The short treaty signed in 1840 between the British Crown and around 540 Māori chiefs — written in English and in Māori in versions that say crucially different things, with the English text ceding 'sovereignty' and the Māori text (Te Tiriti) ceding only 'kāwanatanga,' governance, while guaranteeing the chiefs 'tino rangatiratanga,' full authority over their lands and treasures. Dismissed by a court in 1877 as a 'simple nullity,' it was revived from the 1970s through the Waitangi Tribunal and a long process of settlements, and is now treated as New Zealand's founding document and a living, still-contested partnership.
In 1840, the British Crown and some 540 Māori chiefs signed one treaty in two languages — and the two languages did not promise the same thing. Where the English text had the chiefs surrender their “sovereignty,” the Māori text almost all of them actually signed gave up far less, and kept authority over their own lands and people. Within decades the Crown ruled as if they had signed the English, a court dismissed the treaty as a “simple nullity,” and Māori lost most of their country. The gap between the two texts is now the frame through which a nation is still trying to make itself whole.