SUDDENLY AFTER 150 YEARS – A PARTNERSHIP?
Feb 14, 2018 4:09:35 GMT 12
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Post by Kiwi Frontline on Feb 14, 2018 4:09:35 GMT 12
SUDDENLY AFTER 150 YEARS – A PARTNERSHIP?
Only in the last 25 years or so has anyone thought to suggest that the Treaty of Waitangi created a Crown-Maori racial partnership. For almost 150 years, this view was largely unheard of. There is not a shred of historical evidence that the British authorities meant to establish such a partnership, nor that the chiefs saw this as the Treaty’s object.
Modern-day revisionists claim the Maori understanding of the Treaty was that the chiefs were not ceding sovereignty to the Crown at all. Instead, they were getting some kind of co-governance arrangement under which the Crown would exercise authority only over white settlers, and Maori would continue to be ruled in tribal style by chiefs. Such assertions are not supported by the historical record.
The chiefs of coastal tribes had lived and worked alongside European whalers, sealers, missionaries, and traders for more than two decades. Their young men had travelled all over the world in British ships, observed British sovereignty in operation, and returned to tell the tale. It seems clear that in the lead-up to the signing of the Treaty, most chiefs had come to view British sovereignty and its associated rule of law as the only way to put a conclusive end to the Musket Wars that had ravaged the land for almost two decades prior to 1840.
By R P. C
Only in the last 25 years or so has anyone thought to suggest that the Treaty of Waitangi created a Crown-Maori racial partnership. For almost 150 years, this view was largely unheard of. There is not a shred of historical evidence that the British authorities meant to establish such a partnership, nor that the chiefs saw this as the Treaty’s object.
Modern-day revisionists claim the Maori understanding of the Treaty was that the chiefs were not ceding sovereignty to the Crown at all. Instead, they were getting some kind of co-governance arrangement under which the Crown would exercise authority only over white settlers, and Maori would continue to be ruled in tribal style by chiefs. Such assertions are not supported by the historical record.
The chiefs of coastal tribes had lived and worked alongside European whalers, sealers, missionaries, and traders for more than two decades. Their young men had travelled all over the world in British ships, observed British sovereignty in operation, and returned to tell the tale. It seems clear that in the lead-up to the signing of the Treaty, most chiefs had come to view British sovereignty and its associated rule of law as the only way to put a conclusive end to the Musket Wars that had ravaged the land for almost two decades prior to 1840.
By R P. C