Land and ideals - background to the Treaty

Maori and Pakeha had long traded with each other, and part of their exchanges included transactions for land. By the later 1830s the British government grew concerned about how land was obtained from Maori. Once settlers headed to New Zealand, the British government could no longer let matters drift. Action was needed to protect the interests of Maori from the worst ravages of European impact.

The land trade

Europeans claimed to have gained land in several ways. Missionary organisations made arrangements with chiefs for the land needed for their stations and farms. There were also small-scale transactions when whalers, timber millers and merchants acquired pieces of land. Some were for commercial purposes, but sometimes traders got property for their part-Maori families. As British intervention became more likely by the end of the 1830s, capitalists in New South Wales became involved in land speculation and claimed to have bought large areas in the hope of converting them to secure titles later. In a class by themselves were the massive and controversial claims of the New Zealand Company, in 1839–40, to some 20 million acres in central New Zealand. Some missionaries, against orders from London, reserved tracts of land for tribes in order to prevent such sales.

There has been debate (then and now) about whether land transactions meant the same thing to European 'purchasers' and Maori 'sellers'. Many historians, and the Waitangi Tribunal in some of its reports, consider that Maori saw the transactions more akin to use rights as part of a reciprocal relationship between tribes and the particular Europeans who traded with and lived among them. Maori did not necessarily see the trade in land as a permanent loss.

The British government was worried. In 1838 the House of Lords noted that the transactions could result in serious confrontation and violence in New Zealand. A key feature of the Treaty of Waitangi was the imposition of Crown pre-emption (the exclusive right of land purchase), making it clear that private settlers could not buy land directly from Maori. Instead, Maori could sell land only to the Crown. The oral explanation about this aspect of the Treaty was that the government’s intention was to protect Maori. This was seen as a way of bringing order into an increasingly confused and disorderly situation. Crown pre-emption was also standard practice in all British colonies and former colonies; in the United States, direct purchases of Native American lands by private buyers and local and state authorities were legally invalid.

The New Zealand Company

The New Zealand Association, which took shape in 1837, became the New Zealand Colonisation Company in 1838. It is usually known as the New Zealand Company. The promoters of the company, led by Edward Gibbon Wakefield, saw emigration as a cure for Britain's social problems. Those involved in the company had already established a colony in South Australia (1834) and now made plans to create British settlements in New Zealand.

The company's programme of 'systematic colonisation' would, in theory, attract the right balance of migrants. There would be a privileged landowning class and a good supply of carefully selected labourers to work the land. This all depended on buying land cheaply from Maori and selling it at a 'sufficient price'. Part of the profits would cover the fares of the labourers. The result was supposed to be an idyllic English farming settlement in New Zealand. In late 1839, several hundred company settlers, with no government approval, set sail for Port Nicholson.

The humanitarians

Key men in the Colonial Office in London worried about the impact of colonisation schemes on Maori. Most prominent was James Stephen, permanent under-secretary at the office from 1836 to 1847. Stephen was strongly influenced by humanitarian Christian ideals. Like many others, he knew that European contact had led to the collapse or near extinction of some indigenous societies.

The Aborigines Protection Society, founded in 1836, aimed to improve the situation of indigenous peoples throughout the British Empire. An 1837 Report from the Select Parliamentary Committee on Aborigines (British settlements) told a dismal story of the British impact on indigenous peoples. Men like Stephen wanted to avoid a similar pattern in New Zealand.

The humanitarians opposed the formal colonisation and settlement of New Zealand of the type mapped out by Wakefield. For some years, they blocked his efforts to obtain official support or approval. The British government supported trade with New Zealand but not its settlement. This was part of broader British imperial policy to limit military and financial costs. An empire of commerce based on free trade was the aim, not an empire of settlement that could bring expense and trouble.

The decision to annex

As the British government carried out inconclusive negotiations with the New Zealand Company, it also considered options for the annexation of New Zealand. The best way for the British to intervene was unclear. William Hobson, commander of HMS Rattlesnake, visited New Zealand in 1837 and suggested that the Crown should acquire 'a legal title to some few districts, especially at the
Bay of Islands'. These small-scale commercial and trading settlements would allow British courts to be established and British authority to be spread slowly over a wider area.

The decision to annex at least some of New Zealand dates from 30 May 1839 and was made by Lord Normanby, the secretary of state for the colonies. In June 1839, Queen Victoria signed Letters Patent (a type of proclamation). These altered the definition of the boundaries of New South Wales to include 'any territory which is or may be acquired in sovereignty by Her Majesty within that group of islands in the Pacific Ocean commonly called New Zealand'. This meant that when the Crown's sovereignty over New Zealand was proclaimed in 1840, technically New Zealand became part of New South Wales.

The drafting of instructions took place in mid-1839. They were formally issued to Hobson, by now consul to New Zealand, in August that year. The departure of the New Zealand Company ships to the Cook Strait region led to him being instructed to secure the whole of New Zealand if he thought fit. How much discretion Hobson actually had is a matter of debate. The instructions strongly suggested that cession of the whole country was desirable and in the best interests of Maori. The British government had concluded that, because of the intrusion of settlers and their claims to have bought vast lands, Maori sovereignty was now 'little more than nominal'. The benefits of British protection 'would far more than compensate for the sacrifice, by the natives, of a national independence, which they are no longer able to maintain'.