Pipiwharauroa Te Tiriti O Waitangi Ki Tūranga ā Kiwa
Te Tiriti o Waitangi at Tūranganui ā Kiwa
Te Tiriti o Waitangi was brought to Tūranganui ā Kiwa on 8 April 1840 not by the Crown but by the missionary Henry Williams. He asked his brother, William, to collect the signatures of rangatira of Tūranganui and Tairāwhiti on Te Tiriti. This was not the original Tiriti, signed on 6 February at Waitangi, but a handwritten copy in te reo Māori. It bears the shaky signature of Lieutenant-Governor William Hobson, then recovering from a stroke. This copy became known as the ‘East Coast sheet’ of Te Tiriti o Waitangi. It is one of eight copies of Te Tiriti taken around Aotearoa for signing in 1840.
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With no Crown representative present at Tūranganui ā Kiwa, local rangatira relied on William Williams to explain what signing Te Tiriti meant and what it was the Crown wanted from them. William in turn relied on what Henry Williams told him about Te Tiriti, for Henry had been present during the debate about Te Tiriti at Waitangi on 5 February and the signing on 6 February. What William actually told Māori about Te Tiriti and what it and the Crown meant for them was not written down and remains unknown.
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About one month after getting the ‘East Coast’ copy of Te Tiriti o Waitangi, William Williams wrote on 5 May that he had talked to local Māori about it, they generally approved of it, and he had obtained several signatures and expected to get more. Along with Te Tiriti, the Crown had supplied a bale of two dozen red blankets to give to those who signed it. In other areas of Aotearoa where Henry Williams had taken Te Tiriti and the Crown’s red blankets, local rangatira remembered little of what was said about Te Tiriti but they did recall getting a red blanket, and referred to Te Tiriti as “the blanket Treaty.”
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On 8 May Williams reported to the Crown that “the leading men” at Tūranganui ā Kiwa had signed Te Tiriti, and “I have no doubt that all the rest will follow their example.” He had given out all of the blankets supplied to him with Te Tiriti and wrote, “it will require at least sixty more to complete the bounty throughout” the East Coast. He overestimated how many rangatira would agree to Te Tiriti and in the end only 41 signatures were put to the ‘East Coast sheet’ of Te Tiriti of Waitangi. Between 5 and 12 May 1840, Te Tiriti was signed by 24 rangatira at Tūranganui ā Kiwa. Another 17 rangatira from Uawa, Waiapu, and Tokomaru signed between 16 May and 9 June 1840.
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The prominent rangatira Te Kani-a-Takirau did not sign Te Tiriti, although he let his house at Uawa be used for a hui of local rangatira who Williams tried to persuade to sign. Another leading rangatira who did not sign was Kahutia. The 24 of Tūranganui a Kiwa who did sign represented a number of the hapū of Tūranganui ā Kiwa, including Ngāti Maru, Ngāti Kaipoho, Ngāi Tawhiri, Ngāi Te Kete , Ngā Potiki, Ngāti Wāhia, Ngāti Matepu, Te Whānau ā Taupara, Te Whānau ā Kai, and Ngāi Tāmanuhiri (recorded at the time as ‘Ngāi Tahupo’). The Tūranganui ā Kiwa signatures (or ‘marks’) made on the ‘East Coast sheet’ of Te Tiriti o Waitangi between 5 and 12 May 1840 are: • Manutahi (possibly Kemara Manutahi of Ngāti Maru) • Mangere (Tamati Waaka Mangere of Ngāti Kaipoho, elder brother of Raharuhi Rukupo and in whose memory Te Hau ki Tūranga was carved) • Tūrangi Pototi (also known as Paratene Pototi of Ngāi Tawhiri and Ngāi Te Kete, killed during the
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November 1868 attack on Tūranganui ā Kiwa) Tūruki (Te Keepa Te Tūruki of Ngāti Maru, uncle to Te Kooti Arikirangi Tūruki and who raised him from a young age) Maronui (Ngāti Kaipoho) Te Urimaitai (Te ūiramaitai, of Te Aitanga ā Hauiti) Te Kaingakiore (Ngāi Tahupō of Ngāi Tāmanuhiri) Toua (Tauamanaia, of Rongowhakaata) Tuwarakihi (possibly Rongowhakaata) Eruera Wina (or Eruera Wānanga, a Ngāpuhi visitor) Matenga Tukareaho (Ngāi Tahupo of Ngāi Tāmanuhiri and Ngāti Rākaipaaka) Tūroa (possibly Raniera Tūroa of Rongowhakaata) Paia Te Rangi (Wiremu Kingi Paia Te Rangi of Ngāti Maru, a Pai Marire who later accompanied Te Kooti) Tūhura (Ngāti Maru) Mahuika (Wi Mahuika of Ngā Pōtiki, exiled to the Chatham Islands in 1865 after Waerenga-ā-hika) Tutapaturangi’ (probably Tutepakihirangi, of Ngāti Kahungunu ki Wairarapa, then attending the mission school having come from Nukutaurua, Māhia, where his people had taken refuge) Te Hore (Te Hori, of Te Aitanga-ā-Māhaki and Rongowhakaata) Te Panepane (Te Aitanga-ā-Māhaki and Rongowhakaata) Titirangi (Rawiri Titirangi, of Ngāti Wahia and Ngāti Matepu) Te Pakaru (Enoka Te Pakaru, of Te Whānau-āTaupara) Te Wareana (possibly Te Poihipi Te Whareana, of Te Aitanga-ā-Māhaki and Rongowhakaata) Tawarau (Te Whānau-ā-Taupara and Te Whānauā-Kai) Wakahingatu (Whakahingatu, of Rongowhakaata) Te Eke (Rawiri Te Eke of Ngāti Oneone, father of Hirini Te Kani)
What these rangatira understood Te Tiriti to mean is not known. It is likely that Williams emphasised the protective role of the Queen, who was also the head of the Anglican church he represented; a faith that almost all in Tūranganui ā Kiwa had strongly embraced in the late 1830s. As well as the Queen’s protection, they were assured by the guarantee in Te Tiriti of their continued rangatiratanga over their lands, fisheries, and all other taonga. In February 1840 Williams had warned them about greedy speculators who wanted their land, and he persuaded them to sign a trust deed placing a large part of Tūranganui ā Kiwa in the guardianship of the church. The Crown never investigated or honoured this deed, but it does show local rangatira saw there might be a need to protect their lands for the future, and Williams would have promoted Te Tiriti as ensuring and strengthening this protection. Land speculators were not then known to local hapū, who already had numerous Pākehā living amongst them. They shared their lands with these whalers and traders, who they incorporated into the tribe through marriage and managed under tikanga Māori. The rangatira had no trouble understanding what ‘rangatiratanga’ meant but another key term in Te Tiriti – ‘kāwanatanga’, or governorship – was not familiar to them. They certainly did not understand that by signing Te Tiriti they had signed away their mana or, as the Crown put it, sovereignty. This much was made very clear when the Crown posted the hapless Resident Magistrate Herbert Wardell to Tūranganui ā Kiwa in 1855 to try to exercise the authority it wrongly thought it had acquired in 1840.
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As Wardell reported, the rangatira of Tūranganui ā Kiwa, “unanimously and emphatically denied the Queen any right in these islands and declared they would never acknowledge her any.” As Kahutia put it in 1858: Let the Magistrate be under the Queen if he likes; we will not consent to Her authority; we will exercise our own authority in our own country... I had the mana before the Pakeha came and have it still. Raharuhi Rukupo told Governor Gore Browne much the same thing in 1860 when he visited Tūranganui ā Kiwa in 1860, and he upheld the view of many at Tūranganui ā Kiwa when he wrote to the Crown in 1861: “we do not understand the meaning of your flag, nor do we know the people who shall take this Island, New Zealand. What we do know is that you protect, and you seize, you are kind, and you are ready to fight, you feed with soft food, and you feed with hard.” As Raharuhi foretold, in 1865 at Waerenga-ā-hika the Crown was ‘ready to fight’, ready to ‘seize’ by confiscation, and ready to feed the iwi of Tūranganui ā Kiwa with the hardest food of all, and it imposed its understanding of ‘kawanatanga’ and of Te Tiriti o Waitangi by force. Nā Bruce Stirling Rongowhakaata Research Fellow & Historian Want to Know More? Waitangi Tribunal, Tūranga Tangata Tūranga Whenua:
The Report on the Turanganui a Kiwa Claims, Wellington, 2004. Digital copy for viewing and download at: URL: http://www.justice.govt.nz/tribunals/waitangitribunal Claudia Orange, An Illustrated History of the Treaty of Waitangi, Wellington, 1990 Miria Simpson, Nga Tohu o Te Tiriti: Making A Mark, Wellington, 1990 Claudia Orange, ‘Treaty of Waitangi’, 2012, Te Ara – the Encyclopedia of New Zealand. URL: http://www.TeAra.govt.nz/en/treaty-ofwaitangi ‘Turanga Treaty copy’, 1840. URL: http://www.nzhistory.net.nz/media/interactive/ turanga-treaty-copy Treaty of Waitangi, East Coast sheet. Archives NZ Code R21434437 (IA 9, box 8). Archives NZ. Digital copy for viewing and download at: URL: http://www.archway.archives.govt.nz/ CallItemAdvancedSearch.do
Celebrate Treaty Signing in Tūranga 9th May 2015 Venue: Whakato Marae, Manutuke Powhiri: 1pm