Treaty of Waitangi

Treaty of Waitangi (1840), New Zealand treaty that is considered the basis for the constitutional rights of the Maori. The treaty was drawn up by William Hobson and James Busby, the British lieutenant-governor and resident respectively, in an attempt to secure the immediate and peaceful annexation of New Zealand by the British government in 1840. The Treaty of Waitangi consisted of three articles that (1) required Maori acceptance of the British queen’s sovereignty in their lands; (2) promised Crown protection of Maori possessions, granting the Crown sole rights of purchase for Maori land; and (3) granted Maori signatories full rights as British subjects. The Protestant missionary Henry Williams and his son, Edward, translated the treaty on February 4, 1840, and it was read to a gathering of 40 Bay of Islands and Hokianga chiefs on the following day. Debate among the Maori swung between those who predicted enslavement and the forfeiture of power and land, and those who were convinced that the treaty was a solemn contract between the queen’s tribe and their own, ensuring the continued protection of Maori interests. On February 6, around 45 chiefs signed the treaty (a number that eventually swelled to 500).

The treaty encountered several difficulties. Even among the North Island signatories there were noticeable absences (including the Ngati Hana and Ngati Maniapoto, and Potatau Te Wherowhero, the first Kingitanga leader), and the South Island was summarily annexed by right of discovery with no reference to its inhabitants. Among the settlers, there were few who were prepared to regard a treaty signed with Maori as binding. Furthermore, only 72 of the 500 signatories were literate, the remainder relying on explanations from missionaries of a treaty that could be interpreted in radically different ways. Williams’s translation was at best an approximation in “missionary Maori” of terms that could only be applied to European notions of ownership and sovereignty. Much hung on the neologism kawanatanga (Williams’s phonetic version of “governor’s authority”), by which the British meant a full and real sovereignty, but the Maori leaders accepted as jurisdiction entirely distinct from their own rangatiratanga (“chiefly authority”). In effect the British believed the Maori had submitted to imperial government for the “civilizing” benefits of the pax britannica, while the Maori believed they had granted the governor permission to rule his own people in lands known to belong to the Maori. Furthermore, British ideas of property led them to assume that land not already under cultivation was “waste” and could be ceded to the Crown, while the Maori considered the whole country to be owned on a communal basis.

The assumed benefit of Western monoculturalism was thus enshrined in the same treaty that first granted the Maori rights as citizens of New Zealand. The Treaty of Waitangi has remained at the centre of battles for Maori rights, and, under the Treaty of Waitangi Act (1975), a tribunal was set up to hear land claims and protests of rights abuse, in an attempt to administer justice. Since the 1960s, Waitangi Day (February 6) has been a national holiday in New Zealand.