“Since Hobson represented the Crown in making these guarantees, it could be fairly said that his most important pledge was to honour the guarantees in Article 2 of Te Tiriti o Waitangi.” This is where “the Crown promises to uphold Māori authority in its fullness and to ensure the protection of their land, settlements and all that they valued.” — Susan Healy, Tim McCreanor, Ray Nairn. (Treaty signing, part of a work by Len Mitchell for 150th anniversary stamp issue.)

David Seymour’s rhetoric for promoting his Treaty principles bill (now called the Principles of the Treaty of Waitangi Bill) resembles that of the lobby group Hobson’s Pledge, which asserts that “All New Zealanders should be equal before the law, irrespective of when they or their ancestors arrived in New Zealand.”

Hobson’s Pledge, with former National Party leader Don Brash as its patriarch, does all it can to counter what it judges to be excessive adherence to the Treaty of Waitangi — including well-funded campaigns against Māori representation on city and regional councils, against the use of Aotearoa as a name for our country, and for making English the pre-eminent, if not only, language used in official communications.

Brash and his followers take Captain Hobson’s phrase “He iwi tahi tātou” (We are now one people) — reputedly spoken to individual rangatira who signed Te Tiriti o Waitangi on February 6, 1840 — to suggest that Hobson envisaged a future in which Māori would have no special rights and, effectively, that their status as the Indigenous people of our country would come to an end.

Pākehā Treaty educators Drs Susan Healy, Tim McCreanor, and Ray Nairn challenge this interpretation of Hobson’s words by drawing attention to the actual pledges Hobson made to rangatira before and after Te Tiriti was signed. Those pledges reveal a very different intention to the one Brash’s group claims.

“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.”
“The question is,” said Alice, “whether you can make words mean so many different things.”
“The question is,” said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be master — that’s all.”

— Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking Glass

Lewis Carroll’s astute observation that meaning reflects power is pertinent to claims made by the Hobson’s Pledge lobby group regarding William Hobson’s supposed saying “He iwi tahi tātou” to rangatira on February 6, 1840.

For Hobson’s Pledge, this phrase is “a powerful recognition and endorsement of the unity” — by which the group actually means Pākehā-determined uniformity — “on which New Zealand would be founded.”

Why the phrase was used, and who suggested it, remains a mystery. The only reference we have to it is from an account by William Colenso, the 28-year-old Church Missionary Society printer, who was present at Waitangi on the day.

Colenso recorded that Hobson shook the hand of each rangatira who went up to sign and said: “He iwi tahi tātou,” which Colenso translates as “We are now one people.”

It’s worth noting that Hobson never uttered this phrase as a public announcement. It’s also worth noting that Colenso’s translation is a poor rendering of the words.

Margaret Mutu, linguist and Professor of Māori Studies at the University of Auckland, says that the phrase literally means “We are peoples together” and signals that Māori and the Crown are equivalent — two sovereign entities.

In a 2017 article in The Spinoff, entitled “Debunking the ‘one people’ myth,” historian Danny Keenan notes that Colenso’s account was written 50 years after the event, based on notes he took at the time.

Keenan argues that by the 1890s, Pākehā were trying to gloss over the country’s history of aggression towards Māori, aiming to secure for themselves a positive space and place in Aotearoa. He suggests that Colenso was sympathetic to that sentiment and wanted to present Hobson as a benevolent figure, conciliatory to Māori.

What did Hobson actually say? Margaret Mutu, linguist and Professor of Māori Studies at the University of Auckland, says the phrase “He iwi tātou” literally means “We are peoples together” and signals that Māori and the Crown are equivalent: two sovereign entities. (Portrait of William Hobson by James Ingram McDonald)

But regardless of whether Hobson said “He iwi tahi tātou” or not, it’s clear that the phrase was a quiet aside addressed to individual rangatira, not a formal or official pledge.

In fact, Hobson did make some important public pledges, during and after the Treaty signing. These pledges and the context for them should be at the forefront of our attention as we debate the Treaty principles bill.

On January 30, 1840, a week before the signing, Hobson delivered a proclamation directed to British settlers in which he laid out the warrants of his authority and stated the objective of his presence in the country.

The directive from Queen Victoria, he said, was that “measures shall be taken for the establishment of a settled form of civil government over those of Her Majesty’s subjects who are already settled in New Zealand, or who may hereafter resort hither.”

Note that it’s over British subjects that Crown control is to be established first and foremost.

Hobson goes on to say that his authority as Lieutenant-Governor would later extend to any part of New Zealand that “may be acquired in Sovereignty by Her Majesty.” Hobson used the words “may be” because he’d been instructed that “the free intelligent consent of the natives, expressed according to their established usages”, needed to be obtained before any British government over Māori territories could be exercised.

This consent was needed because the British Crown had four years earlier recognised the sovereignty of Māori over New Zealand in He Whakaputanga o te Rangatiratanga o Nu Tireni, the 1835 Māori Declaration of Independence.

Having established his credentials to his countrymen, Hobson asked James Busby, the British Resident, to call an assembly of Māori rangatira to discuss the rationale and substance of the treaty-making offer.

Over the coming days, a draft treaty was compiled and rendered in te reo (Te Tiriti o Waitangi) by the missionaries Henry Williams and his son Edward.

On the morning Te Tiriti was presented to the rangatira, Hobson opened proceedings with these words: “Her Majesty, always ready to protect her subjects, is also always ready to restrain them. Her Majesty the Queen asks you to sign this treaty and to give her that power which shall enable her to restrain them.”

Hobson was requesting the rangatira to grant him the authority he needed to exercise control over British subjects, not over hapū (Māori communities). His words would have resonated with the rangatira, who’d been asking the Crown for several years to bring order to the British subjects living in their country. For them, Te Tiriti o Waitangi was not about ceding their sovereignty, as the Crown was later to claim. Quite the opposite.

Having put forward the basic purpose of Te Tiriti, Hobson asked Henry Williams to go through the text, clause by clause.

The preamble expresses the warm regard and care the Queen had for Māori, and, along with Article 1, clarifies that the Queen’s governor would have authority over her subjects abiding in New Zealand.

As to commitments binding on the Crown, Article 2 was the most important. It states that the Crown promises to uphold Māori authority in its fullness and to ensure the protection of their land, settlements and all that they valued.

Since Hobson represented the Crown in making these guarantees, it could be fairly said that his most important pledge was to honour the guarantees in Article 2 of Te Tiriti o Waitangi.

When Williams presented Te Tiriti to the gathering at Waitangi on February 5, it was vigorously debated by the rangatira. Some were sceptical, while others could see advantages. By the end of the day, Hobson was uncertain about the outcome of his proposal. However, unknown to him, the rangatira kept meeting into the night and reached a consensus that at least some of them would put their signatures to Te Tiriti.

The rangatira assembled again the next day, and Hobson was told to hasten over from his ship so that the signing could go ahead.

With the Waitangi precedent in hand, Hobson travelled to Hokianga for a second signing, and despatched emissaries to invite chiefs throughout the country to sign. Eventually, more than 500 did.

But even as that process was happening, some ill-disposed Pākehā began warning Māori that their land was going to be taken, their authority disregarded, and their law and customs trampled on.

In the face of growing distrust and unease among Māori, Hobson sought to stem the discontent. On April 27, 1840, he wrote an official letter to an alliance of rangatira with the following pledge:

Tenei ahau te wakahua atu ki a koutou i taku kupu i korerotia e ahau ki nga Rangatira, i te huihuinga ki Waitangi, ki Hokianga hoki; ka tohe tonu te Kawana ki te wakau i nga tikanga, me nga taongakatoa o nga tangata maori; a ka tohe hoki te Kawana kia mau ai te rongo, te atawai, me nga ahuwenuatanga, i tenei wenua [emphases added].

I am here to announce to you all my words I spoke of to the rangatira at the gathering at Waitangi, and Hokianga also; the Governor will insist always to maintain the jurisdiction, authority and social order (tikanga) and all that is precious (taonga) to the maori people. The Governor will insist also in order that lasting peace, goodwill, and that the economy of this land (wenua) remain.

Despite this guarantee, the following month, Hobson claimed British sovereignty over Te Ika a Māui (the North Island) by cession and Te Wai Pounamu (the South Island) by “discovery”.

Hobson’s actions were not in sync with the promises he made and reflect the ambivalence of the British colonial officials who on the one hand aspired to treat respectfully with a native people, but on the other hand, were yet unable to shed imperial attitudes and modes of governing.

Hobson’s declaration of British sovereignty was a crucial step towards the colonisation of Aotearoa, a process that has been catastrophic for Māori.

In the years after the signing of Te Tiriti o Waitangi, the illicit British assertion of sovereignty was greatly enabled by Crown-authorised mass immigration. Today, the government’s assertion of a right to unilateral rule, without provision for co-governance and partnership arrangements, is a key source of tension between Māori and the Crown and a contradiction to Hobson’s 1840 pledges.

Until that unsanctioned imposition of sovereignty over Māori is honestly and fearlessly acknowledged and addressed, injustice and misunderstanding will continue to hinder the constructive progress of our nation.

A key obstacle to this acknowledgment is misinformation peddled by groups such as Hobson’s Pledge. The latter has turned Hobson’s incidental remark to chiefs into a weighty pronouncement that justifies the suppression of Māori rights and identity.

Not surprisingly, the group actively supports the Treaty principles bill, which the Waitangi Tribunal describes as the “worst, most comprehensive breach of the Treaty/Te Tiriti in modern times.”

Humpty Dumpty’s words hit the mark. For groups like Hobson’s Pledge, the goal is simply this: How to remain master — that’s all.

The authors thank Kennedy Warne for his assistance in the writing of this article.

E-Tangata, 2024