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Updated: June 2, 2025
Treaty of Waitangi.# Meantime Hobson had asked the missionaries to send word round to all the neighbouring chiefs that he would like to see them, and on the 5th of February, 1840, a famous meeting took place on the shore of the Bay of Islands near the mouth of the pretty river Waitangi.
Henry Williams arrived at his home on Jan. 18th, 1840, in time to negotiate the Treaty of Waitangi, which will fall to be considered in a different connection. Twenty-five years had elapsed since Marsden had brought the tidings of Christianity to New Zealand, and his settlers had begun in fear and trembling to lay the foundation stones of the Church in this new land.
The first act of the new official was to gather the northern chiefs on the lawn in front of the British Residency, on the other side of the river from Paihia, and to lay before them the famous document known as the Treaty of Waitangi. It is sometimes asserted that Henry Williams was really the author of this treaty.
When a powerful chief refused to allow one of the Governor's roads to be pushed through his tribe's land, Grey said nothing, but sent the chief's sister a present of a wheeled carriage. Before long the road was permitted. But on the all-important question of the validity of the land clause in the treaty of Waitangi, the Governor always gave the Maoris the fullest assurance.
Here were founded the first schools, the first printing press, the first theological college, the first library. Here the first bishop fixed his headquarters, and here he convened the first synod. Here was signed the Treaty of Waitangi, by which the islands passed under British rule, and here was the temporary capital of the first governor.
There was much discussion all night long among the neighbouring pahs and villages; but the next day when the Maoris gathered, forty-six chiefs put their marks to the parchment now always known as the treaty of Waitangi. This treaty was taken by missionaries and officers from tribe to tribe, and in the course of two or three months over five hundred chiefs had signed it.
He arrived in September, 1861, to take the place of Colonel Browne, and after a month or two summoned a great meeting of the Waikatos to hear him speak. They gathered and discussed the land question. Grey said that those who did not wish to sell their land could keep it by the treaty of Waitangi; but that no one must hinder another man from selling what was his own.
Kendall and King could report hopefully of their recent reception on the Hokianga River, which they were the first white men to see; Hall could relate how he had found and forgiven the people who had assaulted him at Waitangi, and how prosperous had been his tour until he reached a pa where the demand for iron was so great that the inhabitants stole the rudder-hangings of his boat, and left the poor missionary to find his way back as best he might in stormy weather to the shelter of Rangihoua.
But he was still able to do much with those Maoris who had not yet declared themselves on Heke's side. By circulating and explaining the terms of the treaty of Waitangi, he won over the great chief, Tamati Waka Nene; and it was this man's force that eventually turned the scale on the British side.
He contended that as the culprits in the case were not among the chiefs who had signed the Treaty of Waitangi, they were not subject to the law or sovereignty of England. Though it is said that Dr. Phillimore held the same opinion, the Colonial Office put its foot upon it heavily and at once.
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