ONE HUNDRED YEARS AGO

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXXIII, 15 June 1940, Page 3

ONE HUNDRED YEARS AGO

SOVEREIGNTY DECLARED OVER SOUTH ISLAND H.M.S. HERALD AT PORT UNDERWOOD One hundred years ago. on 17th June. 1840. the final step in proclaiming the assumption of sovereignty over New Zealand by the British Crown was taken with the declaration of British Sovereignty over the South Island. The declaration was made at Port Underwood by Major Thomas Bunbury and Captain Joseph Nias, the commander of H.M.S. Herald. Bunbury had been on an extended voyage down the east coasts of both islands. He, had declared British Sovereignty over i Stewart Island on sth June. At southern ports he had added the signatures of important Ngai-tahu chiefs to the Treaty of Waitangi. Now at Port Underwood he was treating with their traditional enemies, the Ngati-toa and their allies, who had some years before wrested from the Ngai-tahu and Rangitane the control of the northern sounds district. W ARY CHIEFS The Port Underwood chiefs were not at all eager to sign the Treaty of Waitangi They had had some experience of signing the white man’s land deeds, and had •» confused idea that the Treaty was in some way a cession of land The Herald arrived at Port Underwood on 16th June, and Bunbury landed at Guard’s Cove to meet the local chiefs. The most important of them. Nohuroa. e’der brother of Te Raunaraha, was very suspicious of the Treaty He did not. in fact, sign the : Treaty until the next day. when he invited his son-in-law, the whaler, Joseph Thoms, to sign it as well Thoms signed in right of his wife’s share in the tribal territories of the Ngati-toa. He was the only white man to put his name to the Treaty other than as a witness. Even after the local chiefs had signed the Treaty, ceding sovereignty and not their land to Queen Victoria, they resolutely refused to accept any presents for ear that these might afterwards be interpreted as consideration for the sale of land PORT UNDERWOOD IN 1840 * Port Underwood, or Cloudy Bay as it was known, was in June 1840 the •most important centre of white settlement in the South Island. It was the base of several shore whaling parties particularly those of Guard and Thoms, who were both present on this occasion. As the whaling season was a winter one and just beginning, there were assembled in the different bays and anchorages a number of whalers who j did not reside at Port Underwood, j Seven whalers were at anchor —five American, one French, and one German from Bremen. The shore whalers were nearly all British subjects. Thus there was a large and cosmopolitan gathering to witness the proceedings. As the Declaration was primarily for the benefit of the Maori population, it was made at the principal pa, Hora-hora-kakahu, on tne eastern side of the inlet. AN OLD FASHIONED PA Horahora-kakahu pa was the oldfashioned type of fortress pa, poised lon some inaccessible pinnacle or rock ; a type that became less favoured after the importance of firearms. Horahorakakahu is a tiny islet, with steep rock sides, attached to the mainland by a reef flooded over by the high tide. Here a flagstaff was erected by the sailors from H.M.S. Herald. The Union Jack was hoisted, and a salute of twenty-one guns given by ihe warship. Major Bunbury read his proclamation. The yards of the Herald had been manned by the ship’s company in traditional naval fashion. Three cheers from the party on shore were answered with nautical heartiness by the sailors in the ship’s rigging. The assembled natives did not disdain to add their approving shouts. Bunbury did not linger at Port Underwood after he had completed his mission. This proclamation declaring British Sovereignty over the South Island (Tavai Poenammoo, as they called it in imitation of the Maori Te Waipounamu) had an important bearing on events a few months later at Akaroa. For though a formal proclamation of sovereignty over the whole of New Zealand had been signed by Captain Hobson at the Bay of Islands on 21st May. after the Herald had sailed, the proclamation of sovereignty on the spot thus carried out by Bunbury had the effect of clinching the matter by making the new status of New Zealand clear to the local inhabitants.