This website is currently under construction. Many pages and features are missing or unusable. We look forward to being completed by the end of the year and appreciate your patience.

Treaty of Waitangi Signings in Marlborough (1840)

In the autumn of 1840, just months after the initial signing at Waitangi, the founding document of Aotearoa New Zealand, Te Tiriti o Waitangi, was brought to the Marlborough Sounds. Over two separate missions in May and June, Crown representatives met with the powerful chiefs of Tōtaranui / Queen Charlotte Sound to seek their assent to the Treaty. These meetings, culminating in the significant signing by the Ngāti Toa rangatira Nohorua, were pivotal events that formally extended the agreement between Māori and the British Crown to the top of the South Island.

Listen to Full Article

Carrying the Treaty South

After the historic gathering at Waitangi on 6 February 1840, Lieutenant-Governor William Hobson dispatched officials and missionaries with copies of the Treaty to collect signatures from chiefs throughout the country. Securing the agreement of the influential iwi in the Cook Strait region was a high priority. To this end, two separate missions were sent to Tōtaranui, a vital hub of Māori population and a strategic waterway well-known to Europeans through the voyages of Cook and d'Urville.

Major Bunbury and HMS *Herald* (May 1840)

The first mission was a military one, led by Major Thomas Bunbury aboard the warship HMS *Herald*. Arriving in the sound on 4 May 1840, Bunbury met with a number of local chiefs. After some discussion and debate, several chiefs came aboard the *Herald* to add their marks to the Treaty sheet. During this same visit, on a nearby islet, Bunbury also made a formal proclamation of British sovereignty over the South Island based on the right of 'discovery', an act separate from the Treaty agreement itself but one which underlined the Crown's intent to establish governance.

Henry Williams and the Chief Nohorua (June 1840)

A month later, a second, arguably more influential, mission arrived led by the Reverend Henry Williams, a key figure in the Church Missionary Society who had been instrumental in translating the Treaty. Williams, who had strong relationships with many Māori leaders, sailed into the sounds on his schooner, the *Ariel*. On 19 June, at Horahora-kākahu Island, he held a significant meeting with Nohorua, a highly respected Ngāti Toa chief and the elder brother of the formidable Te Rauparaha. After deliberation, Nohorua placed his mark on the Treaty. His assent was crucial, lending significant mana and authority to the agreement in Te Tauihu-o-te-Waka (the top of the South Island).

A Foundation for a New Relationship

The signings in Tōtaranui were a critical step in the nationwide process of ratifying the Treaty of Waitangi. For the Crown, they solidified its claim to sovereignty over the entire country. For the chiefs of Marlborough, it marked their entry into a new and complex relationship, one that promised protections but would also bring profound challenges in the years to come, most notably with the land disputes that led to the Wairau Affray just three years later. The events of May and June 1840 laid the constitutional foundation for all subsequent history in the region.