Nu Tireni · Evidence Series · Part 06 · May–November 1840
Crown proclamation is not the same event as rangatira consent.
February 1840 records an agreement. May 1840 records a Crown proclamation. November 1840 records the construction of a separate Crown colony. They are different legal and historical events.
Crown proclamation + Tribunal finding + Letters Patent history
On 21 May 1840, Hobson proclaimed British sovereignty over the North Island on the asserted basis of cession through the Treaty, and over the southern islands by asserted right of discovery. NZHistory records that Treaty signatures were still being actively sought at the time.
The Waitangi Tribunal’s Stage 2 report later found that, for Te Raki Māori, the May proclamations were inconsistent with te Tiriti because those rangatira had not in fact ceded sovereignty.
That creates an essential evidential separation:
February: what the rangatira agreed to.
May: what the Crown proclaimed.
Those events cannot be merged simply because the Crown proclamation claimed a Treaty cession as its basis.
Britain then built its own governmental machinery. NZHistory records that on 16 November 1840 Letters Patent made New Zealand a separate Crown colony from New South Wales.
This is the institutional genealogy of the colonial-government line: Crown assertion, colonial constitutional instruments, governors, legislature, courts and administration.
What the evidence supports
The Crown proclaimed sovereignty in May 1840 and later erected a Crown colony through British constitutional machinery.
The Tribunal found the May proclamations inconsistent with te Tiriti in Te Raki because Te Raki signatories had not ceded sovereignty.
What it does not establish by itself
The existence and later effectiveness of the colonial state does not, by itself, prove the earlier consent proposition that the Crown claimed in May 1840.
Primary and official sources
Manatū Taonga / NZHistory — Hobson’s 21 May 1840 proclamations ↗