The Littlewood Treaty is actually Busby's Final Draft!

John and Mary Littlewood (siblings) lived in Manurewa in Auckland, and in 1989 their mother Ethel died. As they were clearing ou her effects in Papakura they found an envelope in a linen draw. It was obviously very old, and on the back was written the words "Treaty of Waitangi". When they opened it they found a single page of handwriting on both sides of the old paper held together with sellotape.

Then John and his wife Barbara took the document to various officials, librarians, historians and hand writing experts at Waitangi, Auckland and Wellington. After much delay over 2 or 3 years, they all came back with the answer “not sure if this is genuine".

You would think that they would be excited by such a discovery, and be keen to find out more, and yet they were not!

An un-named lowly official called it the Littlewood Treaty - in an effort to be-little it. Government ministers such as Graeme Lee and Bill Birch tried to bury its discovery, so did the NZ Herald.

The fact that this discovery of Busby’s original draft of the 4th of February is virtually the same as the treaty that the Maori chiefs signed upsets their narrative.

They want us to believe that the James Freeman version is the official English version. This became known as the English version and is in all of our archives and govt websites as such.

They do this because Busby’s draft does not mention fish or fisheries or trees or forests, or partnerships or sovereignty over only British settlers.

When you ask the activists to translate the Maori version of the treaty into English they will not do it, they try to give you the "Official English Version".

Comments

John Littlewood (1924-2015) was a hero and deserves our true gratitude for his tenacity and research over nearly 5 years, aided by Martin Doutre.

(t04)