The English Text of the Treaty of Waitangi

This exceptional analysis of the English text of The Treaty of Waitangi represents a major reassessment in our understanding of this foundational document. Historian and lawyer Ned Fletcher calls upon a wealth of archival sources and years of research to provide important new insights into how and why the Treaty was signed, and why ultimately it was not honoured.

Exploring the context for the Treaty between the British Crown and Māori tribes of New Zealand, Fletcher surveys British engagement with indigenous peoples throughout the Empire in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, including treaty-making that acknowledged indigenous land rights and sovereignty. He then traces the reasons for British intervention in New Zealand, and in particular examines the motives of the three men primarily responsible for framing the English text—British Resident James Busby, Consul and then Lieutenant-Governor William Hobson, and key Colonial Office official James Stephen.

Finally, Fletcher shows how powerful forces, including widespread acceptance of American case-law, the machinations of the New Zealand Company, and a growing antipathy to indigenous aspirations within the Empire combined to thwart the Treaty's intent, with dire results for Māori. In a remarkable feat of scholarship, he reconstructs the elusive English text, formerly known to us only from later versions and back-translations from the te reo text, to reveal its original meaning.

Fletcher's findings cast afresh the relationship between the English and Māori Texts, revealing an optimistic and ultimately affirming assessment of the ongoing foundational role of Te Tiriti o Waitangi in New Zealand life.