How was the English text of the Treaty of Waitangi understood in 1840 – and why does that understanding matter today?
Introducing the English Text of the Treaty of Waitangi is a short, accessible account of Ned Fletcher’s award-winning book, The English Text of the Treaty of Waitangi. Drawing on the same careful archival work, this shorter narrative guides readers through the origins, intentions and meaning of the English text, and the wider imperial context in which it was drafted.
Fletcher’s central argument is that the English and Māori texts of the Treaty reconcile, and that the original understanding of the Treaty was eroded, as imperial policy shifted and hostility towards Indigenous rights intensified. As Fletcher writes, ‘I hope the shorter book brings the British understandings of the Treaty of Waitangi in 1840 to a wider readership. If the Treaty was entered into in good faith, as I think it was, it provides a stronger foundation for our nation than has generally been understood.’
Introducing the English Text of the Treaty of Waitangi is an abridgement of Fletcher’s landmark 2022 study, a work of more than 700 pages that won the General Non-Fiction Award at the 2023 Ockham New Zealand Book Awards and was shortlisted for both the Ernest Scott Prize and the Erik Olssen Prize.