As Jack Tame said, there is a version of the Treaty in English, the final English draft of the Treaty in Maori, and the version of the Treaty in Maori which was constructed from the final English draft.
In February 1840, these two document were in perfect sync. You could say they were a mirror image. There were no variations, other than the two variations that I have mentioned in the two previous videos.
Everything changed during March and April 1840.
On March the 1st, Hobson had a severe stroke and was incapacitated. He eventually died in 1842.
The British surgeon general put it down to stress.
Things began to unravel for the British in March and April, 1840.
Not only did Hobson suffer a stroke, but somehow, and no one knows exactly how, but the original draft of the Treaty in English was lost.
In her book in the Treaty, Dr Claudia Orange states clearly: “The original draft in English, on which Henry Williams based this Maori translation, has not been found. His original translation, presented to the Waitangi meeting of 5 February, has also disappeared.”
(Martin Doutre, The Littlewood Treaty. The True English Text Of The Treaty Of Waitangi Found. De Danann Publishers, 2005. p28 ).
With Hobson incapacitated, his personal secretary James Freeman played up. As Bruce Moon put it in Twisting the Treaty : “While the cat was away the mouse was playing. James Stuart Freeman, 3rd class clerk in the NSW Government, was palmed off on Hobson by Governor Gipps as his private secretary –incompetent, pretenCous, arrogant. Amongst English signatories to the Treaty he, uniquely, signed himself: ‘Jas. Stuart Freeman Gentleman’.1
What does Bruce mean when he says James Freeman played up? He means that when the final English draO of the Treaty was lost, and while Hobson was desperately ill, Freeman started to write and distribute his own versions of the Treaty in English. Historians call Freeman’s versions of the Treaty ‘flowery’ because they were much more elaborate and wordy than the original final English draO or the Treaty in Maori. Freeman’s versions were based on the discarded notes that the Treaty writers leO around aOer they have finalised the draO Treaty in English.
How do we know that the final English draft of the Treaty must have been lost at this early stage? That is, within only a few months of the Waitangi signing?
If it has been available, surely Freeman would have used it as the basis for writing his Treaty versions? Surely, other British officials would have insisted on this? The British, ordinarily, were sticklers for detail and correct process.
1 Bruce Moon. Twisting The Treaty. The Tribal Grab For Wealth And Power. Tross Publishing. 2014. Page 39
How is it that absolutely no one reigned Freeman in? The only reasonable explanation is that Freeman was ‘requested’ to produce more copies of the Treaty in English because the original final English draft could not be found.
There are other unanswered questions too.
Where was Henry Williams, the missionary who translated the final English draft into Maori at Waitangi? This is a good question.
Why wasn’t he called up to check that JFRV was faithful in every respect to the master copy of the Treaty in Maori, the copy signed at Waitangi on the 6th of February 1840?
Williams was lost in action. Freeman was incompetent. Hobson was terribly ill.
When I said earlier that things started to unravel for the British in March and April 1840, now you can see what I mean.
With the original English draft lost, Freeman began writing his own ‘flowery’ versions of the Treaty. Not having the final English draft to go on, he had to use the discarded notes of the Treaty writers.
And not knowing Maori, he could not do a back translation.
The net result was that his Treaties in English were markedly different from the Treaty in Maori.
In April 1840, Rev. Maunsell, one of the officials sent by Hobson to the Manukau Heads and Port Waikato area was in possession of one of James Freeman’s rogue versions (JFRV) of the Treaty in English, handwritten by Freeman Maunsell had been sent by Hobson to harvest the signatures of chiefs in that area.
This JFRV was signed by Hobson. We can only presume that Hobson presumed that Freeman had put together an accurate re-construction of the original final English draft which had been lost. Hobson was too sick to notice or check that it was far from accurate
Since the original final English draft was lost, he had nothing with which to compare the Freemans Rogue version presented to him.
And since Hobson could not speak or write in Maori, he could not check Freemans Rogue version against the original Treaty in Maori.
OK, back to Maunsell, the man who was sent to the Waikato to harvest the signatures of chiefs for Hobson in April 1840.
Maunsell not only had a JFRV of the Treaty on him, but he also had one of Colenso’s 200 printed copies of the Treaty in Maori. This (i.e. the Maori version) he read to a gathering of chiefs. There was discussion with the chiefs in Maori. Many more chiefs turned up to sign than expected. The A4 size Colenso copy of the Treaty in Maori was insufficient in size to take all the signatures. Maunsell compromised by using the JFRV of the Treaty to capture the overflow of signatures.
He just needed paper for the overflow of signatures, that was all.
The chiefs understood and believed that when they signed the JFRV, they were signing up to what they had heard in the Maori version. They did not realise that they two versions, the Colenso A4 in Maori, and the JFRV in English were very different in wording. Colenso’s A4 copy in Maori was a duplicate in wording with the Treaty signed at Waitangi on the 6th of February 1840 at Waitangi.
The JFRV was nothing like the Treaty in Maori It was sloppy work by the British. Really, this JFRV should be disqualified as a genuine Treaty document because the wording on it was not what the chiefs understood they were signing.
The British officials ought to have officially noted that the signatures were bone fide, but the English version they signed was not. Only the Treaty in Maori should ever have been permitted for the gathering of signatures. The fact that this JFRV is the only one of the nine copies of the Treaty in English is a red flag to start with.
Sensing there was a problem with this copy of the Treaty, Hobson said the following:
The British tied everything back to this master copy in Maori, the original copy signed by 52 chiefs at Waitangi on the 6th of February.
These two pieces of paper, the JFRV and the Colenso A4 treaty in Maori from the Waitako heads and Manukau areas were waxed sealed and pinned together.
When these two documents arrived back at the Treaty HQ in Waitangi, they were stored. The story of what happened was always meant to say with these two documents, but it didn’t.
Over time, the two documents were separated from each other, and the story of how they came to be was lost.
Hobson, still sick and near death, had to send official copies of the Treaty in English to Australia and England.
Because the final English draft had been lost, all he had to go on what a JFRV copy.
Maori activists pounced on the JFRV because it mentions forest and fisheries, whereas the Treaty in Maori do not. In other words, Maori activists thought they could get more cash and assets by using the JFRV as the official Treaty in English.
It suited them perfectly, must better than the original English draft, and the Treaty in English, which, as I have said, were identical.
Officially, from the 1840s onwards then, the JFRV of the Treaty has been viewed as the ‘official Treaty in English’
It is not.
We know this for certain because the lost Final English version of Treaty was eventually found.
Where it was found, when it was found, and how it was found will be in the next video! Watch