In the minds of most historians, present and past (i.e. those ignored by academic, media, and activist elites), the weight of evidence leans strongly in favour of the cession of sovereignty. Not least a growing state of civil disorder during the period in question, the (often historic) conflict between tribal groups, the not-too-distant memory of the devastation of intertribal warfare, and its aftermath, and the desperate situation faced by the less powerful tribes, seems to situate the cession of sovereignty assumption on solid ground.
Coupled with the documentary evidence of the time, a multiplicity of subsequent events and utterances (both sides), the unlikelihood of the most powerful empire of the time agreeing to a shared, or temporary, assumption of authority, and the fact that such an arrangement would have had absolutely no significant historical precedent, seem to make the cession of sovereignty a slam dunk.
Why is it then, that assertions of non-cession not only persist, but have infiltrated our institutions (including the judiciary), and attained the status of divine dogma?
How is it that we have reached the point where every aspect and application of the treaty can only be understood in terms of the non-cession of sovereignty?
It seems to me that the assertions of non-cession, championed principally by the left, and opposed less than half-heartedly by the right, have three primary origins.
1. Political concessions made from the 1970's onward that promoted (ultimately) a non-cessionary argument that was divorced from both historical context and common sense, that was shielded from scrutiny and public debate, and that deliberately hid (or misrepresented) the underlying agendas (real and potential) of the primary protagonists.
2. The refusal of our political, media, academic elites, and those with pecuniary interests, to permit this new interpretation of the treaty (and its context) to be challenged, and to mark those who questioned it as ill-informed at best, and racist at worst.
3. The self-deception and narcissism of the champions (recent-past and present) of the non-cessionary argument, including a failure to ground their thinking in ontological primaries (i.e. in ultimate ideas).
I would like to spend a brief moment unpacking the third point.
The proponents of non-cession pursue their cause with singularity of purpose, as if nothing else matters, and no damage (or risk) is too great to achieve their end.
What is the source of their certainty? How can they stare so directly into the cameras (as recently as the weekend past) with such conviction, and assert their claims, in spite of compelling evidence to the contrary?
It is absolutely to be expected that, in the 1840s, differing views were held by Maori with respect to the treaty. The often fraught process of engagement, protracted debate, the persistence of contrary views, the refusal of some chiefs to add their signatures, and the likelihood of others signing half-heartedly were understandable (and arguably justifiable) realities. It is a given that some tribes stood more to gain from the cession than others (usually the smaller and weaker tribes), this would naturally have given rise to varying degrees of commitment, the playing out of complex agendas, close attention to historic alliances, and a prevailing mindfulness of ancient grievances.
Undoubtedly some chiefs, even those needing less convincing to sign, would be waiting to see how things played out. It is inconceivable that some did not have the comparative luxury (or security) of a "plan B". It is therefore equally understandable that some of these chiefs would subsequently re-assert their "sovereignty" and, in fact, break the treaty.
What we see in treaty politics, past and present, is people doing precisely what people do ... weighing options, waiting to see how things pan, making trade-offs (at least in the moment), considering long-term interests, looking to where they have the most to gain, and the least to lose, and pushing at the boundaries of opportunity and discourse.
Human nature is broadly consistent across place and time, motivations are always mixed, some good and some bad, and things are always much more complicated than is historically convenient.
These are the primary ontological realities (or constants), the assumption of which should inform any historical interpretation. These realities should make us cautious ... and definitely less emphatic.
If non-cessionists want to find precedents for their contentions, they will find them. If they choose to use these precedents to advance their causes, they will find rich pickings, but they have no greater claim to absolute truth than anyone else, they have no license to disregard common sense, reason, and the preponderance of evidence.
In spite of prognostications, and much theatre to the contrary, sovereignty was (perhaps imperfectly) ceded, warts and all, in 1840 ... and incrementally thereafter.
While post-modernism (the default of most treaty activists) denies the very existence of truth itself, and certainly that of "Western truth", we can know one thing beyond any reasonable contention ... that tribalism (of whatever form) produces terrible outcomes, including endless division (and conflict), until there is no-one left to divide (and no-one brave enough to speak out). Ironically many of the signatories to the treaty well knew this. They knew this because they had experienced this firsthand.
I think that it can be credibly argued that the architects of the Treaty (quite audaciously) saw it as an invitation to equality (and unity) before the law, as did many of its signatories ... not a vehicle for the manipulation of power and the enshrinement of privilege.
New Zealand may have very limited time to set this issue straight. The treatiests simply cannot be permitted, no matter the strength of their conviction, the threats, or the hyperbole, to use the Treaty to undermine our once cherished belief that no one person stands higher or lower than any other by virtue of their birth.
Caleb Anderson, a graduate history, economics, psychotherapy and theology, has been an educator for over thirty years, twenty as a school principal.
26 comments:
As regular National voters for party and electorate, we split our vote for the 2023 election to ensure Act became part of a coalition Government. I suspect many others voted NZ First for the very same reason-an abhorrence of the apartheid system creeping (make than rushing!) into legislation under the previous Labour Government. Unfortunately Christopher Luxon doesn’t seem to share that sentiment.
Excellent piece Caleb
"a vehicle for the manipulation of power and the enshrinement of privilege"
That is it in a nutshell. Each way bet Luxon is fiddling while Rome burns.
We need to dissect the concept of sovereignty in the context of pre-1840 NZ a bit more critically. There was no First Nation as there was no 'nation' in the sense of a national entity with defined borders and a pervasive system of governance (see Montevideo Convention criteria). At best there was a confederation of sovereign tribes in the North Island (but not including all tribes) while the South Island remained terra nullius. So what exactly was there to cede?
Maori seeded sovereignty and the 'new' 1970's interpretation of the treaty is just that, a self interested interpretation. Too many groups in NZ are getting unfair advantage based on perceived race or circumstances and not achievement.
Not helping NZ to be getting poorer and less educated because of a small elite identify niches everywhere (growing fast) making a fortune out of crying privilege and grifting to make up based on identity.
Not just Maori, the identity brigade want to bring in any other group to gain special status for everything from justice to employment to grants. Refugees/economic migrants, Pacific Islanders, migrant families, sexual orientation, who need housing, health and top up welfare benefits for the rest of their lives etc - there seems to be more interest in supporting more and more identify groups rather than focusing on making NZ society better for all, in paid work and independent and reducing the welfare load.
You can't have some groups constantly getting special treatment - it is making NZ crime filled and poorer with more and more voting to keep letting more poverty and welfare to continue unabated.
The low level of support for the Maori Party within Maori identifiers, shows that within Maori there is little support for this apartheid approach. Tired of groups pretending they speak for all their identity - the don't!!
Spot on... and time is certainly running out.
Apartheid started by the State, encouraged and endorsed by the State and will be continued by the State.
The State is is the enemy of 'we the people', the cause of all our division.
If, on 6 Feb, the Chiefs had not agreed to the Crown being the ultimate sovereign - by transfer by the Chiefs of their own ultimate authority or sovereignty ( dissect it as you see fit) and the de facto consolidated ultimate authority ( again call it what you will and dissect it as you see fit) then the pre colonial regime of kill or be killed, slaughter and slavery, conquest and cannibalism, would have continued unabated. Probably resuming sometime on 5th or 6th or 7th of February - what an opportunity with so many chiefs gathered overnight in one place.
But it didn't.
Instead NZ changed on 6 Feb. Yes, there were sporadic outbursts and rebel tribes, but for all that, the social and political structure of NZ had changed.
Clearly it had changed for the better as there was no bloodbath of rebellion at Waitangi.
And so job done. What an etxraordinary achievement by the participants.
Regrettably the kill or be killed is being resurrected by current rebels. Traitors to their own Maori heritage and to NZ.
Mr Luxon - soon I will not care that you are complicit in the destruction of democracy in NZ.
Packing my bags and taking my wealth, experience, and knowledge off to Australia - not for a better lifestyle, but to remove myself from the constant bleating by Maori and their sycophantic supporters.
@Barend Vlaardingerbroek - 'Chiefly authority' is what Sir Apirana Ngata said was ceded - "It was this chiefly authority held by each chief who subscribed his mark to the Treaty of Waitangi that each chief ceded to the common weal and to Governor William Hobson, as an offering to Queen Victoria. The sum total of the authorities of the Maori Chiefs ceded to the Queen was the Government of the Maori people.".....It was the first article of the Treaty which transferred the chiefly authority of your ancestors, affecting you and future generations for ever."
The surrender of Sovereignty by those Maori tribal-chiefs signing the Treaty is beyond dispute. It is ‘there’ in the Treaty . It is FACT . The signatures testify to the acceptance of the fact . And further , there is no way ‘the Crown’ would have entered into a ‘shared sovereignty’ arrangement —- let alone with a diverse range of ‘unlinked’ disparate Stone-age tribes and tribal chiefs totally lacking unity of any sort . Think of WHY the Treaty was sought by Maori in the first place ! Because Maori were involved in continuous inter-tribal genocidal warfare which was wiping them out and destroying them as a people .
The true reference point for the ‘Treaty’ is the ‘Littlewood draft’ document from which the ‘Treaty’ was translated into Maori . The Littlewood document and the Treaty document had , and still have, IDENTICAL meanings . For obvious reasons Government has an obligation to declare itself for the ‘Littlewood’ document and to accordingly put an end to all this endless nonsense. The messages in and mandates of the Treaty are perfectly clear and straightforward —- even if one is bent on manipulating them for their own purposes and in their own interests. Let’s see Government put an end to this unwarranted devious nonsense by acknowledging the authority of the Littlewood draft document for what it is .
Hugh Perrett
Barend wrote: “ At best there was a confederation of sovereign tribes in the North Island.”
Not quite, old son.
He Whakaputanga Deconstructed: No Māori Nation State in 1840
The Treaty of Waitangi was not with a collective “Maori,” but with tribes, most of whom signed it, some of whom didn’t.
In February 1840, New Zealand consisted of hundreds of “dispersed and petty tribes” in a constant state of war with one another, and lacking any concept of nationhood.
Some 512 chiefs signed the Treaty, while a substantial minority refused to, meaning there were probably around 600 of these individually insignificant groups.
Assertions that a Maori nation state existed when the Treaty was signed seem to rest upon claims of formal recognition by England’s King William IV in 1836 of the 1835 Declaration of Independence of the so-called “Confederation of United Tribes” and associated flag.
The He Tohu exhibition at the National Library in Wellington says this of the Declaration: “It was how rangatira (Maori leaders) told the world, back in 1835, that New Zealand was an independent Maori nation.”
An entirely false assertion.
The so-called "Maori Flag" (not the Maori sovereignty flag fudged up in the 1990s) was adopted by Northland chiefs in 1834 at the behest of British Resident James Busby, after a NZ-built ship owned by Europeans was impounded in Sydney for not flying the flag of a recognised nation state.
Busby presented the chiefs with a variety of designs.
They chose a flag modelled on that of the Church Missionary Society, with which they were well-familiar.
This was not a Maori initiative, but a Pakeha-brokered expedient to protect New Zealand's pre-Treaty commerce.
Nor was the 1835 Declaration of Independence driven by the puny number of Maori chiefs who signed it.
This "paper pellet to fire at the French" was put together by Busby to head off Colonial Office fears of an impending takeover by French adventurer, Baron De Thierry.
It should be noted that Busby had no official standing, no plenipotentiary authority, and acted entirely on his own initiative in doing what he did.
Initially carrying the signatures (or rather the thumbprints) of 34 Northland chiefs, the Declaration was ultimately signed by just 52 chiefs, all but two residing in Northland.
Since these chiefs represented less than 10 percent of all the tribes of New Zealand, the Declaration can hardly be held up as evidence of a national consensus.
Assertions of prior Maori sovereignty are further undermined by the impotence of the handful of chiefs who signed the Declaration “to act or even deliberate in concert.”
Signatories had pledged “to meet in Congress at Waitangi in the autumn of each year, for the purpose of framing laws for the dispensation of justice, the preservation of peace and good order, and the regulation of trade."
Inter-tribal animosities meant this body never met nor passed a single law. Indeed, within a year, many signatories were fighting one another.
The Declaration clearly falls way short of being what the Archives NZ website describes as “a bold and innovative declaration of Indigenous power.”
Even had the Declaration carried practical weight, almost all its handful of 1835 signatories (or their successors) signed the Treaty of Waitangi in 1840, thereby rendering it redundant.
Article I of James Busby’s final English language draft dated 4 February 1840 and translated into Maori by the missionary Henry Williams and his son (both fluent Maori speakers who’d lived in NZ for almost 20 years) for presentation to the Chiefs on 5 February reads:
“The chiefs of the Confederation of the United Tribes and the other chiefs who have not joined the confederation, cede to the Queen of England for ever the entire Sovreignty [sic] of their country.”
That wipes out the ridiculous Declaration of Independence[He Whakaputanga] and the assertion that Maori had a sovereign nation state prior to 6 February 1840.
One thing that seems to have been overlooked in the interminable ‘treaty’ debate is the common law rule that in contract (to which the ‘treaty’ is analogous) there must be a meeting of the minds for an agreement to be binding. Thus, if the Crown believed that it was gaining (by cessation or acknowledgment) sovereignty over the chiefs while the chiefs did not, then the whole deal was/is voidable, i.e, a nullity.
Barend you need to read Colenso's eye witness account of the signing also Paul Moon's books on 19th Century New Zealand.
The background to the Treaty included Maori asking the British for protection as their society was in chaos due to the Musket.
The British didn't want another colony . Maori were given equal citizen ship with the British.The price for that was the cession of sovereignty.No other native people's in any British colony were given this.
Read Colenso's account the vibrant discussions of the day of signing regarded this loss of chieftainship.
Maori understood this and accepted it.
Anonymous 10:33, I am looking at this issue through the lens of international law with regard to nationhood. The key terms in the statement you quote are "At best" and "confederation". Nothing you write here contradicts my initial post.
Orowhana, same point as for Anon 10:33, I am looking at this through the lens of international law regarding nationhood, and posing the question of exactly what sovereignty amounts to in the context of what is AT BEST a CONfederation of indigenous microstates. As for the British not wanting another colony, their hand was being forced by French designs on NZ.
Hi Caleb, thanks for your piece. I just wrote a piece called "How do we know Maori ceded sovereignty?" Readers might find it helpful. If you Google this title, you'll see it.
No NZ wasn't a confederation.The attempt at confederation failed because Maori failed to turn up to meetings and to carry out the necessary administration. Each Chief ruled over a designated tribal area which changed with warfare and the rule of Tikanga.Maori called our Islands Nu Tirani.But had no concept of nationhood.Yes there were alliances and treaties all subject warfare and tikanga winner takes all. International law is a meaningless distraction this is History.The French were bit players (Tribe of Marion)Their surveys and mapping of NZ were invaluable but their government was not interested in NZ even if their explorers were.
Our treaty was exceptional because of the granting of equal citizenship.
Both Tino Rangatiratanga and kawanatanga were words coined by Williams to enable Maori to understand the concepts of what was at stake and being created.
The denigration of the Missionaries by drop kicks cosily esconsed in Wellington ( Claudia Orange) is toxic and destructive and serves only the interests of the Maori elite.
Yes, a useful analysis.
More correctly, Maori ceded governance absolutely and for ever to the Queen of England. They had nothing that could be called 'sovereignty' to cede, as others here have pointed out. Maori also believed they would retain chieftainship as per Article Two. It's uncertain how clear the chiefs were about the difference between governance and chieftainship or how conflicts between the two forms of authority would be managed.
For some time, iwi were largely left to their own devices in their own areas while British law was applied in European settlements. Early laws reflected this model, e.g. the Native Exemption Ordinance 1844. However, largely because of the egalitarian provision in Article Three of Te Tiriti and resulting assimilation, national laws eventually had to be applied to all.
Part of the problem is pretending that a treaty designed for 1840 is akin to some kind of permanent constitution for the country. It was an agreement for the time between the Crown and hundreds of chiefs who signed (without authority) on behalf of other chiefs who didn't sign. None of the chiefs involved are still alive. There is nothing in Te Tiriti that clearly states it will apply to descendants, although some wording implies that. There is no process described to change it as circumstances change, as one might expect in a country's constitution. The provision remains in Article Two for the Queen's agents to have the right to buy land from Maori but that was long ago discarded in practice without formal amendment to the document. No definitions were included for important terms such as rangitiratanga and taonga, allowing recent activists to make up definitions that suited them. Te Tiriti is wholly unsuitable as any kind of constitution, so why do we persist in the mental gymnastics required to make it serve that role?
Re anon at 10.08 above, I am considering leaving NZ for the same reason. Having returned from living in Europe, I was appalled to find NZ still arguing over what may or may not have been agreed in the distant past. If this government cant or wont act to stop this, I will join the thousands leaving.
It is all very well to have hindsight and the sophistication of technological access to principles of international law, jurisprudential critiques and modern dictionaries.
It doesn't matter which actual or pseudo intellectual analysis you take, the fact of the matter is that over the days 5/6 February 1840, New Zealand changed forever and a new regime settled in.
Do you debate endlessly the condition of birth of a child naturally, with or without drugs or interference and/or by caesarian- horizontal or longitudinal -and do you premise on going existence on what might have been intended or might not have happened? Do you debate endlessly the whys and hows and wherefores of its conception or failed attempts? Once the child is born and alive, things have irrevocably changed forever. No child is born inherently good or bad albeit some/many/most parents endeavour to influence for the best.
The same for NZ. A pity the child has gone feral.
Orowhana and Anonymous 12:41, bear in mind that treaties have been made between European powers and tribal nations since the 17th century. Much of international law concerning nation status existed was customary law before Montevideo.
Anon, the problem with your child analogy is that the child grows up and the issues surrounding its birth usually fade away into insignificance, but here we have an 1840 treaty being constantly revisited with new significance read into it. So the issue of what constitutes a nation with regard to the signing of treaties is by no means an open and shut case.
We're all on the same side, and I see no harm in looking at a contentious issue through different lenses.
@Barend, I am not sure if you are linking the Treaty of Waitangi with International Law or not? But the TOW is not a true treaty it was just a transfer of sovereignty agreement.
David Round (Law lecturer at Canterbury university) explains the TOW has no legal standing in international law
In international law the TOW is nullity. IT HAS NO LEGAL STANDING AS A TREATY IN INTERNATIONAL LAW.
The reason is that treaties can be made only between states, and maori, not formed into an organised state but living in a much smaller and far less sophisticated societies (and indeed, ones in a constant state of flux, given the intensly war-torn nature of the times) were simply incapable of entering into such an agreement in 1840.....(Excerpt from ‘Twisting the Treaty’ page 83 by David Round - law lecturer Canterbury uni)
Anonymous 1:06, the International Court of Justice in 2002 ruled that NO treaty made between Britain and tribal entities in the 19th century had any standing in international law. So there is nothing new there.
However, the concept of First Nations treaties as a special kind of treaty has been gathering momentum (actually started in Canada in the 19th century) and there are now calls for treaties between, inter alia, the Australian federal govt and Australian indigenous peoples. So I think the issue is worthy of discussion even if we are talking about treaties that are not subject to international treaty law.
I am with Hugh Perrett.
We simply need our coalition government to recognise the Littlewood English and Māori version of the treaty as written by Busby on the 4th of February 1840, following which the entire 1975 legislation needs to be scrapped and re written. NOW!
Witter on about ‘international law’ all you like, Barend, but the Treaty of Waitangi is a simple nullity in international law, because no body politic capable of ceding sovereignty existed in 1840.
It thus only has legal effect to the extent to which it has been – wrongly -- incorporated into domestic statute law.
Gosh, Anonymous 4:25, I thought that's just about exactly what I have been saying.
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