letter from New Zealand
February 6 is a significant day in the New Zealand calendar; a nationwide public holiday that sees demonstrations that sometimes result in violence.
February 6, 1840, was the fateful day when the British Crown and many Maori chiefs (but not all) signed the Treaty of Waitangi. In essence it is New Zealand’s founding document; the chiefs were agreeing to give the British Crown rights to certain lands, but it was by no means an agreement to give up all their lands.
Almost two centuries on, why is there all the acrimony? It really boils down to how the Treaty was implemented, or not implemented, and the fact that the Crown reneged on many areas that they had agreed to uphold. Land was subsequently often bought cheaply and some chiefs sold their people’s land without consulting them.
