Bruce Moon: The Treaty Tale for Jane and John Citizen

“Do not go back, but sit here, a Governor” Matiu, Chief of Uri-o-ngongo, at Waitangi, 5th February 1840 

During the late 1700s and early 1800s, incessant intertribal wars, led by the various tribal chiefs, were decimating the Maori population, nearing the point of total extermination.[1]  A number of Maori chiefs, unable to resolve the matter between themselves, and for fear of the French, appealed to King William IV of Great Britain to protect them and bring an end to this situation.[2]  At first, the Crown was reluctant to intervene,[3] but finally it was agreed to establish a government in New Zealand to assume control of the situation and to establish law and order for Maoris and British alike. This was only possible if the Crown was granted superiority by the chiefs, that is, recognized as sovereign.[4]  In the event, the British took control by invitation not by conquest nor by stealth.

So, on the morning of Tuesday, 4th February 1840, three men sat down at Okiato in the inner reaches of the Bay of Islands in the spacious home of one of them, James Clendon, British subject, successful businessman and American consul.  Besides Clendon himself there were Irish born Royal Navy Captain William Hobson and James Busby who had been British Resident in the Bay of Islands from 1833 until superseded just six days earlier by the arrival of Hobson, Lieutenant- Governor Designate[5] in the event that the Maori chiefs in general ceded such sovereignty as each possessed to Queen Victoria.

 

They had an important job to do: draft, in English, a document of cession of such sovereignty, to be translated in due course into the Ngapuhi dialect of the Maori language for presentation to chiefs to sign as their individual acts of such cession. They did not have much time to achieve this but they had enough. On 30th January, Busby had sent an invitation to many chiefs to attend at his home at Waitangi on the following Wednesday (5th February) “so that they may see ... a Chief ... who is from the Queen of England, to be a Governor for us.” They duly came – in their droves.[6]

 

Now Hobson, equipped with his 4200-word brief from British Colonial Secretary, Lord Normanby, and having called on his superior, Governor Gipps in Sydney, had already spent several days on the task of writing a draft in English. This he had done in association with his personal secretary, James Freeman, an Eton and Oxford-educated individual, whom Gipps had appointed to Hobson’s staff; one of “several officers selected for their known incompetency”[7] by Gipps who saw his chance to be rid of them.

 

The Hobson/Freeman rough drafts of 31st January- 2nd February survive in the archives and some modern authors have studied and written about them at length.[8]  Some pages are illustrated by Doutré[9], showing all too clearly numerous deletions and corrections.  The point to be made here is that they are of very little value in a study of the genesis of the Treaty because Hobson himself had rejected them!  They did however, briefly serve a purpose when Hobson, unable to make progress with Freeman, dismissed him from the task and referred it to Busby for his assistance in writing a satisfactory draft.   Busby, provided with these rough and unsatisfactory efforts, rose to the occasion and on the evening of 3rd February “submitted”[10] his own draft to Hobson for consideration.  This, then, was the situation when Hobson, Busby and Clendon sat down together to write the final version in English, with Busby as scribe, using materials from Clendon’s private stock including, significantly, paper watermarked “W TUCKER 1833”, distinctly different from that used by other writers on other occasions. [11]

 

The Fateful 4th February!

 

With much in the way of preliminaries behind him, Hobson might indeed have been said to be “gung-ho” when he started to dictate to Busby the final English text of the treaty document. This was duly completed by mid-afternoon, signed pro forma “William Hobson”, correctly dated by Busby “4th Feb. 1840”, but containing twice his celebrated mis-spelling “Sovreignty”! Clendon concurrently made his own copy for subsequent despatch to the United States Secretary of State.[12]

 

At this point, Hobson proceeded “across the water” to the Paihia mission station where he requested Henry Williams to prepare a Maori translation of his English text, the two to be presented to the great meeting of Maori chiefs and others at Busby’s Waitangi home the following morning. This Williams proceeded to do, in collaboration with his twenty-one-year old son, Edward Marsh Williams, a resident since the age of four and, in effect, a native speaker of the Ngapuhi dialect. The Williams made just one significant amendment in their translation. In Article Third which Hobson commenced: “In return for the cession of the Sovreignty [sic!] to the Queen, the people of New Zealand shall be protected by the Queen, ... ” the Williams rendered the words italicized here to: “nga tangata maori katoa o Nu Tirani”, that is the words “maori katoa”[13] were inserted by the Williams. This is telling proof that this document was written after Hobson’s final draft which is correctly dated “4th February” and is thus genuinely Hobson’s final text in English.[14] This is despite the hordes of naysayers who desperately concoct pseudo-reasons why this so-called “Littlewood draft” was written at some later date by some unspecified person.

 

The obvious reason for this qualification by the Williams is that existing British subjects had such rights already and it was not desired to include foreigners such as the French and Americans automatically by such means.

And so to the great meeting at Waitangi on Wednesday, 5th February.  Proceedings were minuted in detail by mission printer, Colenso, and checked at the time by Busby though not published until 1890.[15]  This meticulous record is seldom quoted by treaty-twisters today. It shows that despite it being repeatedly denied by treaty-twisters, the Chiefs at Waitangi understood beyond a shadow of a doubt that by signing Hobson’s document, they would become subordinate to the Governor and hence, more emphatically, to his superior, the Queen.[16]  Doing so was an informed and considered act of the Chiefs [17] to achieve their own goals of being protected by the Crown.  They had their motives and this is how they were achieved. Theirs was a damaged society from their own internecine warfare and the wiser ones knew it.  Maori governance was imploding!  It was not about wild colonials and greedy conquerors, albeit orderly colonization was proceeding.  Indeed, if Maoris had retained self-governance, little would have changed and they would have clubbed and eaten themselves out of existence.

 

In the event, what occurred was widespread inter-breeding with the colonial immigrants themselves to create those individuals of mixed descent who identify as the Maoris of New Zealand today. They might well reflect now on the benefits of their colonial heritage.

 

Of the fourteen chiefs whose words were minuted by Colenso, seven spoke in favour of signing and seven against. This was an articulate debate. Typical examples of what they said are thus.  Speaking first, the words of Te Kemara chief of Ngatikawa were: “Health to thee O Governor!  This is mine to thee, O Governor!  I am not pleased towards thee. ... No, no, no; I shall never say  ‘Yes’ to your staying. ... Governor high up, up, up and Te Kemara down low, small, a worm, a crawler – no, no, no! ... .”[18]  He signed, the very next day!

 

And then in contrast, the words of Matiu, chief of Uri-o-ngongo: “O Governor! Sit, stay, remain – you as one with the missionaries, a Governor for us.  Do not go back, but sit here, Governor, a father for us that good may increase, may become large to us.  This is my word to thee: do thou sit here, a father for us.”[19]

 

Apart from one who disappeared, all these chiefs duly signed Hobson’s document.  And so, in due course, more than five hundred chiefs throughout the country accepted and signed the Treaty of Waitangi.  All this was despite Hobson himself being stricken by a severe right-side stroke on 1st March.  

 

At Ruapuke in Foveaux Strait, senior chiefs Tuhawaiki (Bloody Jack), Taiaroa and Kaikoura signed on 9th June. Exceptions were very few. In Taranaki, recently devastated by invaders from the Waikato, no chief of sufficient seniority who might do so, remained. In the remote Urewera, the safety of Hobson’s emissaries could not be assured.

 

Given the circumstances ‒ the very few resources at Hobson’s disposal and his stroke at a critical time, obtaining such near unanimity was a remarkable achievement both by Hobson and by the Chiefs. It speaks loudly of Maori support in that the expectations of the Maori chiefs of their needs were met.  A win/win.  Whilst Hobson’s achievement was impressive in getting signatures, it happened because the locals were happy and participated.  However brilliant Hobson might have been, the locals could have derailed it if they had wanted to do so.

 

 Of subsequent commentators, we have the words of Buick, considered by many in his time the “doyen” of Treaty scholars: “Britain’s right to colonise and govern New Zealand was incontestable before the world.”[20]  In the words of great Maori scholar, Sir Apirana Ngata: “The chiefs placed in the hands of the Queen of England the sovereign authority to make laws.”[21]  They were indeed confirming the unanimous words of more than one hundred senior chiefs at the great meeting at Kohimarama in July-August 1860: “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.” [22]

 

Well, that’s pretty clear, isn’t it, even if a bit wordy in the fashion of the age?!  What becomes even clearer is that latter-day revisionists, so vocal today, who claim that the chiefs never ceded sovereignty to the Queen are no more than pork-barrel hustlers whose strident words should receive the contempt they deserve.  As Chris Trotter has so clearly stated: “[t]he greatest gift of the Treaty of Waitangi was its pledge of equality for all New Zealanders.”[23]

 

Honest New Zealanders, whatever their ethnic origins or current circumstances, must make their voices heard and condemn the racist power-seekers today who would destroy truth, fairness and democracy in the pursuit of their own selfish goals, dividing us and creating apartheid in the name of a false god, “co-governance.”

 

Postscript: More evidence to confirm the summary of events above is contained in “Papers of Charles Wilkes 1837-1847, U.S.S Vincennes letter book copy of despatch Number 64, Microfilm 1262 University of Auckland Library, the originals held by the Kansas Historical Society, Topeka, Kansas, U.S.A.[24]

Footnotes:

 

1. J. Robinson, “When Two Cultures Meet”, ISBN 1-872970-31-1, 2012,p.64 estimates 35,400 killed in battles in the period 1801-1840

2. http://www.TeAra.govt.nz/en/zoomify/35114/1831-letter-to-king-william-iv

3. “England has colonies enough.” Lord Glenelg, Colonial Minister, June 1837, echoing the Duke of Wellington, 1829.

4.”the law of England gives no civil powers to Her Majesty out of her dominions”, Hobson at Waitangi, 5th February 1840, ref. Colenso, “The Authentic and Genuine History of the Signing of the Treaty of Waitangi”, Government. Printer, 1890, http.//www.waitangi.com/colenso/colhis1.html

5. As nominally, the colony of New South Wales had been extended to include New Zealand by

proclamation on 15th June 1839, Hobson was already nominally Lieutenant-Governor.

6. Not, I suggest, out of mere curiosity!

7. T.L.Buick, “The Treaty of Waitangi”,1914, quoting one Dr Martin, footnote, p.94

8. Ned Fletcher, “The English Text of the Treaty of Waitangi”, Bridget Williams Books, 2022,  is one of them. (It is described in his foreword by Judge Sir Joe Williams as “a masterful exegesis”.)!!

9. M.Doutré, “The Littlewood Treaty”, ISBN 0-473-10140-8, 2005,pp 31ff.

10. Busby’s wording

11. Referred to Claudia Orange, she remarked “The watermark of 1833 may simply indicate it is paper that was hanging around the solicitor’s office”, Doutré, op.cit., p.53. Which solicitor? What solicitor would have such old stock??

12.With his despatch No. 6 of 20 February 1840

13. We note here that both A.Oakley and H.Kawharu have pointed out that in general usage at this date, the word “maori” simply meant “ordinary” and in this era of rapid evolution of usage, it had not yet been fully established as referring particularly to inhabitants of Polynesian descent.

14. Doutré’s insight.  Personal communication

15. W.Colenso, op.cit.

16. It is worth noting here that 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. How he reconciled this with the recorded words of numerous chiefs at Waitangi is not clear to me!

17. Who knew what they were about!

18. Colenso, op.cit.

19. ibid.

20. T.L.Buick, op.cit.

21. A.Ngata, “The Treaty of Waitangi, an Explanation”, 1922

22. “Proceedings of the Kohimarama Conference”, NZETC

23. C.Trotter, “Otago Daily Times”, 3 March 2023,

24. Doutré,op.cit., p.91

Bruce Moon is a retired computer pioneer who wrote "Real Treaty; False Treaty - The True Waitangi Story".