The main problem with that view is that there was no record in any of the treaty debates and signings of any British functionary telling the chiefs just that.
Moreover, chiefs at the February 5, 1840, treaty debate were recorded as objecting to the prospect of having a chief over them, which is clear evidence that the treaty contemplated a government over settlers and Maori alike.
Fletcher does include this inconvenient fact but carries on with his argument, unfazed.
Fawning reviews two years ago, show that this book sent a shiver of excitement through the small coterie of self-approved treaty experts who jealously guard control of the New Zealand treaty narrative.
Back then, Bridget Williams Books didn’t send a review copy for publication on this site and I didn’t rush to get one.
But it did feature in the widely broadcast Peewee vs Iwi treaty principles debate between ACT leader David Seymour and Ngati Toa chief executive Helmut Modlik, who literally waved Fletcher’s book to the camera in the way a preacher brandishes a Bible.
The English Text of the Treaty of Waitangi began as author Ned Fletcher’s 2014 PhD thesis in history. Fletcher’s day job is as a Crown prosecutor.
A Crown prosecutor is a criminal court functionary who selectively arranges evidence to prove a predetermined view that the accused is guilty. In a trial, he defence counsel starts from the premise that the accused is innocent. That is how our adversarial court system is supposed to work.
In his book, Fletcher arranges his selectively chosen evidence to support his predetermined belief that “the governor was to govern wayward Brits only while the chiefs could carry on being chiefs”.
How does he do this?
In a nutshell, he argues that because some administrative set-ups in the British Empire left some control in the hands of natives, and because some officials with some responsibility for affairs in New Zealand advocated delegating control to chiefs, that was what the Treaty of Waitangi intended.
Fletcher declares that “those who framed the English text intended Maori to have continuing rights to self-government (rangatiratanga) and ownership of their lands”.
He says that “this original understanding of the Treaty, however, was then lost in the face of powerful forces in the British Empire post-1840, as hostility towards indigenous peoples grew alongside increased intolerance of plural systems of government”.
The belief that the British government only really intended to set up a government to control wayward British subjects while the chiefs could carry on being chiefs is not new.
That ideology was circulating more than 10 years ago while the Waitangi Tribunal collected oral testimony that the northern chiefs did not cede sovereignty.
That belief probably has its roots in the 1986 Kawharu retranslation of Te Tiriti, in which the word “rangatiratanga” in Article 2 was reimagined as “chiefly authority” instead of translating the word “possession” in the English final draft.
Without looking at the Maori text, which he said is outside his scope, Fletcher declares that the Maori and English texts of the Treaty reconcile - even though the English text is far wordier, and even though it has words that don’t appear in the Maori text, including “pre-emption”, “lands, estates, forests, fisheries”.
The treaty texts in English reproduced in Fletcher’s appendices are what he calls the Freeman draft, Busby’s first draft, Busby’s fair copy, and Hobson’s preamble.
Fletcher agrees with historian Ruth Ross, and others, that the final English draft of the treaty has gone missing.
Curiously, he does not mention the existence of the Busby February 4 draft, also known as the Littlewood Treaty, which is held at National Archives.
This text is identical to Te Tiriti but for a single missing word, “Maori” in Article 3, which was added to the Maori text to be clear that the Maori people of New Zealand would gain the rights of British subjects.
Fletcher’s non-inclusion of any reference to the Littlewood treaty contrasts with treatment of the topic in another current treaty book, being Ewen McQueen’s One Sun in the Sky.
McQueen records the existence of the Busby February 4 draft, calls it a distraction, and says “there is no certainty that it is the final English draft of the treaty”.
The absence of an English text of the treaty, confirmed to have been written a person who drafted the treaty, in a study of the English text of the treaty, that claims to be comprehensive, is conspicuous.
Fletcher’s book is not without value. His trawl through Colonial Office archives provides a useful resource of references for future scholars.
However, since New Zealand has become a place where dissident views on the treaty are not permitted in public discourse, Fletcher the prosecutor has no defence counsel to face, there will be no debate, and little of value would result.
His “new truth” is enthusiastically touted by the treaty narrative controllers, like Helmut Modlik in the debate with Seymour, but mostly without the benefit of the counter view.
Fletcher’s one-sided view is endorsed and views critical of that are smeared as racist.
But the days of tight control of a treaty narrative by a small, like-minded elite of academics and jurists may be numbered courtesy of Seymour’s treaty principles bill and campaign to allow voters to have a say.
That say is on whether we agree that the government has the right to govern, that we all are guaranteed ownership of what we own, and that we are all entitled to equal treatment . . . or whether the government may only govern those without a Maori ancestor.
The English Text of the Treaty of Waitangi, Ned Fletcher, Bridget Williams Books, 723 pages, illustrated, $69.99. https://www.bwb.co.nz/books/the-english-text-of-the-treaty-of-waitangi/
Mike Butler wrote The Treaty: Basic Facts, available at https://trosspublishing.com/product/the-treaty-basic-facts/
Back then, Bridget Williams Books didn’t send a review copy for publication on this site and I didn’t rush to get one.
But it did feature in the widely broadcast Peewee vs Iwi treaty principles debate between ACT leader David Seymour and Ngati Toa chief executive Helmut Modlik, who literally waved Fletcher’s book to the camera in the way a preacher brandishes a Bible.
The English Text of the Treaty of Waitangi began as author Ned Fletcher’s 2014 PhD thesis in history. Fletcher’s day job is as a Crown prosecutor.
A Crown prosecutor is a criminal court functionary who selectively arranges evidence to prove a predetermined view that the accused is guilty. In a trial, he defence counsel starts from the premise that the accused is innocent. That is how our adversarial court system is supposed to work.
In his book, Fletcher arranges his selectively chosen evidence to support his predetermined belief that “the governor was to govern wayward Brits only while the chiefs could carry on being chiefs”.
How does he do this?
In a nutshell, he argues that because some administrative set-ups in the British Empire left some control in the hands of natives, and because some officials with some responsibility for affairs in New Zealand advocated delegating control to chiefs, that was what the Treaty of Waitangi intended.
Fletcher declares that “those who framed the English text intended Maori to have continuing rights to self-government (rangatiratanga) and ownership of their lands”.
He says that “this original understanding of the Treaty, however, was then lost in the face of powerful forces in the British Empire post-1840, as hostility towards indigenous peoples grew alongside increased intolerance of plural systems of government”.
The belief that the British government only really intended to set up a government to control wayward British subjects while the chiefs could carry on being chiefs is not new.
That ideology was circulating more than 10 years ago while the Waitangi Tribunal collected oral testimony that the northern chiefs did not cede sovereignty.
That belief probably has its roots in the 1986 Kawharu retranslation of Te Tiriti, in which the word “rangatiratanga” in Article 2 was reimagined as “chiefly authority” instead of translating the word “possession” in the English final draft.
Without looking at the Maori text, which he said is outside his scope, Fletcher declares that the Maori and English texts of the Treaty reconcile - even though the English text is far wordier, and even though it has words that don’t appear in the Maori text, including “pre-emption”, “lands, estates, forests, fisheries”.
The treaty texts in English reproduced in Fletcher’s appendices are what he calls the Freeman draft, Busby’s first draft, Busby’s fair copy, and Hobson’s preamble.
Fletcher agrees with historian Ruth Ross, and others, that the final English draft of the treaty has gone missing.
Curiously, he does not mention the existence of the Busby February 4 draft, also known as the Littlewood Treaty, which is held at National Archives.
This text is identical to Te Tiriti but for a single missing word, “Maori” in Article 3, which was added to the Maori text to be clear that the Maori people of New Zealand would gain the rights of British subjects.
Fletcher’s non-inclusion of any reference to the Littlewood treaty contrasts with treatment of the topic in another current treaty book, being Ewen McQueen’s One Sun in the Sky.
McQueen records the existence of the Busby February 4 draft, calls it a distraction, and says “there is no certainty that it is the final English draft of the treaty”.
The absence of an English text of the treaty, confirmed to have been written a person who drafted the treaty, in a study of the English text of the treaty, that claims to be comprehensive, is conspicuous.
Fletcher’s book is not without value. His trawl through Colonial Office archives provides a useful resource of references for future scholars.
However, since New Zealand has become a place where dissident views on the treaty are not permitted in public discourse, Fletcher the prosecutor has no defence counsel to face, there will be no debate, and little of value would result.
His “new truth” is enthusiastically touted by the treaty narrative controllers, like Helmut Modlik in the debate with Seymour, but mostly without the benefit of the counter view.
Fletcher’s one-sided view is endorsed and views critical of that are smeared as racist.
But the days of tight control of a treaty narrative by a small, like-minded elite of academics and jurists may be numbered courtesy of Seymour’s treaty principles bill and campaign to allow voters to have a say.
That say is on whether we agree that the government has the right to govern, that we all are guaranteed ownership of what we own, and that we are all entitled to equal treatment . . . or whether the government may only govern those without a Maori ancestor.
The English Text of the Treaty of Waitangi, Ned Fletcher, Bridget Williams Books, 723 pages, illustrated, $69.99. https://www.bwb.co.nz/books/the-english-text-of-the-treaty-of-waitangi/
Mike Butler wrote The Treaty: Basic Facts, available at https://trosspublishing.com/product/the-treaty-basic-facts/
6 comments:
I like what you did there, right at the end.
Maybe Fletcher et al need to acquaint themselves with Queen Victoria’s Royal Charter/Letters Patent for New Zealand and New South Wales dated 30th July 1839, where the British Empire extended the boundaries of New South Wales to include all the Islands of New Zealand, by her Majesty’s command, Lord Normandy.
Thank you for Mike for reviewing this ponderous one eyed tome . Indeed the fact that Ned Fletcher is a Crown Prosecutor explains the volume of waffle produced by Mr Fletcher. He is NOT an Historian he is just another arrogant know it all member of the world's most reviled profession.Skews everything he writes to his slanted myopic view, and refuses to acknowledge the contrary view. What a drop kick!
NZers must understand in very clear and simple language the key issue addressed by this debate .
A one-word review of Fletcher's tome sums up his assertions: CRAP.
An entirely academic - and irrelevant - argument.
That was then. This is now.
What NZ does in the future is what counts. What was signed back then and what various people say it means doesn’t matter.
What basis do we want for our society now and in the future?
Do we want each one of us to be treated the same, with the same rights and responsibilities?
Or do we want one section to have different, or greater, rights?
Simple as that.
It’s likely we will all be asked those questions in the near future.
Time to get your thinking straight.
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