Those tupuna were not ignorant

Tu Tangata, Issue 23, 1 April 1985, Page 13

Those tupuna were not ignorant

Elsie Locke

The signing of the Treaty of Waitangi is sometimes described in terms of a well-laid plot for a British takeover of New Zealand. Reading what people said and wrote at the time leaves no such impression. There were far too many divisions and differences for any one to concoct a plot and carry it through. People of both races were in a confused and confusing situation where they could only choose the course of action that seemed best at the time.

Much has been made of the differences between the English and Maori texts of the Treaty and of the degree of deception involved. It is true that the European concept of sovereignty must have been incomprehensible to Maoris with no experience of its impact and likewise the Maori concepts of mana and turangawaewae would be incomprehensible to the newcomers. But I don’t see these misunderstandings as decisive. Those tupuna who agreed to sign on 6 February 1840 were neither ignorant nor gullible. Seventy years had passed since the first white sails appeared off the coast. To a seafaring people, these vessels so much larger and swifter than the finest waka were a fascination. The Maori seized every opportunity to learn to sail, and by 1840 hundreds of them had served on sealing, whaling and merchant ships. Hundreds had walked the streets of Sydney and seen how a colony was managed. They knew what a Governor was, a kawana. It was no secret that the Australian blacks had been forced to retreat inland, and that native Tasmanians had been driven into a corner of their island and slaughtered. The good things and bad about this colonial society were soon reflected in the pakehas’ own villages at Hokianga and the Bay of Islands. The Tai Tokerau Maori raised pigs and grew potatoes on a grand scale for trade with visiting ships. The trade in muskets grew equally fast and enabled the Ngapuhi to be first to take advantage of this decisive weapon; other tribes of course hastened to acquire muskets too. But by 1833 they had all had enough. It was not only that the missionaries were preaching peace: the whole race could perish if this murderous style of warfare continued. But how were relationships between the tribes to be managed now? Who could keep the peace? For the next seven years white men were coming to New Zealand in growing numbers, mainly from New South Wales. They no longer lived in Maori kainga on Maori terms, but formed their own small villages. Generally speaking

they had no trouble in buying pieces of land, for they gave the tangata whenua new opportunities for profitable trade. The Maori lifestyle did not change, but was enriched by those European goods found particularly useful, like tools and blankets. The Bay of Islands became a major whaling port, and all round the coast a vigorous trade developed in flax and timber. There was no resistance to these slow and evidently beneficial changes. But towards the end of that decade, the land sharks of New South Wales became rapacious. A syndicate of five men led by politician W.C. Wentworth induced seven chiefs on a visit to Sydney to “sell” 20 million acres of the South Island for £2OO down and a small sum per year. The merchant John Jenkins Peacock aimed to get 348,000 acres in

the north of that island for £ 50. When British rule had been established all these pre-1840 sales and claims were investigated by appointed commissioners. They dealt with 800 claims representing 33 million acres, or two thirds of all the land in New Zealand. Two thousand pakehas in New Zealand with no rule of law over them, including many clever swindlers and brutal men; speculators without scruples out for grabs something had to happen. Far off in England the opportunities for colonization had been spotted too. The New Zealand Company, which bought land and sent shiploads of immigrants out before Captain Hobson had arrived on behalf of the British government, was a business operation planning to draw its profits from buying land

cheaply and selling it at a good price. Although they were less blatant about it, essentially they were speculators too, making use not only of the Maori land but also of the labour force seeking a better life than they could have in Britain. So when Captain Hobson arrived in the Bay of Islands and proposed a Treaty by which he could introduce some protection and control, the rangatira of Te Tai Tokerau could see obvious advantages. Indeed, some of them, through the “resident” James Busby who had been a sort of official there for several years, had already asked for a Governor to be sent. And they knew what a Governor was. They would look to him to foster trade, keep the peace, prevent lawless adventurers and greedy speculators from running wild. The disadvantages and doubts were also clear enough, to impart a watchful air to the proceedings. Sir James Henare said in the Listener of 11 August, 1984: “The actual decision to sign the Treaty was made the night before, down on the marae. The later discussion in front of Busby’s house, including the token opposition, was pure ritual. Now the sons of those men told me that.” This explanation fits. Some forty rangatira signed on 6 February 1840.

The Treaty was then taken round other places until five hundred and endorsed it. The missionaries and officials who explained it had to face some very sharp questions. Dr John Johnson, who came from Sydney to be “Colonial Surgeon”, recorded his impressions in a journal now in the Auckland Public Library. On 8 April, several chiefs came to “open their hearts” to the Governor because Frenchmen had told them that everywhere the English had exterminated the natives. Hobson himself replied by pointing out that he himself had come without soldiers, but that their duty, when they came, would be protect Maori and pakeha alike from bad men. On 28 April Dr Johnson was at a gathering of 600 Maori where Willoughby Shortland deputised for the Governor and the missionary Puckey interpreted. Shortland explained: that some of the chiefs had asked the Queen to send a Governor and she had at last consented. that the object of the Treaty was to introduce the blessings of British laws and institutions and to protect the Maori from lawless men. that the Queen would not interfere with Maori laws and customs, but would appoint gentlemen to prevent any cheating in the sale of their lands; purchasing only such land as they did not

need, to be disposed of to respectable settlers. Similar explanations and assurances were recorded in other diaries and documents. The magistrate Captain W.C. Symonds, who travelled with the explorer Ernst Dieffenbach through the Waikato, Taupo and Matamata regions, was questioned again and again as to the purpose of the Treaty. Were the Maori, bit by bit, to be stripped of their lands? Would they eventually be made slaves? The emphasis Symonds gave was always on the rule of law. George Clarke, a former missionary who was appointed “Protector of Aborigines” (the term then used for any indigenous people), complained over and over of the big job he had to do without assistance. Hobson however had a tiny budget and could not employ sufficient people to carry out those promises of protection. At the end of his term, Clarke reported: “The Treaty would never have been signed but for the assurances of her Majesty’s representative, that the object ... was to enable her Majesty to protect the rights of the natives, and punish refractory Europeans, of whose conduct they had complained; and that the tendency of the measure would be to suppress disorder, to increase commerce, and to promote the prosperity and happiness of both natives and Europeans. Upon the faith of these promises, the natives signed the Treaty.” (Remarks on the Treaty of Waitangi, pamphlet, 1846. Alexander Turnbull Library). The agents of the New Zealand Company meanwhile were running their own show in Wellington, Nelson, Taranaki and Wanganui where the Governor based in Auckland could exercise no real control. Their immigrants soon outnumbered all the other European settlers. They neither approved of nor tried to apply the undertakings of the Treaty. The first New Zealand constitution, through which Parliamentary government was introduced in 1852, was entirely for the benefit of those pakeha men with sufficient property to qualify for a vote. It excluded the Maoris (whose property rights were not individualised), the working men (who got no vote in England either at that time), and all women of both races. It was a settler constitution which gave no recognition whatever to the Treaty of Waitangi. In my view, the slogan “Scrap the Treaty” was applied 133 years ago. The Treaty was effectively scuttled then and has never been fully recognised by any New Zealand Government. Its pledges and its spirit however have proved indestructible. Otherwise the Treaty would never have stirred the controversies and the passions and the demands that have surrounded it, ever since the day it was signed.