HISTORY YEAR 9: BRITISH SOVEREIGNTY AND INTERVENTION

NEW ZEALANDHISTORY

3. BRITISH SOVEREIGNTYAND INTERVENTION

BRITISH INTERVENTION• In the 1830s the British government came under

increasing pressure to curb lawlessness in New Zealand, to protect British traders, and to forestall the French, who also had imperial ambitions. • The missionaries, for their part, wanted to protect Māori

from the effects of European settlement.

THE TREATY OF WAITANGI• In 1833 James Busby was sent to the Bay of Islands as

British Resident. • At Busby’s instigation, northern chiefs adopted a flag in

1834 and signed a declaration of independence in 1835. • Seven years after Busby’s arrival, at Waitangi on 6

February 1840, William Hobson, New Zealand’s first governor, invited assembled Māori chiefs to sign a treaty with the British Crown. • The treaty was taken all round the country, as far south

as Foveaux Strait, for signing by local chiefs, and eventually more than 500 signed.

SOVEREIGNTY AND RIGHTS• Under the treaty, Māori ceded powers of government to

Britain in return for the rights of British subjects and guaranteed possession of their lands and other ‘treasures’. • In later years, differences of interpretation between the

English and Māori texts complicated efforts to redress breaches of the treaty.• British sovereignty was proclaimed over New Zealand

on the basis of Māori consent, though the South Island was initially claimed on the basis of discovery.

EUROPEAN SETTLEMENTS BEGINS• Even before the treaty had been signed, the New

Zealand Company, inspired by the colonial promoter Edward Gibbon Wakefield, had despatched British settlers to Wellington. • In the next two years, the company also founded

Whanganui, Nelson and New Plymouth. • Otago was founded in 1848 and Canterbury in 1850,

both by New Zealand Company affiliates. Auckland, capital of the new Crown colony, grew independently.

Otago Harbour 1840

EUROPEAN EXPLORATION• By the 1850s most of the interior of the North Island

had been explored by Europeans. • Māori guides usually showed European explorers the

way. • New Zealand’s first Anglican bishop, George Selwyn,

travelled widely. • Much of the mountainous interior of the South Island

was not explored until gold miners arrived in the 1860s.

SELF-GOVERNMENT• When the British settlers sought self-government, the

British Parliament passed the New Zealand Constitution Act of 1852, setting up a central government with an elected House of Representatives and six provincial governments. • The settlers soon won the right to responsible

government (with an executive supported by a majority in the elected assembly). • But the governor, and through him the Colonial Office in

London, retained control of ‘native’ policy.

THE RACE FOR AKAROA• In the 19th century, the British and the French were rivals in

the Pacific. • The French had only minor interests in New Zealand, but the

myth persists that the South Island only escaped being French because in the scramble to colonise Akaroa the British got there first. • But by the time the French settlers and their naval escort

reached New Zealand, the whole country was securely British. • Governor Hobson, learning the French were heading for

Akaroa, did send Captain Stanley of the Britomart to demonstrate British sovereignty there. • However there was never any chance Cook Strait would

become, like the English Channel, a passage between English- and French-speaking regions.