Cloudy Bay, 17 June 1840

On 17 June 1840, nine Ngāti Toa chiefs signed the Treaty of Waitangi at Cloudy Bay. Thomas Bunbury, William Stewart and Edward Williams, who had arrived the previous day, witnessed the signing along with the whaler Joseph Thoms, the son-in-law of one of the signatories, Nohorua. He asked Thoms to act as a witness so that if his grandchildren lost their land, Thoms would share the blame. [1]

Some of those present ‘resolutely declined to attach their signatures to it, or to countenance it in any way. This attitude was adopted under the distinct impression that if they signed the document their lands would be taken from them, and considering that their only experience of deeds had been with the Sydney land sharks the reservation was, to put it mildly, a natural one.’ [2]

[1] Claudia Orange, The Treaty of Waitangi, Allen & Unwin, Port Nicholson Press with assistance from the Historical Publications Branch, Department of Internal Affairs, Wellington, 1987, p. 146

[2] T. Lindsay Buick, The Treaty of Waitangi: or, how New Zealand became a British colony, Mackay, Wellington, 1914, p. 186