Letter To King William By 13 Ngapuhi Chiefs asking for protection

1831 Maori petition to King for protection This is T.L. Buick’s account of the petition from 13 Ngapuhi chiefs that the King responded to in my earlier post. For ease of reading, I’ll spread out the words below. Then I’ll show you some blow-ups of relevant parts of the original English and Maori documents. You will notice some words which have a bearing on what Maori are claiming today. First, the words: TO KING WILLIAM, THE GRACIOUS CHIEF OF ENGLAND KING WILLIAM — We, the chiefs of New Zealand assembled at this place, called the Kerikeri, write to thee, for we hear that thou art the great chief of the other side of the water, since the many ships which come to our land are from thee. We are a people without possessions. We have nothing but timber, flax, pork and potatoes, we sell these things, however, to your people, and then we see property of the Europeans. It is only thy land which is liberal towards us. From thee also come the Missionaries who teach us to believe on Jehovah God, and on Jesus Christ His Son. We have heard that the tribe of Marian [the French] is at hand coming to take away our land, therefore we pray thee to become our friend and the guardian of these Islands, lest through the teazing of other tribes should come war to us, and lest strangers should come and take away our land. And if any of thy people should be troublesome or vicious towards us (for some persons are living here who have run away from ships), we pray thee to be angry with them that they may be obedient, lest the anger of the people of this land fall upon them. This letter is from us the chiefs of the natives of New Zealand: