Treaty of Waitangi

The Traité of Waitangi (or Te Tiriti O Waitangi in maori) was signed the February 6th 1840 with Waitangi, in Bay of the islands, in New Zealand, between the representatives of the British crown and the chiefs of the Confederation of the plain Tribes of New Zealand as well as other tribal chiefs maoris.

The Treaty, like the New Zealanders call it simply, formally made of New Zealand a British colony, and more generally perhaps regarded as the constitutive instrument of New Zealand as a nation. This treaty, and the interpretation which can be made words forged in its version in maori, still occupies an important place in the modern New Zealand policy and remains the object of sharp controversies.

Signature of the Treaty

The Treaty was initially proposed by the captain William Hobson on her return of its first forwarding in the area. It accepted mandate of the British government consequently to put its plan at execution and receipt the title of Lieutenant-Governor. Returned to New Zealand, it wrote with the assistance of James Busby, representative British on the island, a treaty which was translated by the missionary Henry Willians (who also ensured the oral translation of the text during the signature). Busby had also taken part in the drafting of the declaration of independence of New Zealand, signed by several maoris chiefs, in 1835.

Hobson was with the head of the plenipotentiary British. Forty maoris chiefs present, the Ngapuhi will rangatira Hone Heke was the first to affix its paraph. To reinforce the legitimacy of the treaty, eight copies were written and sent in all the country to collect additional signatures, namely:

the copy known as Manukau-Kawhia;
the Waikato-Manukau copy;
the Tauranga copy;
the copy of Bay of Abundance ( Bay off Plenty );
the copy of Herald-Bunbury;
the copy of Henry Williams;
the copy of the East coast;
the original copy.

Between February and September 1840, more than 50 meetings of discussion were organized, and nearly 500 additional signatures were collected. An equivalent number chiefs of tribes refused to sign. New Zealand was officially declared a colony distinct from the News-Wales of the South the November 16th 1840.

The Treaty escaped from little from the destruction when the governmental offices of Auckland were devastated by fire in 1841. The various copies thereafter were connected and deposited in a trunk in the buildings of the colonial Secretariat with Auckland then with Wellington, during the change of capital.

A list of signatories was produced in 1865, and the English original text was published in 1877, with some lithographies of the original documents which were given under key as soon as afterwards. It was only in 1908 that Dr. Hocken realized that these documents had been damaged by rodents: the restoration lasted until 1913. The first true public exposure of the Treaty took place in 1940, when it was repatriated and exposed to the Museum of the Treaty of Waitangi for the celebration of its centenary.

The Treaty was entrusted thereafter to the Turnbull Library (in 1956), where it was exposed as of 1961. New work of restoration was undertaken in 1966 and between 1977 and 1980, until its deposit at the national Bank. Since 1990, the Treaty is accessible to the public in the Room from the Constitution from the New Zealand Public records, in Wellington.

The birthday of the signature of the Treaty from now on is commemorated in the one bank holiday form of the name of Waitangi Day , on February 6th. First Waitangi Day took place in 1934 but only starting from 1970 was officially non-working. This commemoration was often the occasion for Maoris to express against the government and is the subject of a recurring controversy.

Significance and interpretation

The Treaty in itself is passably short: it gathers only three articles.

the article first recognizes the sovereignty of the Queen of England on New Zealand;
article two guarantees to the signatories chiefs the maintenance of their prerogatives and real possessions. It also specifies that Maoris can sell their grounds only with the Crown;
article three guarantees the equal rights between British Maoris and subjects.

Significant differences exist however between the versions English and maorie of the text, which is the source of recurring difficulties in its interpretation and limit largely its range: principal criticism rests on the nuance between the words maoris kawanatanga (either governorship , in the literal sense), which describes the capacities yielded to the Queen with the article first, and rangatiratanga (or command ) which is the capacity preserved by the tribal chiefs. The nuance between the two concepts could appear obscure in many Maoris of the time, and some wonder whether the latter were really aware of it on what they engaged. The concept of land and buildings in the world maori being appreciably different from that into force in the Anglo-Saxon world, that became indeed source of problem: the maoris chiefs saw themselves like kaitiaki , or guards of the ground, and in practice entrusted the use of a ground for a time and with an aim given. It is possible that certain signatories thought of selling the use of the ground rather than the ground itself.

Consequences of the Treaty

In the short run, the Treaty had the advantage of preventing the acquisition of grounds maories by whoever other that the Crown. The purpose of this provision was to prevent the fools' deals which had been already carried out between not very scrupulous and indigenous colonists in other parts of the Empire, where the autochtones were seen expelled of their ancestral grounds for the price of some shoddy goods. In substance, the purpose of the Treaty was thus to establish a system of land register, with the Crown as guard and interlocutor to prevent the possible abuses. In preparation for the signature of this Treaty, the Company of New Zealand carried out several precipitated purchases of ground besides and installed several colonies, on the basis of the principle which the occupation would have consequently value of possession.

The results of this policy were in the first particularly positive times: Maoris wanted to sell, and the colonists wanted to buy and the Crown was ensured since the transactions corresponded at a correct price for the time. However, Maoris became with less and less inclined time to yield new pieces of their territory, whereas the Crown underwent an increasingly strong pressure on behalf of purchasing colonists. Many civils servant were then implied in doubtful transactions, which caused many revolts, themselves repressed in blood and by the confiscation of new territories. The climbing leads to the Guerres maories, at the conclusion which most of Waikato and Taranki was confiscated.

The role of supervision was thereafter entrusted to the indigenous, famous land courts thereafter land courts maoris ( Māori Land Short ). The communities maories started however quickly in the Sixties and Seventies to complain about the abuses and the continuous violations of the Treaty and the subsequent legislations by the government, as well as decisions considered to be inequitable (or at the very least excessively unfavourable) returned by the land Court maori and which expropriait Maoris of their grounds. The Court of Waitangi was established by royal approval of the October 10th 1975. The purpose of the Treaty off Waitangi Act which gave him birth was to reaffirm the principles stated in the Treaty and to create a jurisdiction able to consider violations proven of this one. The mandate of the Court, limited at the origin with the recent conflicts, was starting from 1985 wide to cover all the land conflicts since 1840, including during the wars maories.

The Treaty today

Its brevity and its limited field could not confer on the Treaty value Constitution. It however forms part of the myth founder of the New Zealand nation, and the national political life still frequently refers to the principles or the spirit of the Treaty, although the interpretation of this concept varies with the interlocutors. So for some it devotes the union of two people in only one (Hobson is quoted as having declared “We are from now on people” the day of the signature) it is, for others, the symbol of a partnership between the Crown and Maoris. It does not remain about it less than within sight of the practice of the colonial powers (including Great Britain) into force in the world at the time of its signature, this text remains a model of progressionism in its approach of the relations between colonists and native-born people.

External bonds

Text of the English Treaty and maori
Legislation of N-Z
Public records of N-Z
genesis of the Treaty

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