Descendant: How 24 Hours In History Shaped This Local Politician’s Views

Friday, 31 January 2025, 8:10 pm
Article: Moana Ellis - Local Democracy Reporter

A Whanganui councillor has revealed his historical family connection to Te Tiriti o Waitangi and how it impacts his views on the political issues surrounding the Treaty.

Josh Chandulal-Mackay is the great-great-great-great-grandson of the missionary who translated the Treaty of Waitangi into te reo Māori in 1840.

“My four-times great grandfather was [the Reverend] Henry Williams, who, alongside his son Edward Williams, was given 24 hours to translate the Treaty of Waitangi into Te Tiriti o Waitangi.

“I’ve known about the ancestral connection for most of my life but it was only when I got to university that I understood the gravity of his place in New Zealand’s history,” the 30-year-old says.

“He was the one who wrote what is Te Tiriti today.”

Chandulal-Mackay says since that time he’s made a conscious effort to dig into and understand the history.

Williams came to New Zealand with the Christian Missionary Services as one of the first missionaries to arrive in 1823. He settled at Paihia in the Bay of Islands, learnt te reo and forged relationships with Māori.

Chandulal-Mackay says Williams – under instruction from lieutenant governor William Hobson and British Resident James Busby, who together drafted the English text – played a crucial role in paving the way for Māori chiefs to accept the Treaty that became New Zealand’s founding document.

His te reo Māori version of the treaty was not a literal translation of the English draft and did not convey the cession of sovereignty.

“There’s this piece of folklore out there that it was simply a mistranslation and that it was an accident of circumstance, it was a collision of two languages - they were just incompatible and no one ever intended for this to happen.

“I don’t subscribe to that view. I believe that there was an intent to use the words that were used within Te Tiriti. And I would like more people to understand that aspect of the history.”

Chandulal-Mackay says Hobson and the British Crown were intent on achieving sovereignty for the British Crown.

“My belief is that they instructed Henry to draft a document that the chiefs would be willing to sign.

“The terminologies used within that translation were designed to achieve sovereignty for the British Crown.”

Only five years previously, Williams was also responsible for drafting He Whakaputanga [o te Rangatiratanga o Nu Tireni], the Declaration of Independence that chiefs of the United Tribes of New Zealand signed in 1835.

The term used for sovereignty in that document is ‘Ko te Kingitanga ko te mana i te whenua’.

“That is a completely different terminology from ‘kāwanatanga’ [used in Te Tiriti o Waitangi],” Chandulal-Mackay says.

“Anyone who says that the differences between the English version and Te Tiriti are simply an accident or lost in translation clearly doesn’t understand the history of He Whakaputanga, because we know that there was a more appropriate definition of sovereignty, affirmed by the northern tribes only five years previously.”

Chandulal-Mackay believes his forefather was used as a tool by the British Crown to achieve a treaty that would be palatable to the chiefs.

“That could only happen if ‘kāwanatanga’ was used in Article I rather than ‘Ko te Kingitanga ko te mana i te whenua’ or ‘tino rangatiratanga’ – because if they had been I find it pretty hard to believe that any chief would cede their mana over their whenua.”

Chandulal-Mackay is completing his ninth year since first being elected as Whanganui District Council’s youngest councillor in 2016. He remains the council’s youngest elected member.

He says understanding the context in which the two versions of the Treaty were created influences his decisions as a councillor.

“It really impacts the lens I look through in local government when making decisions on Te Tiriti-based relationships. I feel a far greater sense of emotion attached to that decision because I know the history of my family.

“My great-great-great-great-grandfather was responsible for the drafting of this text and arguably the deliberate mistranslation of key terminology that has led to the history of this country, and therefore it does have impact on me.

“It adds weight. Here I am, four or five generations down the line, trying to affirm what is included within Te Tiriti.

“It’s an intangible thing that I can’t fully describe, but I feel it.”

Chandulal-Mackay wants more New Zealanders to understand Treaty history. That understanding is crucial to the current debate about Treaty principles, he says.

“We have generations of New Zealanders who have grown up not understanding the history of this country. That’s reflected in the lack of knowledge around Te Tiriti and what it says.

“For me that lack of understanding is the fault of the New Zealand education system, because how do you achieve a better understanding if you’ve never been exposed to it?

“We need to understand each other better to be able to move forward.”

LDR is local body journalism co-funded by RNZ and NZ On Air

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