Talk:Colony of New Zealand

Edit warring
Regarding the frequent reverts, I offer two suggestions. Firstly, it might pay to come to the talk page and discuss the issues with a view of reaching agreement, as that might be more constructive than undoing each other's work. Secondly, the article is completely devoid of inline referencing. Maybe adding some inline referencing would go some way towards coming to agreement.  Schwede 66  18:33, 9 October 2012 (UTC)


 * Agreed. I've added in a citation. I think the edit war is the result off a misunderstanding of the constitutional nature of colonial status. --LJ Holden 21:37, 9 October 2012 (UTC)


 * "1846 Constitution Act was never implemented, 1852 Act came into force 1853" - would be great if this edit summary could find its way into the body of the article.  Schwede 66  04:58, 13 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Underway :-) --LJ Holden 05:17, 13 October 2012 (UTC)

Orphaned references in Colony of New Zealand
I check pages listed in Category:Pages with incorrect ref formatting to try to fix reference errors. One of the things I do is look for content for orphaned references in wikilinked articles. I have found content for some of Colony of New Zealand's orphans, the problem is that I found more than one version. I can't determine which (if any) is correct for this article, so I am asking for a sentient editor to look it over and copy the correct ref content into this article.

Reference named "DNZB": From Henry Sewell:  From James FitzGerald:  

I apologize if any of the above are effectively identical; I am just a simple computer program, so I can't determine whether minor differences are significant or not. AnomieBOT ⚡ 05:59, 13 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Oops, will fix. --LJ Holden 06:12, 13 October 2012 (UTC)

"grant of sovereignty to the British supposedly agreed to"
The word "supposedly" is defined in the Oxford Dictionary as meaning According to what is generally assumed or believed (often used to indicate that the speaker doubts the truth of the statement).

I propose that we remove the word "supposedly" from the article on the basis that it is not supposedly but in fact well established in practice that the treaty of Waitangi granted the British sovereignty over New Zealand and was the country's founding document. It's pretty easy to back that up with high quality references.

I agree that the treaty has proven controversial over the years and there are many wrongs which must be righted but lets remove the weasel word "supposedly" from that paragraph.

What do you think, Schwede66? 101.98.248.252 (talk) 09:49, 12 August 2015 (UTC)
 * It's pretty clear that it did grant sovereignty in the English version of the treaty. But it didn't in the Maori version. Hence, "supposedly" isn't an inappropriate choice of words.  Schwede 66  10:31, 12 August 2015 (UTC)


 * You are entitled to your opinion about the interpretation of the Maori version of the treaty but you need to understand that the Treaty of Waitangi is widely accepted as New Zealand's founding document and there are plenty of reliable sources to confirm that it established New Zealand as a British Colony. There is no "supposedly" about it and this weasel word should be removed from the article. 101.98.248.252 (talk) 11:47, 12 August 2015 (UTC)
 * I suggest you read Michael King's The Penguin History of New Zealand; that book is pretty accessible. And if you really want to get to the bottom of it, I suggest you read Claudia Orange's The Treaty of Waitangi, but that is much more academic and thus a 'heavy read'.  Schwede 66  11:54, 12 August 2015 (UTC)


 * I am well versed in New Zealand History but thank you very much for the recommendation. My final position is that we should Avoid Weasel Words and "supposedly" is such a word. 101.98.248.252 (talk) 12:08, 12 August 2015 (UTC)

I know little about NZ history, but it seems to me that there is a simple solution: rephrase the sentence as Schwede describes without using "supposedly", e.g., "The basis for the claim over the North Island was the grant of sovereignty to the British in the English version of the Treaty of Waitangi, which was agreed by the Māori tribal leaders, but whose Māori language version did not grant such sovereignty." Or, something to that effect. Perhaps one of you with better access to NZ history sources could find appropriate wording that can be referenced. Ground Zero &#124; t 17:02, 12 August 2015 (UTC)
 * That text sounds good. Any suggestions for a copy-edit? I suggest the following reference.

My first attempt was a bit clunky. Here is another version:
 * "The basis for the claim over the North Island was the grant of sovereignty to the British in the English language version of the Treaty of Waitangi. Māori tribal leaders had signed this treaty, but the Māori language version of it did not grant sovereignty to the British."
 * I welcome other suggestions. Ground Zero &#124; t 19:33, 12 August 2015 (UTC)

There are controversies over the meaning of the treaty but the suggestion that there was no grant of sovereignty conferred by the Maori version Treaty is a very biased point of view and you can't put that statement here because the overwhelming majority of New Zealanders would disagree with it. 101.98.248.252 (talk) 20:15, 12 August 2015 (UTC)
 * So the source that I quoted, The Encyclopedia of New Zealand, got it wrong?  Schwede 66  20:26, 12 August 2015 (UTC)
 * I am quite neutral in this, as a Canadian. I looked up the source and did a bit of digging. Te Ara - The Encyclopaedia of New Zealand is "prepared by a team at Manatū Taonga Ministry for Culture and Heritage in Wellington, New Zealand". That sounds like it would meet the requirements for a reliable source in Wikipedia. If there is an opposing view, that can be sourced from reliable sources, it should also be reflected here. I don't see where User:101.98... has provided a source for an opposing view. "The overwhelming majority of New Zealanders would disagree with it" is hearsay, and cannot be considered here. Would many New Zealanders be in a position to interpret the Māori language version of the Treaty of Waitangi? Ground Zero &#124; t 22:02, 12 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Schwede66, the source you quoted says The Treaty of Waitangi was a written agreement made in 1840 between the British Crown (the monarch) and more than 500 Māori chiefs. After that, New Zealand became a colony of Britain and Māori became British subjects.. It goes on to say that Māori and Europeans had different understandings and expectations of the treaty which is true. A lot has changed in the 175 years since that treaty was signed, especially in the last 40 years but we need to be careful of giving too much weight to recentism here. Perhaps we would reword it to say that the treaty spoke of "sovereignty" in English and Kawanatanga in the Maori version which is translated as "governance"... 101.98.248.252 (talk) 20:29, 13 August 2015 (UTC)
 * I've had another shot at rewording it, hopefully with a reasonably NPOV while avoiding weasel words. 101.98.248.252 (talk) 09:19, 18 August 2015 (UTC)
 * It seems to be a reasonable rewording, but you forgot to add a citation to your sources. Dimadick (talk) 12:08, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

Sovereignty already established prior to signing?
Captain Cook claimed New Zealand for Britain at Mercury Bay 15th November 1769. There was no sovereign power in NZ at that time.This was SOP for the British when they wished to claim some new territory and in the 1700s did not did not depend on any natives signing anything. Maori had a divided, neolithic community structure. There was no central authority. There was no agreed political system -even the language used was so different that Maori from central North Island found it hard to understand Maori from Northland. Many powerful chiefs considered that they were the ultimate power,indeed Europeans sometimes described individual chiefs as "kings " in the early 1800s.

In 1840 it should be noted that NZ was proclaimed a sovereign nation by Hobson 6 days before the treaty was discussed with Maori at Waitangi. The sovereignty of NZ had already been proclaimed by the governor of NSW in Sydney prior to this. On the face of it seems the Waitangi discussions and signing throughout New Zealand were a formality as NZ was already a sovereign nation."Recentism " is a real plague in this topic. It must be remembered that probably no Maori in New Zealand could read either the English or Maori version in 1840 -they depended on what was said. Most of the talking and explaining was done by missionaries who for a variety of reasons wanted NZ to be a British colony. The LMS were especially partial as they had communicated with Whig MPs regarding colonisation in the year leading up to the event. The LMS could pull strings in London and they did.

The literacy evidence is in the Waitangi and other signatures. Only 12% of the 600 odd chiefs signed their own name and most of those in a very shaky unconvincing hand-the rest signed with an X or part of their moko. If only a few were capable of doing a simple thing like signing their own name it is nonsense to suggest that they would have been able to read the subtle differences between the English and Maori copies.

Debate about the differences between the versions is largely irrelevant in terms of how Maori behaved in 1840.115.188.178.77 (talk) 02:37, 17 January 2016 (UTC)
 * You need to avoid adding a space at the beginning of paragraphs in order for your comments to appear properly. In any case your point is unclear. Are you suggesting a change to the article? This page is not the place to raise random discussions about this topic, which is what you seem to be doing. BlackCab  ( TALK ) 08:19, 18 January 2016 (UTC)

Yes ,the article needs to be bought up to date to reflect what actually happened at the time. "Recentism" has meant that the original facts have been lost. There needs to be a preamble to explain what actually was going on prior to the colonization.ie the situation in Britain ,the situation in the British empire and the Maori situation, other wise it doesn't make much historical sense.115.188.178.77 (talk) 05:25, 22 January 2016 (UTC)

External links modified
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"kāwanatanga which is generally translated as governance"
I suggest that this phrase to be modified to say "kāwanatanga which is generally translated as either governance or government". The whole affected sentence would then appear as "The Māori translation of the treaty refers to kāwanatanga which is generally translated as either governance or government rather than sovereignty and this point remains a subject of much controversy and political debate." This then maintains consistency with the quoted source in the article's footnotes which uses kawanatanga to mean either governance or government. The quoted source says: "Māori leaders gave the Queen 'te kawanatanga katoa' or the complete government over their land." In that sentence kawanatanga means government while katoa means complete. A translation of the Maori text of the Treaty of Waitangi will typically use "government" for where "kawanatanga" is used originally. This can be seen in the modern translation of the Māori text of the Treaty of Waitangi by Hugh Kāwharu, which is used by the Waitangi Tribunal. This suggestion will be open to discussion before I potentially modify this sentence in June 2024. KentLStevens (talk) 20:14, 2 May 2024 (UTC)
 * Do you mean you will change 'government' to 'government or governance', noting that the C. Orange source uses only 'government'? Roger 8 Roger (talk) 22:33, 2 May 2024 (UTC)
 * The specific sentence that I am suggesting we change currently uses "governance". The C. Orange source in the article refers to kawanatanga as "governance or government" when it is translating ‘te Kawanatanga katoa’. The C. Orange source also says: "authority would be shared between the government and rangatira." In the NZ History source associated with the specific sentence, it states a definition of kawanatanga that also appears on the Waitangi Tribunal's website. The definition phrase in the NZ History source is "The translators of the English text used the Māori word 'kawanatanga', a transliteration of the word 'governance', which was in current use." As the C. Orange source, the NZ History source and the Waitangi Tribunal's website all use kawanatanga to mean both governance and government, I suggest we also use both in this sentence. KentLStevens (talk) 20:36, 3 May 2024 (UTC)
 * I see your point. An alternative understanding of the sentence "kawanatanga is translated as governance or government", is what it actually says - it is one or the other, not both. If it were both it would use 'and' not 'or'. As there is no direct translation of any of those three words into or out of Maori, meaning they each mean something slightly different, I assume the ambiguous translation of kawanatanga to mean either government or government, not both, which is what the C. Orange source says, is better. Roger 8 Roger (talk) 21:06, 3 May 2024 (UTC)

Issue of sovereignty
One of the most common and important things historians emphasise when discussing the Colony of New Zealand is the transition from nominative sovereignty to substantive sovereignty. This reflects the reality of the fact Māori held dominant status in population, the economy and control of land (and therefore law) when the Treaty was signed. It's disputed by historians when exactly the moment that the British gained substantive sovereignty occurred - James Belich argues it was during the 1860s and 70s, whereas Danny Keenan pinpoints it clearly as the end of 1863 that "the crown prevailed" (Wars Without End, 2021 ed. pp.26-27)

Reflecting upon this, I wrote a subsection of this article about to what degree the Colony of New Zealand was legitimate, seeing as it was established from the Treaty of Waitangi (signed between Māori rangatira and representatives of the Crown). In its present state, the article is flawed because it presents the establishment of the colony in 1841 as an absolutely legimate and wholly recognised one, but this is ahistorical.

The editor Roger 8 Roger has undone this edit twice, without giving an adequate explanation. Apparently the Te Paparahi o Te Raki Inquiry is not a valid source ?. @Gadfium @Schwede66

Issue of sovereignty
One of the most commonly discussed matters of the Colony of New Zealand is the matter of when the Colonial Government first achieved substantive sovereignty. Although the status of New Zealand as a Colony was recognised under English law, there is a growing modern consensus that this, nor any transfer of sovereignty, was neither consented to nor immediately recognised by Māori.

According to historian James Belich, sovereignty fell into two categories: nominal (meaning the de jure status of sovereignty, but without the power to govern in practice) and substantive (in which sovereignty can be both legally recognised and widely enforced without competitition). In his 1986 book The New Zealand Wars and the Victorian Interpretation of Racial Conflict, Belich comments that "There is little doubt that the British had the latter meaning in mind, but it is the former which may have come closer to the Maori understanding of the Treaty." At the time of the Colony's founding, Māori owned the vast majority of the land, made up almost all of its population, produced foodstuffs and dominated the economy. (Basil Keane, 'Te Māori i te ohanga – Māori in the economy - Māori enterprise, 1840 to 1860', Te Ara - the Encyclopedia of New Zealand, http://www.TeAra.govt.nz/en/te-maori-i-te-ohanga-maori-in-the-economy/page-3 accessed 11 July 2024) [better source needed]

Given that Māori who signed the Treaty of Waitangi did not seek to give up their land and resources, and that many iwi managed to retain control over their own dominions for decades afterwards, there is debate as to when the 'Colony of New Zealand' began to exist as a fully sovereign entity. Belich continues that "Certainly, for many years after 1840, 'nominal sovereignty' was much closer to the reality. This ambiguity was a source of friction. The British imagined that they were entitled to govern the Maoris in fact as well as name, although [William Hobson and Robert FitzRoy] were sufficiently realistic to grasp that substantive sovereignty could not be applied comprehensively overnight." Danny Keenan pinpoints specifically the end of 1863 as the moment when "the crown prevailed" and won substantive sovereignty for the Colony.

In 2014, the Waitangi Tribunal report on Stage 1 of the Te Paparahi o Te Raki Inquiry found that Māori, specifically Ngāpuhi, never intended to cede sovereignty. "The rangatira who signed te Tiriti o Waitangi in February 1840 did not cede their sovereignty to Britain", the Tribunal concluded. "That is, they did not cede authority to make and enforce law over their people or their territories". The Tribunal conceded as well that rangatira who signed the treaty did agree to share power with Britain, but only to the extent that they "agreed to the Governor having authority to control British subjects in New Zealand, and thereby keep the peace and protect Māori interests", on the understanding, and thus the condition, that Māori and Britain would be equal partners. Dhantegge (talk) 07:13, 11 July 2024 (UTC)
 * @user:Dhantegge I have only just seen your posts here, and the one on an other editor's talk page which I chanced upon. I have been busy dismembering your recently created aticle about anti-Maori sentiment, as you doubtless know. The reason I have changed many of your edits is that they don't comply with WP rules. I am assuming good faith by you for the time being, but I question your understanding of the facts and your ability to use sources properly. You are confused about a Crown Colony, sovereignty, native land rights, terra nullius, issues of European law and much more. What you added here on the article main page, that I removed, was out of place. It did not relate directly to the topic and was an unqualified distraction. In wiki language it was a fork and given undue weight. My reply to your comments above is 'so what?' You are misusing and misunderstanding what Belich is saying, which means what you have added is your own original research. (Once again, please do not use decisions of the Waitangi Tribunal as a secondary source.) I'm not sure if entering a discussion will have much effect but I will if needed because I still assume you mean well. Roger 8 Roger (talk) 03:32, 13 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Ah, I see. We were right about you. Dhantegge (talk) 06:15, 13 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Please take this as a friendly warning to a relative newbie: if you make personal attacks on any other editor, directly or indirectly, you risk being sanctioneded. Being ignorant and not understanding a topic does not give you the right to lash out at another editor with a different view - attack the argument, not the person.
 * Now, for the benefit of others (because I don't think this will register with you, or your overseas buddy) I will try to elaborate on why I reverted your additions. Belich is talking about a reason for the Maori wars: different world views from different cultures, in this case specifically about land rights. That is of minor importance to this article about the Crown Colony which is based on a European concept of land rights, which includes (European) sovereign title. If you use Maori views of land ownership in an article about a Crown Colony, it has to be very clear how that affects directly the Crown Colony, otherwise you are mixing Apples with oranges. That is an interesting topic but it relates more closely to the Treaty and the Maori Wars than to a Crown Colony. It did relate to the declaration of sovereignty and the subsequent establishment of the Crown Colony (ie indirectly), which is one important reason UK officials such as Normanby and Stephen wanted an agreement of some sort first with the indigenous population. If these different world views on land ownership are used in this article IMO they are better used in the history section - it is too off-topic to mention in the lead. Belich's mention of two types of British sovereignty is a variation to 'active possession', that must occur before full sovereignty is taken. Whether or not Britain had full sovereignty over the whole of NZ in the 1850s is another topic but from the position of the Crown Colony itself, it did. By bringing the topic into the lead in such a detailed way, IMO you are giving it far too much weight and it is bordering on being off-topic anyway. Roger 8 Roger (talk) 07:42, 13 July 2024 (UTC)
 * I don't want to get too involved here but you might want to read this: Compliment before criticism. Alexeyevitch (talk) 08:06, 13 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Restored the bulk of this content because it is appropriate, encyclopaedic, well-sourced and well-written. In other words, an improvement to the article. David Palmer// cloventt (talk) 04:16, 15 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Thanks :) Dhantegge (talk) 09:45, 20 July 2024 (UTC)