The Treaty of Waitangi

Secondhand condition. Sun fading to spine and foxing to pages.

The Treaty of Waitangi was signed in 1840 by over 500 Maori Chiefs, and by William Hobson, representing the British Crown. To the British it was the means by which they gained sovereignty over New Zealand. But to the Maori people it had a very different significance, and they are still affected by the terms of the treaty, often adversly.

THE TREATY OF WAITANGI, the first comprehensive study of the treaty, deals with its place in New Zealand history from its making to the present day. The story covers the several treaty signings and the substantial differences between Maori and English texts, the debate over interpretation of land rights and the actions of settler governments determined to circumvent treaty guarantees, the wars of sovereignty in the 1860s and the longstanding Maori struggle to secure a degree of autonomy and control over resources.

In 1993 Dame Claudia Orange was made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE), and awarded DCNZM in the 2009 New Year Honours for services to historical research.
Since 2009 she has been Director of Collections and Research at Te Papa, the national museum of New Zealand in Wellington. The book was derived from her 1984 PhD thesis. Despite being an academic history, it was successful, due primarily to an upsurge in interest in the Treaty of Waitangi. The book has become a definitive reference for interpreting the relevance of the Treaty of Waitangi.