The Doctrine of Discovery: Not relevant to NZ

 

Many recent commentators have begun insisting that the Doctrine of Discovery is, as Paul Moon summarises, "an especially pernicious manifesto of colonisation that emerged originally from the bowels of the Vatican, and that subsequently propelled Britain’s involvement in New Zealand from the eighteenth century. And according to some of its proponents, the Doctrine has become a source of ongoing racism and an impediment to indigenous rights in New Zealand."

Among those claiming this are such luminaries as Mere Berryman, legal scholars Jacinta Ruru and Robert Miller, Margaret Mutu, and the Human Rights Commission —who express "anxiety" over the damage that the so-called Doctrine of Discovery has inflicted on the country, both culturally and constitutionally.

Moon mentions their arguments only to demolish them. The Doctrine, he explains, starts with the Pope, who was hardly an authority on which the British Colonial Office would rely:

The ‘doctrine’ itself derives from a sentence contained in a Papal Bull issued in 1493 by Pope Alexander VI. The Bull’s purpose was to support Spain’s wish to assert exclusive rights over certain territories discovered by Christopher Columbus the previous year. ... However, the 1493 Papal Bull did not influence intervention in the New World by Catholic nations so much as respond to incursions that were already well underway. It was descriptive of what was already taking place, rather prescriptive in terms of colonial policy and ideology. Recent scholarship on the Bull confirms that the Vatican exercised very little authority over the foreign policy of Catholic states at this time.

So even in Catholic states the Pope's Bull held little sway. 

So what of Protestant Britain? 

And what of its claim over New Zealand? Isn't it true that both James Cook in 1769 and William Hobson in 1840 proclaim sovereignty here by virtue of the Doctrine of Discovery?

Well yes, but only to a point. Cook did have a set of secret instructions from the Admiralty encouraging him to claim portions of uninhabited lands he might encounter. True enough. And he did plant the flag here and salute it. But as Moon points out he was only permitted to claim territory by right of discovery "'if you find the country uninhabited'. And if inhabited, only to assert sovereignty "with the consent of the natives." Moreover, Moon continues, "Cook conceded in his confidential journal on 31 March 1770, as he was departing New Zealand, that it had never been British policy to establish New Zealand as a British settlement. Such evidence directly contradicts the suggestion that Britain was looking to seize land in New Zealand and subjugate its occupants."

Seems clear.

As to Hobson, his May 1840 Proclamation asserted sovereignty over the lower North Island and the whole of the South Island "on the grounds of Discovery." So, a fair cop?

No, says Moon. 

By May 1840, Hobson was still unaware how many chiefs had signed the Treaty, and was becoming increasingly apprehensive about the threat that the New Zealand Company posed to his rule and the colony’s stability. This Proclamation was issued as a pre-emptive measure against the Company, and not part of any attempt to ‘claim’ the South Island by relying on the Doctrine of Discovery. Contemporaneous correspondence makes this indisputable, but as further evidence, Hobson explicitly continued to seek consent from South Island chiefs to the Treaty (which would have been redundant if he was applying the Doctrine of Discovery), and by June 1840, a total of 56 chiefs from the South Island had signed the Treaty. Moreover, the Treaty did not give (and Hobson’s administration never claimed) control either over any Māori land in the South Island or over its indigenous inhabitants. So by every measure, the Doctrine of Discovery did not apply to Britain’s colonisation of New Zealand through this Proclamation.

Seems very clear.

Furthermore, 

There is no mention of the Doctrine of Discovery in any British Government document relating to New Zealand’s colonisation – neither directly nor implicitly – and neither did its precepts form part of British policy in this period.
    In the approximately two years leading up to New Zealand’s cession of sovereignty in 1840 via the Treaty, British policy on the territory was developed on principles that contravene the central tenets of the Doctrine of Discovery. This is especially important because it negates the argument that somehow, the general sentiment of the Doctrine embedded itself in British colonial policy in the nineteenth century as a precursor to New Zealand’s colonisation.

Moon calls the idea "a conspiracy theory" to which alleged academics have now become addicted, that "betrays among its advocates an extraordinarily uncritical and impoverished understanding of history." 

Ouch!