Following on from my previous post on the first half of Article Two, this post looks at the second part. In the first part, we saw how the Crown agreed to protect the pre-existing rights of the Rangatira though each language version differed in how they conceived of those rights. The English version also contained a fish-hook concerning land that is completely absent from the version in te reo Māori. Let’s continue to see how land is considered in the second part.
As previously, it is always helpful to read what the texts actually say (and I recommend reading them aloud too). I have bolded the second part of Article Two, which is what this post will focus on.
Here is Article Two in te reo Māori:
Ko te Tuarua
Ko te Kuini o Ingarani ka wakarite ka wakaae ki nga Rangatira ki nga hapu-ki nga tangata katoa o Nu Tirani te tino rangatiratanga o o ratou wenua o ratou kainga me o ratou taonga katoa. Otiia ko nga Rangatira o te Wakaminenga me nga Rangatira katoa atu ka tuku ki te Kuini te hokonga o era wahi wenua e pai ai te tangata nona te Wenua-ki te ritenga o te utu e wakaritea ai e ratou ko te kai hoko e meatia nei e te Kuini hei kai hoko mona.
Here is a translation of that text into English (by Professor Sir Hugh Kawharu):
The second
The Queen of England agrees to protect the chiefs, the subtribes and all the people of New Zealand in the unqualified exercise of their chieftainship over their lands, villages and all their treasures. But on the other hand the Chiefs of the Confederation and all the Chiefs will sell land to the Queen at a price agreed to by the person owning it and by the person buying it (the latter being) appointed by the Queen as her purchase agent.
Here is Article Two in the English version:
Article the second
Her Majesty the Queen of England confirms and guarantees to the Chiefs and Tribes of New Zealand and to the respective families and individuals thereof the full exclusive and undisturbed possession of their Lands and Estates Forests Fisheries and other properties which they may collectively or individually possess so long as it is their wish and desire to retain the same in their possession; but the Chiefs of the United Tribes and the individual Chiefs yield to Her Majesty the exclusive right of Preemption over such lands as the proprietors thereof may be disposed to alienate at such prices as may be agreed upon between the respective Proprietors and persons appointed by Her Majesty to treat with them in that behalf.
We’ll start off by having a look at how the grammar shifts again in part two of Article Two. While the Queen of England (aka the Crown) was the subject of the first part of this article, the second part shifts back to the Rangatira. Again, both versions distinguish between the Rangatira of te Wakaminenga – or the United Tribes – and other Rangatira (this is a reference back to the 1835 Declaration of Independence, which we will look at in a future post).
As Article Two has two parts, it implies – particularly by the use of the word ‘but’ – that the Queen’s protection is conditional on agreement to the second part of the sentence. What is that condition?
In te Tiriti, the Rangatira agree to ‘sell land to the Queen at a price agreed to by the person owning it and by the person buying it’, which in te reo is again preceded by the word ‘tuku’. This suggests the Rangatira were giving the Queen a right to buy land rather than that they would definitely give or sell it to her or her representatives. Given the Queen had already agreed to protect their pre-existing authority and rights, Rangatira no doubt considered they would control this process.
The Treaty, on the other hand, sets out a much more technical mechanism. It states that the Rangatira will ‘yield’ (meaning ‘give up’, a much more passive word than ‘give’) to the Queen ‘the exclusive right of Preemption’ over the lands they wished to sell. Pre-emption means the Crown had a sole right to purchase Māori land, effectively making the Crown a monopoly purchaser. Private land purchasers would no longer be able to buy land directly from Māori, as they had done prior to 1840.
Now, it’s important to remember that while there were many motivations for imperialism and colonialism, a significant one – if not the most significant one – was economic. New colonies contained new resources to exploit to generate wealth, including people, timber, minerals, and, most of all, land. This part of the Treaty may have been careful to say that the Crown’s pre-emptive right applied when the Rangatira ‘may be disposed to alienate’ their land (i.e. when they wanted to sell it) but it soon became clear that land acquisition was a central part of the Crown agenda.
The Crown’s intention was to buy land cheaply from Māori and on-sell it to settlers thereby generating the financial means to run the new colony and attract new migrants. Given the size of the British Empire by 1840 – and the cost of running it – it was important that the new colony be self-funding. Some historians note that pre-emption was a standard British practice in other colonies and may initially have had a protective element – to protect Māori from untrustworthy private purchasers.
In any case, pre-emption was in place for most of the period between 1840 and 1865 (with some brief ‘pre-emption waiver’ periods where it was suspended and private buyers could purchase land). During this period, large amounts of land were sold, including nearly all of Te Wai Pounamu | the South Island, often using dubious means (more on that in a future post).
The other significant aspect to this part of Article Two is that it turned land into a commodity. Viewing land as a commodity – a material object that can be bought and sold – was very normal for the Crown officials involved in te Tiriti | the Treaty. Land had long been seen as a source of wealth and power in England – buying and selling commodities such as land was an integral part of the development of capitalism, which accelerated from the eighteenth century onwards in Britain. Land belonged to (some very wealthy) people.
This was not at all how Rangatira viewed land or whenua. Land was not a passive object, but a living being with its own mauri or life-force, to which the people were connected by whakapapa or ancestral ties and from which Rangatira drew both their authority and their obligations. The people belonged to the land. (You can read more about Māori relationships with land here.)
Te Tiriti | the Treaty imported the British understanding of land into Aotearoa and effectively established property rights that did not exist beforehand. As we have seen previously, Rangatira were now seen as landowners: the land belonged to them. And because it belonged to them, they could sell it (or so the Crown believed).
In later years, once the Crown began to establish its authority in the country, it became determined to destroy what was called ‘tribal communalism’ in favour of individualist capitalism. There were many ways it did this: via aggressive Crown purchasing, warfare and raupatu (confiscation of land), and, significantly, through a new mechanism for determining land rights: the Native Land Court, established initially in 1862 and then again in 1865. We will be looking at each of these in future posts.
Having now read through Articles One and Two, we can see that they were – and remain – significant differences between te Tiriti and the Treaty. These differences are rooted in the distinct worldviews that the partners brought to the treaty-making process. And they remain to be resolved between those partners: Rangatira and the Crown.
Up next – Article Three!
In Good Faith 