The Declaration and After
The hereditary chiefs and heads of the tribes of the Northern parts of New Zealand declared the constitution of an independent state. They agreed to meet in Waitangi each year to frame laws, and invited the southern tribes of New Zealand to "lay aside their private animosities" and join them.
The signatories sent a copy of the document to King William IV of the United Kingdom (reigned 1830–1837), asking him to act as the protector of the new state. The King had previously acknowledged the flag of the United Tribes of New Zealand, and now recognised the Declaration of Independence, in a letter from Lord Glenelg (the British Secretary of State for War and the Colonies) dated 25 May 1836.
The Declaration was not well received by the Colonial Office, and it was decided that a new policy for New Zealand was needed as a corrective.
It is notable that the Treaty of Waitangi was made between the British Crown and "the chiefs of the United Tribes of New Zealand" in recognition of their independent sovereignty which continued after 1840 to the extent that the flag of the United Tribes of New Zealand was flown at the Pukawa hui when the Maori King was appointed in 1857.
Read more about this topic: Declaration Of The Independence Of New Zealand
Famous quotes containing the words and after and/or declaration:
“We look before and after,
And pine for what is not:
Our sincerest laughter
With some pain is fraught;
Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought.”
—Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822)
“I foresee the time when the painter will paint that scene, no longer going to Rome for a subject; the poet will sing it; the historian record it; and, with the Landing of the Pilgrims and the Declaration of Independence, it will be the ornament of some future national gallery, when at least the present form of slavery shall be no more here. We shall then be at liberty to weep for Captain Brown. Then, and not till then, we will take our revenge.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)