Protecting Te Tiriti · Evidence Series · Part 02
What did the February 1840 rangatira actually agree to?
The answer cannot be taken from the English draft alone, and it cannot safely be generalised to every Treaty signatory. For the rangatira who signed at Waitangi, Waimate and Mangungu in February 1840, however, the documentary record and the Waitangi Tribunal's Stage 1 inquiry give us a defined evidential answer.
Primary Treaty textArchives New ZealandWaitangi Tribunal Stage 1
This part concerns the February 1840 signatories examined in the Te Paparahi o Te Raki Stage 1 inquiry: Waitangi on 6 February, Waimate on 10 February and Mangungu on 12 February. It does not automatically establish what every later signatory around the country understood or agreed to.
1. First, identify the instrument that was actually signed
Archives New Zealand records nine surviving Treaty sheets. Eight of the nine are written in te reo Māori. The Waikato-Manukau sheet is the only surviving sheet written in English. Archives records about 540 rangatira as signatories overall, with only 39 signing the English-text sheet.
That matters because the two texts do not express Article 1 and Article 2 in the same terms. Archives identifies this as a major difference between the versions.
| Provision | Te reo Māori text | English text |
|---|---|---|
| Article 1 | Gives the Queen te kāwanatanga katoa — complete governance. | Purports to cede all rights and powers of sovereignty. |
| Article 2 | Guarantees rangatira te tino rangatiratanga over their lands, villages and taonga, with the Crown obtaining the agreed purchasing right. | Guarantees full, exclusive and undisturbed possession of lands, estates, forests, fisheries and other properties, with Crown pre-emption. |
| Article 3 | Provides Crown protection and the rights associated with the Queen's people. | Provides royal protection and the rights and privileges of British subjects. |
“Kāwanatanga” and “sovereignty” cannot simply be treated as identical words. Archives itself describes sovereignty as the much stronger term in Article 1 and identifies the Article 1 and Article 2 differences as a continuing source of difficulty.
2. The agreement was not formed by the written words in isolation
The Waitangi Tribunal records that the Treaty was drafted in English and translated into Māori. On 5 February the Māori text was read to rangatira, while Hobson and his agents also explained the proposal verbally. Rangatira then debated it, sought explanations and received assurances.
The Tribunal records one especially important assurance: the Governor would be their equal rather than being above them. That evidence is relevant because the legal-historical question is not merely what Britain intended to obtain. It is what the signatories were actually asked to assent to and what they understood from the text and explanations presented to them.
3. What the Tribunal found the February signatories agreed to
After examining the text, speeches, explanations, contemporary records and expert evidence, the Tribunal concluded that the February 1840 rangatira it examined did not cede their sovereignty to Britain. It defined that finding more precisely: they did not cede their authority to make and enforce law over their people or territories.
The Tribunal nevertheless found that the rangatira did agree to share power and authority with Britain. In the arrangement it reconstructed, the Governor would have authority to control British subjects in New Zealand, keep the peace and protect Māori interests, while rangatira retained their own authority.
Authority retained
The February signatories retained authority to make and enforce law over their own people and territories. The Tribunal described their retained authority in terms of tino rangatiratanga, independence and full chiefly authority.
Authority accepted for the Governor
The Governor was accepted as having authority over British subjects, with that authority serving peace and the protection of Māori interests.
Relationship between them
The Tribunal found that rangatira and Governor were expected to be equals, with different roles and different spheres of influence.
Areas of overlap
Where Māori and Pākehā populations intermingled, the relative boundary of authority was not finally fixed. The Tribunal found that it remained to be negotiated case by case.
4. Other elements of the February agreement
The Tribunal also concluded that the February signatories agreed to enter land transactions with the Crown. It found that they appear to have agreed to Crown protection against foreign threats and to British representation in international affairs where necessary. It also recorded a Crown promise to investigate pre-Treaty land transactions and return land not properly acquired from Māori.
Those findings are important because they show that “no cession of sovereignty” does not mean “no agreement with Britain”. The Tribunal's reconstruction is of a negotiated relationship with defined British functions, retained rangatira authority and unresolved areas requiring further agreement.
5. What this finding does not prove
It is not a finding about every signatory
Stage 1 was particularly focused on the Bay of Islands and Hokianga signings in February 1840. Later signings occurred around the country through September. Their explanations and local circumstances require their own evidence.
It does not decide present-day sovereignty
The Tribunal expressly said it was not deciding how or when the Crown acquired the sovereignty it exercises today. It found only that the Crown did not acquire that sovereignty through an informed cession by these February signatories.
It does not erase the English text
The English text remains part of the Treaty documentary record. The evidential point is that it cannot be assumed to state the agreement understood by the great majority who signed Māori-text sheets.
It does not itself define today's legal remedy
A historical finding about the agreement in February 1840 is separate from the modern domestic-law question of what courts, Parliament or the Tribunal can enforce today.
6. The finding for this series
For the February 1840 signatories examined by the Tribunal, the evidence supports a specific proposition: they agreed to a British Governor exercising authority over British subjects and to a shared relationship with Britain, while retaining their own law-making and governing authority over their people and territories. The relationship was understood as one between equals with different spheres of authority, with overlap still requiring negotiation.
If a modern proposal says it is protecting Te Tiriti, the next audit question is unavoidable: is it protecting this February 1840 allocation of authority, or a later constitutional interpretation in which Parliament claims general legislative supremacy over both spheres?
Primary and official sources
Archives New Zealand — Māori and English Treaty texts and differences ↗
Archives New Zealand — original sheets and signatures ↗
Archives New Zealand — Treaty quick facts and text-language distribution ↗
Waitangi Tribunal — Stage 1 Te Paparahi o Te Raki findings ↗