Lord Normanby's Instructions to Captain William Hobson

After, he had appointed captain William Hobson to be governor of New Zealand, Lord Normanby the British Colonial Secretary had some instructions for him drawn up.

They are very important as they set the tone for what Hobson was to achieve

The instructions were drafted by James Stephen (who had been invloned in the slavery act xx HW) and they were 4,200 words long. So For your convenience and ease of reading I have divided them into two pages.

One of the reasons for Britain taking sovereignty over New Zealand was that many bad deals were being done over land sales. Large areas of land being sold to settlers, The New Zealand Company (Wakefield) and “land sharks” in New South Wales.

One of the first proclamations Hobson made when he landed in March (xx HW) 1840 was that all previous land deals would be investigated, and that from then onwards all land sold by maori chiefs must be sold through a government agent (This was called Pre-Emption).

The Maori chiefs could not sell their “waste” land as they called land they were not using, fast enough to get such items as blankets, pots, muskets etc (before cash money became useful). Indeed there were many complaints that the crown was not buying enough land (the reason was, the crown did not have enough money)

Later in the 19th century and in the early 1900’s huge areas of land were sold through the Maori Land court.

Some land was confiscated by Governor Grey. This was a form of utu to punish the tribes that rebelled against the Crown in the mid 1800’s. This totalled only 100,000 (HW XX) acres, and much of it was soon given back as a sign of goodwill from Governor Grey.

Comments

Many people believe that this document was the main (xxx HW) behind the treaty that Hobson had drawn up with the maori, I think you will find there is very little, if any referemce in the instructions as to how the treaty was to be written. As you will see, most of the paragraphs refer to stamping out un-christian practices such as slavery and utu, and for regulating the purchase of land from the chiefs, to ensure that they wer paid fairly, and not disadvantged.

No doubt Hobson read the document, several times, but there is no evidence that he discussed it with his new secretary James Freeman on the way over to New Zealand from Syney on HMS (HW xxxx). Indeed serious drafting bla bla bal (HW)