Today is Waitangi Day here in New Zealand. As a nation we celebrate the day the treaty was founded which was an agreement made between representatives of the British Crown and more than 500 chiefs in 1840. This house belonged to James Busby, who co-authored the treaty with William Hobson has been well restored and is on the Heritage NZ list as a category 1 listed building.
The treaty however had different connotations and meanings for both Maori and European back then and from what I've come to know is that many chiefs did not truly understand the ramifications of what they were signing. It was created to be an agreement between both cultures and to bring the country to unity, however many breaches of it by different governments over the years have caused anger and strife - the more I've learned the more I've understood why many people are up in arms over it.
7 comments:
Some of the same issues are still with us over our indigenous peoples.
I understood that the English and Te Reo Maori versions didn't exactly tally in meaning...not the first or last time that has happened in many countries
Thank you for this information
Well, I can certainly relate to this situation. The same would hold true for the native peoples of the Americas.
Thanks for linking up to My Corner of the World!
I'm not up with politics I cannot change but I do lik ethe building, it's good it has been retored like that
Well, the British once owned half the world!
A beautiful residence had this James Busby!
Post a Comment