Iri Ani The Witch's Blog

Tena koutou katoa

This is the house at Waitangi originally built in the 1830's for the First British Resident to Aotearoa/ New Zealand, James Busby.


People who were reading my blogs on Y!360 will remember I wrote a series of blogs as my first draft attempt to intertwine my family within our Aotearoa/New Zealand history into a cohesive story. I recall several times mentioning in passing the Treaty of Waitangi (Te Tiriti O Waitangi) but with little or no explanation about it.

Waitangi Day is an annual event in Aotearoa/ New Zealand. Like anywhere else just how individuals observe this day varies. Waitangi Day is a public holiday which always falls on the 6th of February. Some people will be involved in commemorative ceremonies at Waitangi or on other Marae, other people just head for the beach, (February is summer in Aotearoa).

Anyway Waitangi Day commemorates the signing of The Treaty of Waitangi (Te Tiriti o Waitangi). As this date approaches therefore I would like to explore this treaty and some of the issues and meanings surrounding it.

This is The Place From Which I Stand To Speak

Nobody is neutral; we all come from a context; we all have a perspective. Here is the outline of my lens:

Ko Ngati Pakeha ahau, (I am Pakeha), I am Kiwi of British origin. The first thread of my family line arrived in this country November of 1840 (the year of, and following, the signing of Te Tiriti o Waitangi). On a ship called the Martha Ridgeway, Hannah and James and their small daughter sailed into the beautiful harbour of Te Upoku o Te Ika (the Head of the Fish), which the Europeans had already renamed as Port Nicholson and which is now known as Wellington city. The following year on the 29th of December 1841 their first Aotearoa-born child (my ancestor) arrived into their world. From these people I am fifth generation Kiwi, my children are sixth generation, my grandchildren are forming the seventh generation of our whanau to belong here. No Aoraki to maunga, No Waimakariri to awa. This is where I stand to speak beside the mountains and the rivers and upon the land of Aotearoa.

I speak with aroha.

The Years of "First Contact

For a number of years the islands that formed New Zealand - so named  by Dutchman Abel Tasman on his "discovery" in 1642 - remained independent. Following the later "rediscovery" by James Cook in 1769 the country was visited by the scaff and raff of Europe and the Americas'. Whaling ships  from the major maritime nations of France, America, Norway and Spain and the East India Company visited New Zealand shores. Maori Tribes (First Nations people of Aotearoa) in coastal locations prospered by supplying ships with pork, sweetcorn, fish, and cargoes of flax and timber. The whalers were followed by sealers, by traders of all kinds, by escaped convicts from the neighbouring penal colony in New South Wales, Australia, and by sailors jumping ship. By the 1830's the main trading harbours were described as hellholes where drunkenness and prostitution were rife. Next, the arrival of missionaries committed to saving Maori souls from heathenism.

Professor Ranginui Walker describes missionaries as the cutting edge of civilisation , unlike the traders who were motivated only by commercial gain. "Underlying this mission were ethnocentric attitudes of racial and cultural superiority. Colenso, the missionary printer thought Maori gods were nothing but 'imaginary beings'. The Catholic Bishop Pompallier thought that Maori were 'infidel New Zealanders'. The Reverend Robert Maunsell referred to Maori waiata as 'filthy and debasing' and Williams wrote that Maori were 'governed by the Prince of Darkness'. Driven by such attitudes, the missionaries were the advance guard of cultural invasion. Their immediate goal was to replace the spiritual beliefs of the Maori with their own. Such an agenda of cultural invasions in Paulo Freire's analysis was based on 'a parochial view of reality, a static perception of the world, and the imposition of one world view upon another. It implies the superiority of the invader and the inferiority of those who are invaded.' (Walker,1990,p85).

These assumed notions of cultural superiority get built into all the new societal institutions such as the mission schools and churches. Missionaries as men of God and believers in the heavens were also aware of their terrestrial welfare and bought substantial estates for themselves from the Maori they were saving.

Naturally enough the missionaries were horrified at the disgusting conduct of their fellow Europeans who were engaging in drunkenness, debauchery and licentious behaviour and at the unscrupulous nature of the activities by the unregulated traders in their pursuit of profit. One of these was Captain Stewart who in 1830 aided Te Rauparaha to massacre his enemies at Akaroa in return for a cargo of flax. The missionaries saw this as a reproach to the British Government's failure to control the behaviour of British people on this raw frontier of New Zealand. This led to

The Installation Of James Busby As British Resident   

James Busby had no power to enforce law and order, he merely symbolised the official British presence and the initial step of annexation. Busby with 25 chiefs selected a flag to fly (alongside the Union Jack) on New Zealand built sailing ships. Busby also drew up a Declaration of Independence for New Zealand (this was aimed at neutralising a Frenchmen Baron de Thierry who had bought land at Hokianga and was intending to declare himself as King). A copy of the declaration was sent to the King of England, (Victoria does not ascend the throne until 1837), with an expression of thanks for recognition of their flag.

Why a Treaty?

The Treaty of Waitangi in 1840 was to provide the British Crown with a tenuous foothold onto New Zealand soil at a time when the Indigenous (First Nations) Maori population outnumbered Pakeha by thirty to one. Despite this very tenuous entitlement, in the international arena the treaty was considered sufficient to ward off other potential claimants such as France. Also Land speculation in the completely free market was creating new tensions as some tribes realised they had surrendered far too much for too little. Pressure was placed on the British Crown too by the New Zealand Association headed by Edward Gibbon Wakefield, which had formed a company to promote systematic colonisation of the country. In 1839 when the company realised annexation was imminent they sent Colonel William Wakefield out in the Tory to buy land while the price was still cheap and before the establishment of an official  administration that would bring regulation in it's train.

The tale of Colonel William Wakefield's land purchase is told on my Y!360 blog "Notes Upon The Journey: Te Upoko O Te Ika". (actually I am thinking I may repost it over here?)

To be continued:

References:

Ranginui Walker (1990) Ka Whawai Tonu Matou: Struggle Without End; Penguin Books
Claudia Orange (1987) The Treaty Of Waitangi; Bridget Williams Books Limited