Toi Rau

Te Tiriti signing locations: Manukau-Kāwhia copy of Te Tiriti

“The Manukau-Kāwhia Maori-language copy of the Treaty of Waitangi, with 13 signatures, is the only surviving copy with the signature of Colonial Secretary Willoughby Shortland. It was also the last copy to be returned, in 1841.

On 13 March 1840 Shortland sent it to Captain William Symonds, who was to gather signatures from chiefs around and south of Manukau Harbour. Symonds was working in the area on behalf of a proposed Scottish land company settlement. He and James Hamlin of the Church Missionary Society gathered several chiefs, probably at Āwhitu, but did not gain their agreement. Many Waikato chiefs, including Te Wherowhero, attended a second meeting on 20 March. Three Ngāti Whātua chiefs signed then (Kawau, Tinana and Rēweti), but none of the Waikato chiefs did so. Wesleyan missionaries James Wallis and John Whiteley gathered 10 more signatures at Kāwhia between April and September 1840.”

Learn more about the Manukau-Kāwhia sheet of Te Tiriti, and its signatories at

https://nzhistory.govt.nz/media/interactive/manukau-kawhia-treaty-copy