WAITANGI

Tu Tangata, Issue 16, 1 March 1984, Page 26

WAITANGI

By Tony Simpson

Backgrounding The Treaty

Solemn compact or mere trickery? Whatever was written in the Treaty of Waitangi is subject to more scrutiny now than at the time of its signing.

There must be few New Zealanders, even down to the smallest child, who are not aware of the Treaty of Waitangi. To remind us, every year on February 6 we commemorate the signing in 1840 with a day-long ceremony into which political protests seem in a curious way to have been incorporated as a part of the whole. We impart certain meanings to the event; that this was a solemn compact between Maori and pakeha in which the sovereignty of Britain was accepted by one in return for a guarantee of certain rights by the other. Whether that bargain is considered to have been honoured or not depends upon one’s own point of view, but both views are essentially the obverse and

reverse of the same coin. The coin, it may startle many New Zealanders to discover, is counterfiet. Most of the things we believe concerning the treaty are wrong, not only in terms of the meanings we give them but even to the facts themselves. One of the main difficulties we have in ascertaining these facts is that the

treaty was so little regarded at the time of its signature that nobody bothered to write down what had happened. We have little more than the instructions issued to Governor Hobson and the eye witness account written down half a century later by the missionary printer William Colenso from notes he took at the time.

One thing at least is clear from Hobson’s instructions from the Colonial Office. It was only with the greatest reluctance that the British Government became involved at all. For the preceding 40 years they had done their level best to stay out of the affairs of the European settlements in New Zealand, and had three times passed Acts of Parliament to declare that they accepted no jurisdiction over these settlements. Nevertheless, the growing European population (3000, mainly in the Bay of Islands, in 1840) and the prodding of the powerful Church Missionary Society forced it to act. The CMS was bothered by the lawlessness of the whaling port of Kororareka which was interfering with their mission and leading increasingly to disputes over land. Hobson was instructed to go to New Zealand, declare sovereignty, establish law and order and sort out land titles. He was authorised in addition to obtain the consent of the Maoris if that seemed necessary. This last was the origin of the Treaty of Waitangi.

On January 29 he sailed into Kororareka to the accompaniment of a seven-gun salute. The following day he issued notice of a meeting on February 5, and proclaimed New Zealand to be a possession of the British crown. This latter is important. It was not the treaty which established sovereignty, but this proclamation. By the time the chiefs signed, New Zealand had been a British posession for a week or more.

On the appointed day, a Wednesday, Hobson addressed those chiefs who had been assembled by the missionaries. He spoke no Maori and was obliged to use the services of the Rev. Henry Williams as an interpreter. This subsequently led to an altercation when one of the grogshop owners, who had come along for the fun, claimed that Williams was not interpreting accurately either the remarks of the Governor, who read the Maoris the text of a treaty he had prepared, or the responses of the chiefs. Perhaps Williams had his reasons. Certainly, although some welcomed the coming of the Governor, most of the chiefs who spoke rejected the suggested treaty and some invited Hobson in no uncertain terms, and to general applause, to take himself back to where he had come from and his concept of sovereignty, quaintly rendered as Kawanatanga, with him. After a day of debate the meeting broke up in some confusion with Hobson indicating that there should be a further meeting on Friday, February 7.

"... most of the chiefs who spoke rejected the suggested treaty and some invited Hobson in no uncertain terms, and to general applause, to take himself back to where he had come from../'

That night two further events occurred. On board his ship Hobson, assisted by Williams and the British Resident. James Bushby, drew up the final version of the treaty and Williams translated it into Maori. We know from the later evidence of Busby that this version was not that discussed that day because Williams suggested some changes, although we do not know what they were. And down on the beach a dispute had broken out. A distribution of gifts, mainly tobacco, authorised by Hobson had been mishandled. Some chiefs who had not obtained their share left in high dudgeon. Others had not expected a lengthy meeting and had brought no provisions, and they left too. Hobson's gathering of chiefs was leaking away. The missionaries decided therefore that the meeting must be advanced to February 6 and next morning the remaining chiefs gathered. Hobson was fetched and came in civilian clothes (not in uniform as usually depicted) short of breath and out of temper that his arrangements had been changed without consultation. He snappishly announced that there would be no further discussion, the treaty would be read and the chiefs would sign. At this point Colenso stepped forward and clearly stated that in his view the chiefs did not understand the treaty and should be given time to digest it. At this intervention Hobson lost his temper entirely, and interrupted Colenso to say: “If the native chiefs do not understand it is no fault of mine.” And he turned from Colenso to Williams who invited the chiefs to come forward and sign. Nobody moved, and it was not until Williams called them out by name (beginning with Hone Heke) that they moved forward and made their mark. Each was given a blanket and the deed was done.

This was very far from the way we perceive the Treaty of Waitangi, but what did it all mean? At the time, very little, and that different to the various parties. Many of the chiefs of the area had gone home and did not sign. Others subsequently did so but many more did not. In particular the powerful Waikatos would have no part of it and always

referred to its slightingly as "the Ngapuhi thing”. Others who had signed subsequently repudiated their signatures. What they thought they were signing is hard to say. They did not sign on February 6 what they had discussed the day before. There are five outstanding texts in English, two of which are different in significant ways from the other three and from each other. There is also a Maori text which is not a translation of the English tests and which is also significantly different. Had the Maoris known what was to come, they would almost certainly not have signed.

It was never taken seriously by the British authorities. Hobson regarded it as a tedious chore. It was subsequently described by one official as “a harmless device for pacifying naked savages.” Colonial politicians were even more scathing: Alfred Dommett in 1851 expressed his “utter contempt" for it and

that its recognition of Maori right to their land was “absurd"; Colonel Robert Trimble in Parliament in 1881 said that it should be “relegated to the waste paper basket”. In 1843 it was produced in a land dispute in Auckland and was declared by the Chief Justice, Sir William Martin, to have no validity in law. In that limbo it has since remained, Whatever we might think of it today, and whatever significances we may impute to it, within the context of its times the Treaty of Waitangi might very well deserve to be called: The treaty that never was.

Tony Simpson is the author of ‘Te Riri Pakeha, The White Man's Anger', published by Alister Taylor.

Reprinted with permission from INSIGHT magazine. Copyright © 1983. Richards Publishing Ltd.