There are two aspects to ‘sovereignty’.
First, there is governmental sovereignty. This is when someone/group of people are given the right to govern a country i.e. set up a justice system, collect taxes, build schools, hospitals, government buildings, roads, bridges etc.
Second, there is private land sovereignty. This is the sovereignty a private individual possesses when they own a piece of land. They are sovereign rulers of that land. The boss, if you like. They decide what goes, and what doesn’t go on their land, as long as they obey the rules and regulations of their local council which are established by the governmental sovereignty.
When Maori ceded sovereignty in Article one, they ceded government sovereignty i.e. they gave the British the right to establish a government in New Zealand.
Maori chiefs were granted their private land sovereignty. That is to say, the chiefs could still be chiefs over their land, and could keep practicing being chiefs (their culture), as long as they were staying within the bounds on British law e.g. no more human sacrifice, murder, war, cannibalism, infanticide, etc. The British, now the government, started to establish rules and regulations for private land sovereignty too e.g. private land owners have to pay rates.
In the first Article of the Treaty, Maori ceded governmental sovereignty to the British. This is the first Article:
“The chiefs of the confederation of united tribes, and the other chiefs who have not joined the confederation, cede to the Queen of England forever the entire sovereignty of their country.”
It’s clear isn’t. ‘Cede’ means to give up, or ‘give somebody control’ S overeignty means ‘government’ or ‘complete power to govern.’
Here is the first paragraph of the second Article of the Treaty. It says:
“The Queen of England confirms and guarantees to the chiefs and the tribes and to all the people of New Zealand, the possession of their lands, dwellings and all their property.”
The word ‘possession’ is the key word in the sentence. For the British it meant just that - possession, or ownership. The word ‘possession’ was translated into the words ‘tino rangatiratanga’ by missionary Henry Williams on the night of the 4th of February 1840. If you want to know the whole reason why Henry chose this Maori phrase ‘tino rangatiratanga’ then click on the link in the description.
Why did the British insert this Article into the Treaty? Well, Maori chiefs were fearful/ worried that they British were going to just take Maori land. So the British were allaying the fear of the chiefs, that is all.
They were saying to the chiefs, “We realise you are worried about your land. So we guarantee to protect your ownership of your land, the land you own as at the 6th of February 1840. No one will take it from you. If you sell your land, all of it or just some of it, then you will no longer be the owner of that sold land i.e. You will have forfeited your private land sovereignty.”
In 1840, Henry Williams and his son Edward spent the night in Te Tii marae at Waitangi on the 4th of February explaining these sovereignty concepts to the chiefs. Henry Williams was clear that Maori understood them. Maori had been selling land for several years before 1840 so they knew all about the concept of buying and selling land.
Think about it. It’s the same today in 2024 in New Zealand. If a person sells a house that is sitting on some land, when the new owner moves in, private land sovereignty (as it were) of the house and land it transferred from the old owner to the new owner. We don’t talk in these terms today, but this is what’s happening. We talk about ‘ownership’ which is exactly what the chiefs and the British in 1840 understood tino rangatiratanga to mean.
Between 1975 and today, Maori activists have subtly twisted the meaning of the word ‘possession’. They say it means:
1. ‘absolute sovereignty’
2. or ‘authority’ or
3. ‘unqualified exercise of chieftainship.’
They use these 3 interchangeably. So what do these words / phrases mean? Activists say that they mean that the British guaranteed Maori governmental sovereignty over all the land of New Zealand forever, irrespective of whether they sold it or not. That is to say, they say (fraudulently), that the Treaty guaranteed the chiefs private land sovereignty and governmental sovereignty forever.
I know, it makes no sense, and it’s an absurd idea. How can someone sell land, and still own it after it is sold? But this is what they say.
In other words, activists say that Maori did not cede governmental sovereignty at Waitangi on the 6th of February 1840. Even with the land they sold, activists today often say that Maori in 1840 ‘didn’t realise that if they sold land that they’d lose ownership of it forever’. This is nonsense. They knew very well.
This is how Maori activists today reason that they ‘own’ New Zealand today.
The activist understanding of ‘tino rangatiratanga’ is therefore a complete crock.
One can’t cede sovereignty in Article one, and have it given back in Article two. One can’t be the sovereign over a country and have a rival sovereign (i.e. Maori chiefs) governing another part of the country in a parallel government arrangement.
There cannot be two cooks in the kitchen.
The British were not that stupid and we are stupid if we think they were that stupid.
So don’t be stupid.
It was ex-Prime Minister David Lange who said “Did Queen Victoria for a moment think of forming a partnership with a number of signatures, a number of thumb prints and 500 people? Queen Victoria was not that sort of person. We can have a democratic form of government or we can have indigenous sovereignty. They can’t coexist and we can’t have them both….” (https://www.donbrash.com/after-politics/what-partnership/)