SOVEREIGNTY OF BRITAIN

Southland Times, Issue 24153, 15 June 1940, Page 17

SOVEREIGNTY OF BRITAIN

PROCLAMATION IN SOUTH ISLAND

ONE HUNDRED YEARS AGO ON MONDAY

Next Monday will mark the centennial of one of the most important and interesting events in the history of New Zealand; for it was on June 17, 1840, that the sovereignty of the British Crown was proclaimed over the South Island to South Island inhabitants. The declaration was made at Port Underwood, Marlborough, 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 Stewart Island on June 5. 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 Ngaitahu and Rangitane the control of the northern sounds district.

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 Wai-pounamu”) 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 May 21, 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.

WARY 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 lands deeds, and had a confused idea that the treaty was in some way a cession of land. The Herald arrived at Port Underwood on June 16, and Bunbury landed at Guard’s Cove to meet the local chiefs. The most important of them, Nohuroa, elder brother of Te Rauparaha, was very suspicious of the treaty. He did not, in fact, sign it until the next day, when he invited his son-in-law, the whaler, Joseph Thoms, to sign it as well. Thoms signed, presumbably 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 fear 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 whife 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

did not reside at Port Underwood. 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, Horahorakakahu, on the eastern side of the inlet.

Horahora-kakahu pa was the oldfashioned type of fortress pa, poised on some inaccessible pinnacle or rock, a type that became less favoured after the importation 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 the H.M.S. Herald. The Union Jack was hoisted, and a salute of 21 guns given by the 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 and the assembled natives did not disdain to add their approving shouts.