The Treaty of Waitatangi

Target Language or Knowledge:

The Treaty of Waitangi is an important document of New Zealand. It is an agreement, an exchange of promises, between the British Crown and a group of about 500 Māori Rangatira (chiefs). In the 1830s, the British government decided they needed to protect Māori people, British settlers and trade, especially from the French who had an interest in taking over New Zealand.Lieutenant-Governor William Hobson began writing the treaty, with advice from James Busby, to secure British power. The treaty was translated by missionary Henry Williams and his son. The treaty was written in both English and Māori, but the translation was not exactly the same. The Māori version of the treaty was signed on 6th February 1840 by about 40 chiefs in the Bay of Islands. Many more chiefs signed copies of the Māori version of the treaty throughout New Zealand. The British announced supreme power over New Zealand on 21st May 1840. There were misunderstandings over the translations of words between Māori and the Crown. This mis-understanding and disagreement over the Treaty was the main cause of wars between some Māori tribes and the government in the 1860s and 1870s. In the 1900s, there was not much importance put on the Treaty. In the 1970s Māori began to protest and march to prevent more land from being taken away. In 1975, the government created the Treaty of Waitangi Act and the Waitangi Tribunal to negotiate Maori claims under the treaty. The government realized that a lot of Maori land had been taken unfairly and that in order to heal the injustices of the past, land had to be returned, apologies had to be made and settlements reached to address these claims.

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