women and slaves included) “the rights and privileges of British subjects,”[12] there are no “legal myths” to be exposed except those perpetuated by Charters and her fellow-travellers.
Charters then chooses to discuss “how tikanga Māori addresses the question of sovereignty” by which, she alleges that “it becomes clear that we’re allowing our myth-making to perpetuate injustice” and “texts by Māori experts, in Waitangi Tribunal submissions, hearings and reports, especially in Wai 1040, there is an uncontested conclusion that the Crown did not, and could not, acquire sovereignty under tikanga Māori.”
All this is fake, false, irrelevant and, in my view, mischievous at best.
However, Charters is barely in full flight yet! Fiercely believing, as she so evidently does, that “[i]f we are to take Māori retention of tino rangatiratanga seriously, take our international obligations seriously and attach importance to the western liberal thinking on the need for consent, it becomes clear that constitutional reform in Aotearoa requires something transformative.[13]
We see at once in Charters’ words, the trick which also appears in the 1975 “Treaty of Waitangi Act” of slipping into a sentence otherwise in English, an expression apparently in Maori, viz: “tino rangatiratanga” which actually does appear in the Treaty of Waitangi. But do Charters and (the late) Matiu Rata, sponsor of that Act, really believe there does not exist a word/in English expressing precisely what they mean by this usage? If not, why not?? Indeed, one may suspect a dubious motive here!
We look a little more deeply into this, quoting King’s “The Penguin History of New Zealand[14].
“The modern Maori concept of tino rangatira[15], which we would recognise as corporate[16] tribal authority, developed because the Westminster parliamentary system of one person – one vote – could not co-exist with the mid-nineteenth century concept of chiefly[17] authority ... This of course means that the tino rangatiratanga which the Treaty promised to protect is not the tino rangatiratanga modern Maori seek to have delivered.”[18]
The “modern Maori” to whom King refers is truly epitomised by Ms Charters whom we quote above – with one quarter Maori descent, she would not even be recognized legally as a Maori before the Treaty of Waitangi Act 1975 chose to “redefine” one by a meaningless circular definition.[19] For her representation of her reality to work, Maoris and non-Maoris would have had to remain perpetually separate as two peoples with two cultures, a palpable absurdity since the earliest days of European settlement.
Well, what about the actual Treaty?
The expression “tino rangatiratanga” occurs just once in the actual treaty, in Article second (Ko Te Tuarua) which refers to “nga Rangatira ki nga hapu-ki nga tangata katoa o Nu Tirani te tino rangatiratanga o ratou wenua etc.” This wording was the Williams’ translation of Hobson’s “the chiefs & tribes and to all the people of New Zealand the possession of their lands etc.” “[T]ino rangatiratanga” = “possession”!
Note very carefully too that this says explicitly “nga tangata katoa” - unequivocally “all the people” and “all” means “all” not only Maoris.[20]
“tino rangatiratanga”; “possession” ??? Well, yes, unequivocally. Now of course, the derivation of this expression is pretty obvious, based on the fact that in Maori society individual possession of property was rare and usually the prerogative only of chiefs. Their language did not possess a word simply equivalent to English “possession”. So, like it or not, “tino rangatiratanga” in the Treaty of Waitangi guaranteed personal possession of property to all, settlers and Maori alike – no longer to be transferred by inter-tribal warfare – democracy at work domestically![21]
And so it becomes glaringly obvious that Charters’ assertion: “[i]f we are to take Māori retention of tino rangatiratanga seriously, take our international obligations seriously and attach importance to the western liberal thinking on the need for consent, it becomes clear that constitutional reform in Aotearoa requires something transformative” is at best, Shakespearean tragedy; in reality, raw racially based political rhetoric with potentially catastrophic consequences. It should be treated with the contempt it deserves at best, perhaps with ridicule if not with alarm.
At this point, Charters’ arguments degenerate into an extravagant political wish list including, for example “exclusive authority over ... distinctly Maori areas including territories currently in the conservation state such as rivers and mountains.”[22] “Distinctly Maori areas??” New Zealanders – do not kid yourselves. If you do not speak up and resist such gross political ambitions, you will lose a lot more than you realize.
We have had earlier occasion to point out the persistent propaganda – for it can hardly be called anything else – promulgated by this articulate woman. She used the prestigious occasion of the Bruce Jesson Memorial Lecture in just this way. We have drawn attention to her earlier efforts elsewhere.[23]
Thus in “Newsroom” “ideasroom” for 25 June 2020 she claimed “First, under New Zealand’s founding constitutional document, te Tiriti o Waitangi, Maori and the Crown share authority to govern the lands, territories, resources and peoples of Aotearoa New Zealand. Maori continue to exercise rangatiratanga Maori. The Crown ... exercises kawanatanga. Rangatiratanga Maori is reinforced by the international legal right to self-determination under the UN’s Indigenous Declaration”.
It would indeed be hard to find a more egregious example of treaty-twisting than this. Note again the common trick of inserting apparently Maori terms “rangatiratanga” and “kawanatanga” in a statement otherwise in English, notwithstanding that these terms were devised by Busby and Henry Williams in default of existing Maori words, creating rights for Maoris the same as for all other citizens of New Zealand. Thus “[K]awanatanga” was the Williams’ translation of Hobson’s “sovereignty” (albeit misspelt by Busby!) and “rangatiratanga”, not followed by “Maori” but preceded by “tino” of “possession”, affirmed to “tangata katoa o Nu Tirani”, emphatically “all the people of New Zealand” in the Treaty.
Blatant though these examples may be, Charters deviates further by referring to the “UN’s Indigenous Declaration” in which she makes the grossly false presumption that Maoris are indigenous to New Zealand.[24]
But it doesn’t stop there because we have a Stuff report on 24 July 2023 that “New Zealand gets mixed report card on indigenous rights” in which it says “The Human Rights Commission has filed a mixed report card to the United Nations on New Zealand's commitment to indigenous rights.”
Indigenous rights?? Well there might be a few indigenous people left in New Zealand, their forebears having survived the devastation and slaughter they endured from the Maori invaders around 1350AD. There is strong evidence including DNA composition that the Ngati Hotu[25] are such people but we don’t think these are the people the Commission had in mind!
But, on the fundamentally false assumption that Maoris are “indigenous”, we have Waimahia Maniopoto-Love, the commission’s Kaitahutahu Rangatahi, (whatever that is) addressing “a UN expert group in Geneva”.[26] and saying (as reported) that “there have been periods of good progress towards tino rangatiratanga alongside periods of inactivity.”
Well, here it is again – slipping in that apparent Maori expression, “tino rangatiratanga”, in a sentence otherwise in English.
Well, yes, “tino rangatiratanga” did indeed appear in one place in Article second of the Treaty of Waitangi, as the Williams’ translation of Hobson’s “possession” - of individual property – but get this: it was guaranteed to “tangata katoa o Nu Tirani” and that unequivocally means “all the people of New Zealand”! In short it has always applied, not to Maoris alone but to everybody. And get this too – it is an English word reproduced in constructed Maori to represent an English law concept in order to extend it to Maoris to ensure all New Zealanders had the same rights! Let there be no doubt: it was never a Maori word representing a Maori concept.
So what was Maniapoto-Love up to in referring to it in addressing “an UN expert group in Geneva”? “Expert” indeed it may have been in many things and languages but, we suggest, utterly dependent upon the Human Rights Commission's Maori delegates for the meaning of “tino rangatiratanga”. But “good progress towards it” and “periods of inactivity” hardly tallies with mere “possession”. We suspect a very different interpretation being placed upon it!
So what did Maniapoto-Love mean by “tino rangatiratanga”? Did he mean “unqualified acceptance of ... chieftainship” as in Kawharu’s translation, used in New Zealand Cabinet deliberations, but described by Parkinson as “not merely erroneous but preposterous”?[27] Parkinson noted further that “tino rangatira” did not become common usage after 1840, “a single late and remarkable exception” being its use in petition by some Rotorua residents as a title for Queen Victoria” and that the Queen being so addressed “tends to show that activist appropriation of the term in the 1980s and following rests on unstable ground”[28]..
May we count Maniapoto-Love amongst the appropriating activists?
At this point, re-enter Claire Charters, the commission's “Rongomau Taketake” (our “Indigenous Rights Governance Partner”) concerning certain legislation passed by Parliament in December last year of which details need not concern us here. To Charters however, “Such action contravenes our nation's founding constitutional agreement, Te Tiriti o Waitangi, fundamental human rights, and “Indigenous Peoples' rights under the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.” Fake “indigenous rights” are the basis of “co-governance”, so blatantly sought by racist revisionists today. “Co-governance” requires not one nation but two; it is disingenuous to refer to ‘our nation”. Reference to “Indigenous Peoples' rights” is irrelevant in New Zealand. “Te Tiriti” was in the 1877 opinion of Chief Justice Sir James Prendergast a “simple nullity” and in any case there is nothing in it to bind Parliament today. It had done its job in May 1840 when Hobson affirmed British sovereignty over all the islands of New Zealand. He did of course assert sovereignty over the South Island “by right of discovery” as we have seen but had he waited a little longer, he could have asserted “cession” comparably with the North. Sick and understaffed, he chose an easier course which simply cannot have made any practical, legal or constitutional difference. A song and dance about that by Charters or anybody today is absurd.
But she, unsurprisingly, echoes the “National Iwi Chairs Forum” asking “for states to formally repudiate the doctrine of discovery” asserting the gross falsehood that “this doctrine provided that upon arriving in new territories, European nations automatically acquired sovereignty over the Indigenous Peoples and legal rights to their lands”; irrelevant and not remotely like the British kid-glove approach to negotiating with the chiefs in New Zealand where in any case, indigeneity did not apply.
In full flight, Charters concludes with “In Aotearoa, the Crown proclaimed its sovereignty using a combination of direct references to this doctrine, as well as an alleged cession of sovereignty by Māori under Te Tiriti o Waitangi” and “until the doctrine is formally repudiated, and Aotearoa's constitution is transformed to give meaningful effect and protection to Te Tiriti and Indigenous rights, a breach of its obligations to recognise and protect Māori self-determination will remain” - surely the New Zealand equivalent of pork barrel politics at its most extreme – plain garbage in our vernacular!!
Bruce Moon is a retired computer pioneer who wrote "Real Treaty; False Treaty - The True Waitangi Story".
[1] “Waikato Times”, 1 December 2017.
[2] Now in a flash cabinet costing taxpayers rather more than $7million, along with the rat-eaten original treaty document. Only fools and schoolchildren will be fooled on that account.
[3] W. Colenso, http://www.waitangi.com/colenso/colhis1.html
[4] At a recent seminar attended by myself, sponsored by the Nelson Institute, Graeme Ball, responsible for introducing the revisionist new history syllabus to schools, was the speaker. He drew on his blackboard a diagram showing the chiefs and governor as equals under the Queen. This was entirely untrue and contrary to the chiefs' own statements.
[5] Indeed, Te Wherowhero, one of a handful of chiefs who refused to sign the Treaty, declined because it would “place him beneath the feet of a woman”.H.E.R.L Wily, “Robert Maunsell. A New Zealand Pioneer”,1983p69
[6] Personal communication, 24 August 2010
[7] A few Northerners were yet to come. Seven signed at Tamaki on 9th July and three at Russell on 5th August
[8] Or more likely on the chartroom table of HMS Herald, in the opinion of Sheila Natusch, “Ruapuke Visited”, ISBN 0-473-04593-1,1998 (Incidentally visited by myself and daughter Sally on 4th February 2021, though uninhabited at the time.)
[9] Though he doesn’t say which month, this must have been June – the only month that year with Tuesday 9th i.e. after Hobson had declared British sovereignty by right of “discovery”.
[10] Their experience at Moturoa Island had not been forgotten. See I. Wishart,”The Great Divide”, 2012, pp.53ff, ISBN 978-0-9876573-6-7. After all, a couple of dozen or more Frenchmen had been killed and eaten!
[11] “Aotearoa” - a relatively modern fake name for our country which occurs nowhere in the Treaty of Waitangi where the Williams would certainly have used it had there been such usage in their day.
[12] Article Third, Hobson’s final text in English of 4th February 1840
[13] Our emphasis
[14] ISBN 0-14-301867-1,2003
[15] More exactly “tino rangatiratanga”
[16] King’s emphasis
[17] ditto
[18] We note that some caution is needed here since he was evidently referring to Freeman’s fake English version of the Treaty, accepted as such in the 1975 Treaty of Waitangi Act.
[19] “Maori means a person of the Maori race of New Zealand; and includes any descendant of such a person”
[20] While only about 2000 persons of European descent were resident in New Zealand early in the year 1840, the first group of settlers organized by the New Zealand Company arrived in what was to be Wellington a week before Hobson’s arrival and it was clear that substantially more were to follow. It would have been irresponsible if the Treaty of Waitangi had ignored this reality.
[21] We have pointed out elsewhere that translation is not the same thing as derivation and we have given numerous examples of this simple fact. See “New Zealand; The Fair Colony”,ISBN 978-0-473-53728-9, pp 68-9. (Available from charlton@farmside.co.nz)
[22] Prior to the arrival of Europeans, Maoris would keep well away from mountains. They did not even have a name for Mount Cook. “Aoraki” was no more than the name of the fleecy clouds which often enshrouded the mountain tops! See the reference immediately above, p. 53
[23] op.cit., see reference xxi above, p105-7
[24] We know when, whence and how they got here. They are disqualified from being indigenous on all counts.
[25] “DNA To Rock The Nation”, elocal minibook series, ISBN 978-0-473-38851-5, 2016
[26] Which we are sure will delight New Zealand taxpayers
[27] P.Parkinson, “Preserved in the Archives of the Colony; the English drafts of the Treaty of Waitangi”
[28] ibid.
9 comments:
In the Maori world view pre colonisation, land, power, slaves and (if you wish) 'sovereignty' was taken through war, conquest and subjugation.
This was a simple concept. We beat you in battle so what was yours is now ours!
If the logic of that world view is to be taken and the Maori world view to be ascribed to 1840 then the Queen through colonisation took New Zealand for her own.
She did this without violence but a 'conquest and subjugation' of sorts occurred.
Simple.
Well reasoned article, apart from one assumption that is totally wrong. There is an appearance that Charters and her ilk have any interest in facts.
She knows that the media buyout has allowed her to say whatever she wishes. By accepting the government funding the media is unable to legally push back, unless they are prepared to repay the money plus interest plus penalties. She is using this period to promote her version of the truth uncontested. A lie told often enough will become the truth in time. Especially when any debate is shit down with abuse firstly, followed by violence if required.
So yes, interesting article, but of little use at this point. In fact is more an impediment than a help. We sit around debating the meaning of one or two words way back in history, all while Clare and her mates are stealing the present from under our noses. We need to fight back with similar methods being used against us.
Clair Charters is a zealot, but not to be underestimated. Professor of Law and lead co-author of the He Puapua report. Media are receptive to her views and have no issue publishing her opinions.
She follows a line of argument introduced by Carl Schmitt, who famously discredited the legality and legitimacy of the liberal-democratic Weimar Republic. If the Westminster parliamentary system is the status quo, then there can be no doubt that the end goal of "breaking with the status quo" is neither liberal nor democratic.
Two inconvenient truths:
1) As you rightly point out, Maori are not indigenous to NZ. If they were truly, why then didn’t their version of the treaty in their own language recognise them simply as “tangata wenua” (NB. the original spelling of whenua) which they so dearly love to lay claim to these days, but instead it recognised them not as 'the people of the land', but as “tangata maori”? The simple reason being that back then, before more recent revisionism, they readily accepted they were not indigenous, that they were now the common folk and that there were ‘others’ before them.
And even if you can overcome that patent fraud and then seek to rely on UNDRIP, how then does the Prof. Charters overcome Article 46 of that non-binding declaration wherein:
“1. Nothing in this Declaration may be interpreted as implying for any State, people, group or person any right to engage in any activity or to perform any act contrary to the Charter of the United Nations or construed as authorizing or encouraging any action which would dismember or impair, totally or in part, the territorial integrity or political unity of sovereign and independent States.” And,
“3. The provisions set forth in this Declaration shall be interpreted in accordance with the principles of justice, democracy, respect for human rights, equality, non-discrimination, good governance and good faith.”
That last paragraph is the very anthesis of what the deluded Prof. Charters seeks to have prevail over a great many of us who are equally indigenous New Zealanders. For that, her views rightly deserve our dismissal and contempt.
New Zealanders – do not kid yourselves. If you do not speak up and resist such gross political ambitions, you will lose a lot more than you realize.
Exactly. Julian Batchelor knows this and is experiencing tribalism first hand as he travels around NZ trying to wake up the people to this co- governance with VETO rort.
We all need to support Julian's Stop Co-Governance movement as nothing else is as important as stopping this Apartheid movement in its tracks, or it could lead to this; One white farmer (Boer) was killed after this rally.
South African black party “openly pushing for genocide of white people” during a giant rally at a sports stadium over the weekend in Johannesburg.
More than 80 books pertaining to the history of New Zealand have been removed from libraries, schools, and universities. Why? I will not hold my breath for an answer. Could they be the bearers of truth? I am reminded of the words of German philosopher Arthur Shopenhauer when he says: "All truth passes through three stages. First it is ridiculed. Second it is viciously opposed. Third it is accepted as being self-evident". Accept the racialistic lies of the Treaty of Waitangi at your peril!
Kevan
The value of articles like this is that they keep the facts out there contrary to the repetitious propaganda and it’s corrupting effect. Articles like this are the cornerstone for fighting for the future of New Zealand and New Zealanders.
Legal obfuscation =confusion and a new order passes without due legal process.
Tragic for NZ. (Ex-NZ?)
@Peter Young
You are absolutely correct. But it doesn't matter. It is a means to an end. In a paper she published in 2017 titled 'Use It or Lose It: The Value of Using the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples in Maori Political and Legal Claims' she explains:
"The value of using international norms as a means to increase their compliance pull on states over time, even when they may be resistant to the norms or the norms are not binding, is supported by theories on constructivism, transnational legal process theory and social movement theory. At heart, these theories share the proposition that there are methods to embed norms in the domestic and legal landscape in such a way that states view conformity with them as ordinary and rationally-appropriate behaviour or, conversely, contravention as politically and legally illegitimate. The theories stem from the idea that norm conformity can be achieved not only through legal sanctions or compulsion, but also through the gradual normalisation and acceptance of the legitimacy of norms by the state especially and also the public at large."
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